Lifeboat Foundation

Argonne researchers pioneer “redox gating” — a new way to precisely modulate electron flow.

Breakthrough could help lead to the development of new low-power semiconductors or quantum devices.

As the integrated circuits that power our electronic devices get more powerful, they are also getting smaller. This trend of microelectronics has only accelerated in recent years as scientists try to fit increasingly more semiconducting components on a chip.

Like Brian Greer has said the casimir technologies can power anything and create a free society a free utopia without the need for using any chemicals and it has been known since the 1950s in the physics community.

Previous demonstrations of the elusive Casimir force between interfaces exhibit monotonic dependence on surface displacement. Now a non-monotonic dependence of the force has been shown experimentally by exploting nanostructured surfaces.

Duke researchers find limits of energy absorption in transparent materials.

Researchers at Duke University in the US have determined the theoretical limits of how much electromagnetic energy a transparent material can absorb. This can help researchers optimize device designs in the future, but it has also ended a 20-year wait for a mathematical solution to the problem.

To become commercially viable, fusion power plants must create and sustain the plasma conditions necessary for fusion reactions. However, at high temperatures and densities, plasmas often develop gradients in those temperatures and densities. These gradients can grow into instabilities such as edge localized modes (ELMs).

Because of their differences from standard electrons, Dirac electrons are expected to add unprecedented electronic properties to materials. For example, they could be applied to electronic devices to perform computation and communication with extraordinary efficiency and low energy consumption.

To develop such technology, scientists must first understand the net properties and effects of Dirac electrons. But they generally coexist with standard electrons in materials, which prevents unambiguous observation and measurement.

In a recent study published in Materials Advances, Ryuhei Naito and colleagues discovered a method enabling selective observation of the Dirac electrons in materials. Using electron spin resonance, to directly observe unpaired electrons in materials to distinguish differences in character, the research group established a method to determine their scope of action in the materials and their energies.

Electrical engineers at Duke University have determined the theoretical fundamental limit for how much electromagnetic energy a transparent material with a given thickness can absorb. The finding will help engineers optimize devices designed to block certain frequencies of radiation while allowing others to pass through, for applications such as stealth or wireless communications.

Results are in from the six-month test of the Pyxis Ocean, a cargo ship outfitted with fiberglass sails as part of a fuel-saving test by Cargill Inc.

The Wayzata, Minn.-based agriculture giant said the partially wind-powered cargo ship saved an average of 3 tons of fuel per day and 11.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Cargill calculates that this savings would be the equivalent of taking 480 cars off the road.

In optimal conditions, the ship saved nearly 11 tons per day. That’s roughly a 37% decrease in carbon emissions. According to Ship and Bunker’s global 20 port average, that’s a savings of about $656 per metric ton in fuel. Most cargo ships are fueled by bunker fuel, also known as heavy fuel oil.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers wirelessly charged a light-duty passenger EV at 100 kW with 96% efficiency – a new milestone.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy-funded ORNL wirelessly charged the EV using polyphase electromagnetic coupling coils with rotating magnetic fields.

ORNL’s patented system transferred power to a Hyundai Kona EV across a five-inch air gap using electromagnetic fields, a process similar to the wireless charging of small consumer devices.

A new industrial-scale ‘sand battery’ has been announced for Finland, which packs 1 MW of power and a capacity of up to 100 MWh of thermal energy for use during those cold polar winters. The new battery will be about 10 times bigger than a pilot plant that’s been running since 2022.

The sand battery, developed by Polar Night Energy, is a clever concept. Basically, it’s a big steel silo of sand (or a similar solid material) that’s warmed up through a heat exchanger buried in the center, using excess electricity from the grid – say, that generated during a spike from renewable sources, when it’s cheap.

That energy can then be stored for months at a time, with reportedly very little loss, before being extracted as heat on demand. This could theoretically be converted back into electricity, although with some energy loss. But Polar Night says that the most efficient method is to just use the heat itself.