Tag Archives: interesting research

Researchers create algorithms that help lithium-ion batteries charge two times faster

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Researchers at the University of California San Diego have devised new algorithms that can cut lithium-ion battery charge times in half, help cells run more efficiently and potentially cut production costs by 25 percent. Rather than tracking battery behavior and health with the traditional technique of monitoring current and voltage, the team’s mathematical models estimate where lithium ions are within cells for more precise data.

via Researchers create algorithms that help lithium-ion batteries charge two times faster — Engadget.

Highly charged – the US Navy’s electromagnetic railgun programme

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Railguns consist of two parallel metal rails, between which a projectile held in an armature is loaded, completing a circuit between them. A massive electrical current of the order of one million amperes is applied, creating an electromagnetic field, which in turn produces a force that accelerates the projectile along the rails.

via Highly charged – the US Navy’s electromagnetic railgun programme – Naval Technology.

Railgun projectiles are generally non-explosive, relying on their enormous speed to destroy the target and thus reducing the risk of a fire on board a ship, and comparatively small and lightweight, so they can be more readily transported and stored. The kinetic energy they deliver could do as much damage as a Tomahawk missile, enabling them to travel clean through a ship.

Kinetic Energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity squared.   KE=1/2mv^2

Atomic bond types discernible in single-molecule images

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The new work opens up the prospect of studying imperfections in the “wonder material” graphene or plotting where electrons go during chemical reactions.

The images are published in Science.

via BBC News – Atomic bond types discernible in single-molecule images.

They are carried out at a scale so small that room temperature induces wigglings of the AFM’s constituent molecules that would blur the images, so the apparatus is kept at a cool -268C.

While some improvements have been made since that first image of pentacene, lead author of the Science study, Leo Gross, told BBC News that the new work was mostly down to a choice of subject.

Using ultraviolet light to fabricate thin flexible electronics

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A new method for making metal oxide devices at much lower temperatures uses ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Yong-Hoon Kim and colleagues used UV light to chemically activate metal particles in a chemical solution; the new metal oxide molecules condensed out of the solution, forming a thin semiconducting film. The process can be performed at room temperature—far lower than the 350° temperatures typical of metal oxide fabrication.

via Using ultraviolet light to fabricate thin flexible electronics | Ars Technica.

The high temperatures are the problem. 350°C is above the melting point of most flexible, transparent substances (e.g. plastics), and real electronic devices need a substrate to give them shape. It doesn’t matter how thin or transparent metal oxide devices are if they must be deposited on thick, opaque, rigid materials.

Penn Researchers Make First All-optical Nanowire Switch

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have made an important advance in this frontier of photonics, fashioning the first all-optical photonic switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires. Moreover, they combined these photonic switches into a logic gate, a fundamental component of computer chips that process information.

via Penn Researchers Make First All-optical Nanowire Switch | Penn News.

The researchers were able to measure the intensity of the light coming out of the end of the second nanowire and to show that the switch could effectively represent the binary states used in logic devices.

Quantum test pricks uncertainty

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Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, as it came to be known later, started as an assertion that when trying to measure one aspect of a particle precisely, say its position, experimenters would necessarily “blur out” the precision in its speed.

That raised the spectre of a physical world whose nature was, beyond some fundamental level, unknowable.

via BBC News – Quantum test pricks uncertainty.

Photons can be prepared in pairs which are inextricably tied to one another, in a delicate quantum state called entanglement, and the weak measurement idea is to infer information about them as they pass, before and after carrying out a formal measurement.

What the team found was that the act of measuring did not appreciably “blur out” what could be known about the pairs.

Watching quantum mechanics in action: Researchers create world record laser pulse

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UCF Professor Zenghu Chang from the Department of Physics and the College of Optics and Photonics, led the effort that generated a 67-attosecond pulse of extreme ultraviolet light. The results of his research are published online under Early Posting in the journal Optics Letters.

via Watching quantum mechanics in action: Researchers create world record laser pulse.

LG produces the first flexible cable-type lithium-ion battery

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LG Chem’s battery starts with thin strands of copper wire, which are coated with a nickel-tin (Ni-Sn) alloy to create the anode. These strands are twisted into a yarn, and then wrapped tightly around a 1.5mm-diameter rod. The rod is removed, leaving a strong spring. Next, aluminium wire is wrapped around the spring, and then the whole caboodle is dragged through a slurry of lithium cobalt oxide, which coats the aluminium wire and becomes the cathode. Finally, the anode-cathode spring is wrapped in a protective outer coating, and then an electrolyte is poured down the middle of the hollow spring to create a battery.

via LG produces the first flexible cable-type lithium-ion battery | ExtremeTech.

Flat lens offers a perfect image

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Operating at telecom wavelengths (i.e., the range commonly used in fiber-optic communications), the new device is completely scalable, from near-infrared to terahertz wavelengths, and simple to manufacture. The results have been published online in the journal Nano Letters.

via Flat lens offers a perfect image — Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

“In the future we can potentially replace all the bulk components in the majority of optical systems with just flat surfaces,” says lead author Francesco Aieta, a visiting graduate student from the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy. “It certainly captures the imagination.”

 

OSU’s New Microbial Fuel Cell Can Generate 10-50 Times More Power From Wastewater

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A team of engineers from Oregon State University has developed a breakthrough microbial fuel cell that is capable of generating 10 to 50 times more electricity from waste than other MFCs. The team hopes that their innovation will enable waste treatment plants to not only power themselves, but also sell excess electricity back to the grid.

via OSU’s New Microbial Fuel Cell Can Generate 10-50 Times More Power From Wastewater | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building.