Penn State engineers built a graphene-based breath sensor that detects acetone, offering quick, low-cost diabetes and prediabetes diagnosis.
Category: materials – Page 19
Hidden turbulence discovered in polymer fluids
Turbulence, the chaotic, irregular motion that causes the bumpiness we sometimes experience on an airplane, has intrigued scientists for centuries. At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), researchers are exploring this phenomenon in a special class of materials known as complex fluids.
Weak points in diamond fusion fuel capsules identified
Scientists at the University of California San Diego have uncovered how diamond—the material used to encase fuel for fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—can develop tiny structural flaws that may limit fusion performance.
At the NIF, powerful lasers compress diamond capsules filled with deuterium and tritium to the extreme pressures needed for nuclear fusion. This process must be perfectly symmetrical to achieve maximum energy output.
By using a high-power pulsed laser to simulate these extreme conditions, researchers found that diamonds can form a series of defects, ranging from subtle crystal distortions to narrow zones of complete disorder, or amorphization. These imperfections can disrupt the implosion symmetry, which in turn can reduce energy yield or even prevent ignition.
Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials in Computational Materials
Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) have become an essential tool to enable long-time scale simulations of materials and molecules at unprecedented accuracies. The aim of this collection is to showcase cutting-edge developments in MLIP architectures, data generation techniques, and innovative sampling methods that push the boundaries of accuracy, efficiency, and applicability in atomic-scale simulations.
Scientists discover new phenomenon in chiral symmetry breaking
Researchers at The University of Osaka have discovered a new type of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) in an organic crystalline compound.
This phenomenon, involving a solid-state structural transition from an achiral to a chiral crystal, represents a significant advance in our understanding of chirality and offers a simplified model to study the origin of homochirality. This transformation also activates circularly polarized luminescence, enabling new optical materials with tunable light properties.
The work has been published in Chemical Science.
US scientists create reusable ‘jelly ice’ that never melts
Frozen tofu inspires US scientists to create reusable ‘jelly ice’ that never melts.
Interestingly, the jelly ice is 90% water and can be molded into different shapes.
“Compared to regular ice of the same shape and size, jelly ice has up to 80% of the cooling efficiency — the amount of heat the gel can absorb through phase change,” said Jiahan Zou, the study researcher.
“And we can reuse the material and maintain the heat absorbance across multiple freeze-thaw cycles, so that’s an advantage compared to regular ice,” added Zou.