Lifeboat Foundation

The ultimate degree of control for engineering would be the ability to create and manipulate materials at the most basic level, fabricating devices atom by atom with precise control.

Now, scientists at MIT, the University of Vienna, and several other institutions have taken a step in that direction, developing a method that can reposition atoms with a highly focused electron beam and control their exact location and bonding orientation. The finding could ultimately lead to new ways of making quantum computing devices or sensors, and usher in a new age of “atomic engineering,” they say.

The advance is described today in the journal Science Advances, in a paper by MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering Ju Li, graduate student Cong Su, Professor Toma Susi of the University of Vienna, and 13 others at MIT, the University of Vienna, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and in China, Ecuador, and Denmark.

Continue reading “Manipulating atoms one at a time with an electron beam” »

Machine learning (ML), a form of artificial intelligence that recognizes faces, understands language and navigates self-driving cars, can help bring to Earth the clean fusion energy that lights the sun and stars. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are using ML to create a model for rapid control of plasma—the state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions—that fuels fusion reactions.

The sun and most stars are giant balls of plasma that undergo constant fusion reactions. Here on Earth, scientists must heat and control the plasma to cause the particles to fuse and release their energy. PPPL research shows that ML can facilitate such control.

In materials science, achromatic optical components can be designed with high transparency and low dispersion. Materials scientists have shown that although metals are highly opaque, densely packed arrays of metallic nanoparticles with more than 75 percent metal by volume can become more transparent to infrared radiation than dielectrics such as germanium. Such arrays can form effective dielectrics that are virtually dispersion-free across ultra-broadband ranges of wavelengths to engineer a variety of next-generation metamaterial-based optical devices.

Scientists can tune the local refractive indices of such materials by altering the size, shape and spacing of nanoparticles to design gradient-index lenses that guide and focus light on the microscale. The electric field can be strongly concentrated in the gaps between metallic nanoparticles for the simultaneous focusing and ‘squeezing’ of the dielectric field to produce strong, doubly enhanced hotspots. Scientists can use these hotspots to boost measurements made using infrared spectroscopy and other non-linear processes across a broad frequency range.

In a recent study now published in Nature Communications, Samuel J. Palmer and an interdisciplinary research team in the departments of Physics, Mathematics and Nanotechnology in the U.K., Spain and Germany, showed that artificial dielectrics can remain highly transparent to infrared radiation and observed this outcome even when the particles were nanoscopic. They demonstrated the electric field penetrates the particles (rendering them imperfect for conduction) for strong interactions to occur between them in a tightly packed arrangement. The results will allow materials scientists to design optical components that are achromatic for applications in the mid-to-infrared wavelength region.

Continue reading “Extraordinarily transparent compact metallic metamaterials” »

A team of researchers from the University of California and Fudan University has developed a way to use a single molecule magnet as a scanning magnetometer. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group outlines their research which involved demonstrating their sensor scanning the spin and magnetic properties of a molecule embedded in another material.

As scientists continue their quest to squeeze ever more data onto increasingly smaller storage devices, they are exploring the possibility of using the magnetic state of a single molecule or even an atom—likely the smallest possible memory element type. In this new effort, the researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to use a single molecule affixed to a sensor to read the properties of a single molecule in another material.

To create their sensor and storage medium, the researchers first absorbed magnetic molecules of Ni(cyclopentadienyl)₂ onto a plate coated with silver. Then, they pulled a nickelocene molecule from the silver surface and applied it to the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope sensor. Next, they heated an adsorbate-covered surface to 600 millikelvin and then moved the sensor tipped with the single molecule close to the surface and read the signals received by the probe as the two molecules interacted.

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Battle your way through a visually-stunning realistic fantasy RPG with hundreds of Champions from 16 playable factions.

To save the world of Teleria, you will recruit its most legendary warriors from the forces of Light and Darkness. You must train these champions to fight together, mold them into living weapons, and assemble the most epic raiding parties ever seen.

Your path to victory will see you will master strategies to defeat dozens of boss battles, slay dragons, and crush opponents in the PVP Arena.

Continue reading “Jet Engine VS Captain America Shield (MAKE IT BREAK)” »

In coming years, scientists plan to grow human embryos in a lab using high-tech artificial wombs.

Doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are in talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin testing artificial wombs on human embryos within the next two years, according to Metro. If they’re successful, the research could radically change the way we view pregnancy, childbirth, and perhaps even human evolution.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, wants to launch enough satellites to provide broadband web access anywhere in the world. The first 60 fly this week.

Much ado has been made of Dell’s new maglev keyboard, currently exclusive to the XPS 15 9575 2-in-1. Utilizing rare-earth magnets to repulse the keys back up once depressed, the keyboard still provides a decent amount of feedback despite its meager 0.7mm of travel.

In a late March webcast for Dell’s new products, the company’s Vice President & General Manager Alienware, Gaming and XPS, Frank Azor, mentioned that the keyboard could be adopted in more of Dell’s laptops — if it proves popular.

The major advantage of design is that it allows the laptop to be thinner, but not everyone is a fan. Though it provides more travel and feedback than Apple’s much-maligned “butterfly” keyboard, initial reviews suggest that the keyboard is basically tolerable, but it isn’t going to replace a ThinkPad’s keyboard anytime soon.

Continue reading “XPS 15 2-in-1’s maglev keyboard may find its way into other Dell laptops — Frank Azor” »