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Category: particle physics – Page 2

Concrete ‘battery’ now packs 10 times the power

Concrete already builds our world, and now it’s one step closer to powering it, too. Made by combining cement, water, ultra-fine carbon black (with nanoscale particles), and electrolytes, electron-conducting carbon concrete (ec3, pronounced “e-c-cubed”) creates a conductive “nanonetwork” inside concrete that could enable everyday structures like walls, sidewalks, and bridges to store and release electrical energy. In other words, the concrete around us could one day double as giant “batteries.”

As MIT researchers report in a new PNAS paper, optimized electrolytes and manufacturing processes have increased the capacity of the latest ec3 supercapacitors by an order of magnitude.

In 2023, storing enough energy to meet the daily needs of the average home would have required about 45 cubic meters of ec3, roughly the amount of concrete used in a typical basement. Now, with the improved , that same task can be achieved with about 5 cubic meters, the volume of a typical basement wall.

AI-generated nanomaterial images fool even experts, study shows

Black-and-white images of pom-pom–like clusters, semi-translucent fields of tiny dark gray stars on a pale background, and countless other abstract patterns are a familiar sight in scientific papers describing the shapes and properties of newly engineered materials.

So, when research images show particles that resemble puffed popcorn or perfectly smooth “Tic Tacs,” it might not trigger our AI suspicion radar, but researchers in a recent study caution otherwise.

Microscopy images are indispensable in nanomaterials science, as they reveal the hidden intricacies and fascinating shapes that tiny particles assume, which appear to be a pile of dust to the naked eye.

Floquet Chern insulators based on nonlinear photonic crystals achieved

Over the past few years, engineers and material scientists have been trying to devise new optical systems in which light particles (i.e., photons) can move freely and in useful ways, irrespective of defects and imperfections. Topological phases, unique states of matter that are not defined by local properties, but by non-local and global features, can enable the robust movement of photons despite material defects.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California-Santa Barbara recently demonstrated the realization of Floquet Chern insulators, materials in which the periodic application of an oscillating light field or other external fields give rise to a unique topological phase, in a nonlinear photonic system. The insulators presented in their paper, which was published in Nature Nanotechnology, are based on nonlinear photonic crystals, materials with repeating patterns that can control the and respond differently to light of different intensities.

“Topological photonics explores photonic systems that exhibit robustness against defects and disorder, enabled by protection from underlying ,” wrote Jicheng Jin, Li He and their colleagues in their paper. “These phases are typically realized in linear optical systems and characterized by their intrinsic photonic band structures. We experimentally study Floquet Chern insulators in periodically driven nonlinear photonic crystals, where the topological phase is controlled by the polarization and the frequency of the driving field.”

One-atom-thick filter helps lithium–sulfur batteries keep their charge

Longer-lasting phones, lighter drones, electric cars that drive farther. These are just some of the possibilities thanks to a new battery separator design from University of Florida researchers and their partners.

Think of a tiny coffee filter, but this one works inside a battery. The team recently showed that a one-atom-thick filter can block sulfur chains from shuttling within the battery, potentially unlocking the long-awaited promise of lithium–sulfur batteries.

While lithium–sulfur batteries are lighter and pack more power in a lighter package compared to the more conventional lithium-ion batteries, their fatal flaw is the sulfur doesn’t cooperate well inside the system. It clumps into long chains that clog up the works, draining the battery’s power and cutting its lifespan.

Spontaneous emission behaves contrary to predictions in photonic time crystals

A new study reveals that spontaneous emission, a key phenomenon in the interaction between light and atoms, manifests in a new form within a photonic time crystal. This research, led by a KAIST team, not only overturns existing theory but further predicts a novel phenomenon: spontaneous emission excitation. The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Professor Bumki Min’s research team from the KAIST Department of Physics, in collaboration with Professor Jonghwa Shin of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor Wonju Jeon of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Gil Young Cho of the Department of Physics, and researchers from IBS, UC Berkeley, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, announced that they have proven that the decay rate in a photonic time crystal is, on the contrary, enhanced rather than being “extinguished,” as suggested by a paper published in Science in 2022. Furthermore, they predicted a new process—spontaneous emission excitation—where an atom transitions from its to an while simultaneously emitting a photon.

Spontaneous emission is the process by which an atom intrinsically emits a photon and is fundamental to quantum optics and photonic device research. Until now, control over spontaneous emission has been achieved by designing spatial structures like resonators or . However, the advent of photonic time crystals, which periodically modulate the refractive index of a medium over time, has drawn attention to the potential for control along the time axis.

Parallel atom-photon entanglement paves way for future quantum networking

A new platform developed by Illinois Grainger engineers demonstrates the utility of a ytterbium-171 atom array in quantum networking. Their work represents a key step toward long-distance quantum communication.

Researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have introduced a scalable platform for quantum networking with a ytterbium-171 array.

Their work, published in Nature Physics, represents a major step toward larger quantum networks and has promising implications for modular quantum computation.

Extreme pressure pushes honeycomb crystal toward quantum spin liquid, hinting at new qubit designs

The future of computing lies in the surprising world of quantum physics, where the rules are much different from the ones that power today’s devices. Quantum computers promise to tackle problems too complex for even the fastest supercomputers running on silicon chips. To make this vision real, scientists around the world are searching for new quantum materials with unusual, almost otherworldly properties.

One of the more intriguing candidates is called a quantum spin liquid—a state of matter where electron spins never settle down, even at the coldest temperatures in the universe. To date, however, preparing such a quantum state in a lab has proven stubbornly elusive. In a collaborative project with multiple institutions, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory now report coming tantalizingly closer.

As explained by Argonne Senior Physicist and Group Leader Daniel Haskel, in these materials, it’s not atoms that stay fluid as in an ordinary liquid, but the tiny magnetic orientations—or spins—of electrons. Each spin wants to “get along” with its neighbors by aligning in a way that keeps everyone content. But when the spins are pushed closer together under pressure, satisfying every neighbor becomes impossible.

Nanoscale slots enable room-temperature hybrid states of matter in perovskite

Atoms in crystalline solids sometimes vibrate in unison, giving rise to emergent phenomena known as phonons. Because these collective vibrations set the pace for how heat and energy move through materials, they play a central role in devices that capture or emit light, like solar cells and LEDs.

Collective Bloch oscillations observed in 1D Bose gas system

Bloch oscillations are periodic oscillations of quantum particles in a repeating energy “landscape” (e.g., a crystal lattice) that are subjected to a constant force. These particle motions have been the focus of numerous physics studies, as they are intriguing quantum effects that are not predicted by classical mechanics theories.

Probing Bloch oscillations experimentally could thus yield new insight into the fundamental properties of quantum matter. So far, they have been primarily studied in individual particles or two-particle systems, as opposed to quantum many-body systems comprised of several particles.

Researchers at CNRS-ENS-PSL University and Sorbonne University report the observation of collective Bloch oscillations in a one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas, a quantum fluid comprised of bosons, which are particles that can occupy the same quantum state.

Core electron bonding may not always require extreme pressure, study finds

You probably learned in high school chemistry class that core electrons don’t participate in chemical bonding.

They’re thought to be too deep inside an atom and close to the nucleus to meaningfully interact with the of other atoms, leaving the outer valence electrons to get all the glory in textbooks.

The actual science is more complicated, as some elements’ core electrons are theorized to activate when squeezed hard enough, like at the pressure levels found deep inside Earth.

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