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Category: materials – Page 17

An international team of astronomers have investigated a large Galactic supernova remnant designated G278.94+1.35. Results of the study, published Dec. 30 on the pre-print server arXiv, shed more light on the properties of this remnant.

Supernova remnants (SNRs) are diffuse, expanding structures resulting from a supernova explosion. They contain ejected material expanding from the explosion and other interstellar material that has been swept up by the passage of the shockwave from the exploded star.

G278.94+1.35 is a supernova remnant in the Milky Way, discovered in 1988. It has an estimated linear diameter of about 320 light years and its age is assumed to be about 1 million years. The distance to G278.94+1.35 is estimated to be some 8,800 light years.

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New radio astronomy observations of a planetary system in the process of forming show that once the first planets form close to the central star, these planets can help shepherd the material to form new planets farther out. In this way each planet helps to form the next, like a line of falling dominos each triggering the next in turn.

To date over 5,000 planetary systems have been identified. More than 1,000 of those systems have been confirmed to host multiple planets. Planets form in clouds of gas and dust known as protoplanetary disks around young stars. But the formation process of multi-planet systems, like our own Solar System, is still poorly understood.

The best example object to study multi-planet system formation is a young star known as PDS 70, located 367 light years away in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. This is the only celestial object where already-formed planets have been confirmed within a protoplanetary disk by optical and infrared observations (First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT (ESO) ). Previous radio wave observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed a ring of dust grains outside the orbits of the two known planets. But those observations could not see into the ring to observe the details.

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Lithium metal, a next-generation anode material, has been highlighted for overcoming the performance limitations of commercial batteries. However, issues inherent to lithium metal have caused shortened battery lifespans and increased fire risks. KAIST researchers have achieved a world-class breakthrough by extending the lifespan of lithium metal anodes by approximately 750% using only water.

Their study is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Professor Il-Doo Kim from KAIST’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Jiyoung Lee from Ajou University, successfully stabilized lithium growth and significantly enhanced the lifespan of next-generation lithium metal batteries using eco-friendly hollow nanofibers as protective layers.

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Researchers at Cornell University have created a sustainable method to extract gold from electronic waste and use it as a catalyst to transform CO2 into valuable organic materials.

This process provides an eco-friendly alternative to traditional extraction methods, utilizes vast amounts of e-waste, and helps mitigate CO2 emissions, showcasing a promising avenue for environmental conservation and resource recovery.

Innovative Gold Recovery from E-Waste.

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For the first time, scientists have observed a collection of particles, also known as a quasiparticle, that’s massless when moving one direction but has mass in the other direction. The quasiparticle, called a semi-Dirac fermion, was first theorized 16 years ago, but was only recently spotted inside a crystal of semi-metal material called ZrSiS. The observation of the quasiparticle opens the door to future advances in a range of emerging technologies from batteries to sensors, according to the researchers.

The team, led by scientists at Penn State and Columbia University, recently published their discovery in the journal Physical Review X.

“This was totally unexpected,” said Yinming Shao, assistant professor of physics at Penn State and lead author on the paper. “We weren’t even looking for a semi-Dirac fermion when we started working with this material, but we were seeing signatures we didn’t understand—and it turns out we had made the first observation of these wild quasiparticles that sometimes move like they have mass and sometimes move like they have none.”

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Scientists are exploring 2D materials — sheets just one atom thick — with unique and promising electronic properties.

When two of these sheets are layered at specific angles, they can exhibit remarkable behaviors, such as superconductivity. Antonija Grubišić-Čabo, a materials scientist at the University of Groningen, and her colleagues investigated one such “twisted” material and found that it behaved in ways that defied existing theoretical predictions.

2D Materials and Superconductivity.

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Conventional photonic devices exhibit static optical properties that are design-dependent, including the material’s refractive index and geometrical parameters. However, they still possess attractive optical responses for applications and are already exploited in devices across various fields. Hydrogel photonics has emerged as a promising solution in the field of active photonics by providing primarily deformable geometric parameters in response to external stimuli. Over the past few years, various studies have been undertaken to attain stimuli-responsive photonic devices with tunable optical properties. Herein, we focus on the recent advancements in hydrogel-based photonics and micro/nanofabrication techniques for hydrogels. In particular, fabrication techniques for hydrogel photonic devices are categorized into film growth, photolithography (PL), electron-beam lithography (EBL), and nanoimprint lithography (NIL). Furthermore, we provide insights into future directions and prospects for deformable hydrogel photonics, along with their potential practical applications.

Microsystems & Nanoengineering volume 10, Article number: 1 (2024) Cite this article.

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