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Germanene – a two-dimensional, graphene-like form of the element germanium – can carry electricity along its edges with no resistance. This unusual behaviour is characteristic of materials known as topological insulators, and the researchers who observed it say the phenomenon could be used to make faster and more energy-efficient electronic devices.

Like graphene, germanene is an atomically thin material with a honeycomb structure. Like graphene, germanene’s electronic band structure contains a point at which the valence and conduction bands meet. At this meeting point, spin-orbit coupling creates a narrow gap between the bands within the material’s bulk, causing it to act as an insulator. Along the material’s edges, however, special topological states arise that bridge this gap and allow electrons to flow unhindered.

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Varda Space Industries aims to kickstart a new era of mass production of pharmaceuticals and other materials from Earth’s orbit.

A California-based startup co-founded by a SpaceX veteran, Varda Space Industries, announced it has successfully deployed its first satellite, W-Series 1, in orbit.

The company aims to kickstart the mass production of materials in space that either can’t be produced on Earth or are developed faster and with higher quality in microgravity conditions.

The technology was recently demonstrated by the Australian Army, where soldiers operated a Ghost Robotics quadruped robot using the brain-machine interface. Photo supplied by Australian Army. #Graphene

New technology is making mind reading possible with positive implications for the fields of healthcare, aerospace and advanced manufacturing.

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have developed biosensor technology that will allow you to operate devices, such as robots and machines, solely through thought-control.

Continue reading “Mind-control robots a reality” »

Metals are typically used as active materials for negative electrodes in batteries. Recently, redox-active organic molecules, such as quinone-and amine-based molecules, have been used as negative electrodes in rechargeable metal–air batteries with oxygen-reducing positive electrodes. Here, protons and hydroxide ions participate in the redox reactions. Such batteries exhibit high performance, close to the maximum capacity that is theoretically possible.

Furthermore, using redox-active organic molecules in rechargeable air batteries overcomes problems associated with metals, including the formation of structures called ‘dendrites,’ which impact battery performance, and have negative environmental impact. However, these batteries use liquid electrolytes—just like metal-based batteries—which pose major safety concerns like high electrical resistance, leaching effects, and flammability.

Now, in a recent study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a group of Japanese researchers have developed an all-solid-state rechargeable air battery (SSAB) and investigated its capacity and durability. The study was led by Professor Kenji Miyatake from Waseda University and the University of Yamanashi, and co-authored by Professor Kenichi Oyaizu from Waseda University.

When we communicate with others over wireless networks, information is sent to data centers where it is collected, stored, processed, and distributed. As computational energy usage continues to grow, it is on pace to potentially become the leading source of energy consumption in this century. Memory and logic are physically separated in most modern computers, and therefore the interaction between these two components is very energy intensive in accessing, manipulating, and re-storing data.

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Penn State University is exploring materials that could possibly lead to the integration of the memory directly on top of the transistor. By changing the architecture of the microcircuit, processors could be much more efficient and consume less energy. In addition to creating proximity between these components, the nonvolatile materials studied have the potential to eliminate the need for computer memory systems to be refreshed regularly.

Their recent work published in Science explores materials that are ferroelectric, or have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. Recently discovered wurtzite ferroelectrics, which are mainly composed of materials that are already incorporated in semiconductor technology for integrated circuits, allow for the integration of new power-efficient devices for applications such as non-volatile memory, electro-optics, and energy harvesting.

Chinese scientists have devised a technique to coat everyday materials like paper and plastic with liquid metal, potentially creating “smart devices.” The method, which involves adjusting pressure rather than using a binding material, successfully enables the liquid metal to adhere to surfaces, a previously challenging task due to high surface tension.

Everyday materials such as paper and plastic could be transformed into electronic “smart devices” by using a simple new method to apply liquid metal to surfaces, according to scientists in Beijing, China. The study, published June 9 in the journal Cell Reports.

<em>Cell Reports</em> is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that published research papers that report new biological insight across a broad range of disciplines within the life sciences. Established in 2012, it is the first open access journal published by Cell Press, an imprint of Elsevier.

A historical dream team of five master sculptors, including Michelangelo, Rodin and Takamura, have trained artificial intelligence (AI) to design a sculpture dubbed “the Impossible Statue”, now on show in a Swedish museum.

“This is a true statue created by five different masters that would never have been able to collaborate in real life,” said Pauliina Lunde, a spokeswoman for Swedish machine engineering group Sandvik that used three AI software programs to create the artwork.

Shaking up traditional conceptions about creativity and art, the stainless steel statue depicts an androgynous person with the lower half of the body covered by a swath of material, holding a bronze globe in one hand.

How do you stay strong and not get rattled? Here’s the answer.

Take a lattice—a flat section of a grid of uniform cells, like a window screen or a honeycomb—and lay another, similar lattice above it. But instead of trying to line up the edges or the cells of both lattices, give the top grid a twist so that you can see portions of the lower one through it. This new, third pattern is a moiré, and it’s between this type of overlapping arrangement of lattices of tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide where UC Santa Barbara physicists found some interesting material behaviors.

“We discovered a new state of matter—a bosonic correlated insulator,” said Richen Xiong, a graduate student researcher in the group of UCSB condensed matter physicist Chenhao Jin, and the lead author of a paper that appears in the journal Science.

According to Xiong, Jin and collaborators from UCSB, Arizona State University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, this is the first time such a material—a highly ordered crystal of bosonic particles called excitons—has been created in a “real” (as opposed to synthetic) matter system.