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Category: engineering

Tiny defects deliver big gains: Controlling oxygen vacancies boosts thermoelectric efficiency by 91%

A research team has dramatically enhanced the efficiency of converting heat into electricity. The key lies in controlling tiny defects known as oxygen vacancies.

Their findings were published as a front cover article in the journal Advanced Science. The team was led by Professor Hyungyu Jin and Dr. Min Young Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH, in collaboration with Professors Donghwa Lee and Si-Young Choi from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Professor Joseph P. Heremans from the Ohio State University.

Each day, enormous amounts of heat are lost around us: hot steam from factory chimneys, heat from car engines, and even the warmth generated by smartphones and computers. This is typically left unused, but if it could be converted back into electricity, it would offer a powerful solution to both energy inefficiency and environmental challenges.

NASA Astronauts to Answer Questions from Students in Ohio

NASA astronauts Michael Fincke and Zena Cardman will connect with students in Ohio as they answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) questions aboard the International Space Station.

The Earth-to-space call will begin at 10:15 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 27, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel.

Media interested in covering the event must RSVP by 5 p.m., Monday, Aug. 25, to Mary Beddell at: 330−492−3500 or at [email protected].

MIT mechanical engineering course invites students to “build with biology”

MIT Course 2.797÷2.798 (Molecular Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics) teaches students about the role that mechanics plays in biology, with a focus on biomechanics and mechanobiology: “Two words that sound similar but are actually very different,” says Assistant Professor Ritu Raman.

Increasing efficiency in artificial photosynthesis

Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a new approach to artificial photosynthesis, a method for harvesting solar energy that produces hydrogen as a clean fuel from water.

“Artificial is the holy grail of all chemists,” says Astrid Olaya, a at EPFL’s Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC). “The goal is to capture sunlight, on the one hand to oxidize water to generate oxygen and protons, and on the other to reduce either protons to hydrogen or CO2 to chemicals and fuels. This is the essence of a circular industry.”

With global energy demands increasing, we are in need of viable alternatives to fossil fuels, whose negative environmental impact has also become all too apparent. One of those alternatives is hydrogen, which can be consumed in simple fuel cells for energy, leaving behind only water.

Innsbruck develops new technique to improve multi-photon state generation

Quantum dots – semiconductor nanostructures that can emit single photons on demand – are considered among the most promising sources for photonic quantum computing.

However, every quantum dot is slightly different and may emit a slightly different color, according to a team at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, which has developed a technique to improve multi-photon state generation. The Innsbruck team states that, “the different forms of quantum dot means that, to produce multi-photon states we cannot use multiple quantum dots.”

Usually, researchers use a single quantum dot and multiplex the emission into different spatial and temporal modes, using a fast electro-optic modulator. But a contemporary technological challenge: faster electro-optic modulators are expensive and often require very customized engineering. To add to that, it may not be very efficient, which introduces unwanted losses in the system.

Nature Publishing: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41534-025-01083-0

Security wise: The team’s work combines years of research in quantum optics, semiconductor physics, and photonic engineering to open the door for next-generation quantum computers andunwanted losses in the system.

Communications. Here’s what you need to know. Securities IO: https://www.securities.io/passive-two-photon-quantum-dots-secure-communication

Continue reading “Innsbruck develops new technique to improve multi-photon state generation” | >

Pairing food waste and nanocatalysts to reduce carbon emissions in aviation

For researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a new avenue for reducing carbon emissions can be found on the side. A side of salad dressing, that is.

In 2020, the United States federal government committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. An important step toward carbon neutrality is embracing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), an alternative to conventional jet fuel that is made from renewable feedstocks. As part of this initiative, Grainger engineers have been hard at work creating the critical nanocatalysts for converting biocrude oil from food waste such as salad dressing into sustainable aviation fuel.

Hong Yang, a professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering, and Yuanhui Zhang, a professor of agricultural & , joined forces to tackle this problem.

Defect engineering accelerates carrier relaxation in GaN-based LEDs

A study conducted by researchers from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has demonstrated how nitrogen vacancies (VN) resolve asymmetric carrier injection in GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs), providing a practical way to improve device efficiency.

US study shows zinc-ion batteries get stronger with fast charging

Scientists in the US discovered that zinc-ion batteries could potentially replace lithium-ion ones as fast charging makes them stronger instead of wearing them down.

Led by Hailong Chen, PhD, an associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, the research overturned the long-standing assumption that fast charging is risky.

Instead, the findings revealed that charging zinc-ion batteries at higher currents can extend their lifespan and potentially revolutionize how energy is delivered to homes, hospitals, and the grid.

‘Rosetta stone’ of code allows scientists to run core quantum computing operations

To build a large-scale quantum computer that works, scientists and engineers need to overcome the spontaneous errors that quantum bits, or qubits, create as they operate.

Scientists encode these building blocks of quantum information to suppress errors in other so that a minority can operate in a way that produces useful outcomes.

As the number of useful (or logical) qubits grows, the number of physical qubits required grows even further. As this scales up, the sheer number of qubits needed to create a useful quantum machine becomes an engineering nightmare.

Scientists program cells to create biological qubit in multidisciplinary research

At first glance, biology and quantum technology seem incompatible. Living systems operate in warm, noisy environments full of constant motion, while quantum technology typically requires extreme isolation and temperatures near absolute zero to function.

But is the foundation of everything, including in . Now, researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have turned a protein found in living cells into a functioning quantum bit (qubit), the foundation of quantum technologies. The protein qubit can be used as a quantum sensor capable of detecting minute changes and ultimately offering unprecedented insight into biological processes.

“Rather than taking a conventional quantum sensor and trying to camouflage it to enter a biological system, we wanted to explore the idea of using a biological system itself and developing it into a qubit,” said David Awschalom, co-principal investigator of the project, Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering at UChicago PME and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE). “Harnessing nature to create powerful families of quantum sensors—that’s the new direction here.”

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