It s a case of atoms versus bits.##Historically big companies have dominated hardware production for two simple reasons:
Quoting MIT energy professor Angela Belcher a study co-author an MIT press release notes that with time ticking down on lead-acid batteries in favor of lithium ion cells we need to be thinking ahead on handling a looming toxic waste problem:
whereas many of the communications carried out in living tissues take place through the movement of positively charged particles, such as calcium and potassium ions.
and low cost (the powered floor is a simple 2-layer printed circuit board) could make the Droplets an ideal educational platform enabling instructors to tangibly teach subjects such as organic chemistry (with each Droplet being a wiggling atom
Finally a high energy density Lithium-Ion Polymer battery is used to power all the electronics and actuators contained onboard.
so they combine the calcium with carbonate ions to form calcite, or limestone, which closes up the cracks.
The UC research team has developed a new kind of lithium-ion battery anode using portobello mushrooms,
At temperatures approaching absolute zero, atoms cease their individual, energetic trajectories, and start to move collectively as one wave.
if atoms cannot be kept cold or confined. The MIT team combined several techniques in generating ultracold temperatures,
the John D. Macarthur Professor of Physics at MIT. e use ultracold atoms to map out
A superfluid with loopsthe team first used a combination of laser cooling and evaporative cooling methods, originally co-developed by Ketterle, to cool atoms of rubidium to nanokelvin temperatures.
Atoms of rubidium are known as bosons, for their even number of nucleons and electrons. When cooled to near absolute zero
After cooling the atoms, the researchers used a set of lasers to create a crystalline array of atoms,
or optical lattice. The electric field of the laser beams creates what known as a periodic potential landscape, similar to an egg carton,
whether this could be done with ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. Since the ultracold atoms are charged not,
as electrons are, but are instead neutral particles, their trajectories are unaffected normally by magnetic fields. Instead, the MIT group came up with a technique to generate a synthetic
ultrahigh magnetic field, using laser beams to push atoms around in tiny orbits, similar to the orbits of electrons under a real magnetic field.
and two additional laser beams to control the motion of the atoms. On a flat lattice, atoms can easily move around from site to site.
However, in a tilted lattice, the atoms would have to work against gravity. In this scenario, atoms could only move with the help of laser beams. ow the laser beams could be used to make neutral atoms move around like electrons in a strong magnetic field
added Kennedy. Using laser beams, the group could make the atoms orbit, or loop around, in a radius as small as two lattice squares, similar to how particles would move in an extremely high magnetic field. nce we had the idea,
we were excited really about it, because of its simplicity. All we had to do was take two suitable laser beams
and carefully align them at specific angles, and then the atoms drastically change their behavior,
Kennedy says. ew perspectives to known physicsfter developing the tilting technique to simulate a high magnetic field,
and electronic controls to avoid any extraneous pushing of the atoms, which could make them lose their superfluid properties. t a complicated experiment, with a lot of laser beams, electronics,
During that time, the team took time-of-flight pictures of the distribution of atoms to capture the topology
but to add strong interactions between ultracold atoms, or to incorporate different quantum states, or spins.
and frees it from the use of radioisotopes or antibodies.""""The free flow of information between departments at the University of Bath promoted this collaboration
involves improving the transport of oxygen ions, a key component in converting chemical reactions into electricity.
which transports oxygen ions and is currently in use as a solid oxide fuel cell electrolyte. Through the use of additives and a"smart"chemical reaction, they demonstrated a greatly enhanced conductivity in GDC.
"This built in charge serves as a barrier for ion transport at the interface. The challenge is how to effectively avoid the segregation of Gd in the grain boundary.
"The improved oxygen ionic conductivity of GDC has been demonstrated in an oxygen permeation experiment where the elevated oxygen ion transport was used to separate pure oxygen from air at elevated temperatures.
They placed them on a surface using ion soft landing techniques devised at PNNL. The result is a layer of bare nanoparticles made from two different metals that is free of capping layers, residual reactants,
The process begins when the scientists load 1-inch-diameter metal discs into an instrument that combines particle formation and ion deposition.
The metal ions travel through a cooled region where they collide with each other and stick together. The result is bare ionic metal nanoparticles that are about 4 to 10 nanometers across.
"The coverage of the resulting surface is controlled by how long the particles are aimed at the surface and the intensity of the ion beam.
The simulations rely on understanding the'forces'between the atoms from which they compute what the molecules do,
At temperatures approaching absolute zero, atoms cease their individual, energetic trajectories, and start to move collectively as one wave.
if atoms cannot be kept cold or confined. The MIT team combined several techniques in generating ultracold temperatures,
the John D. Macarthur Professor of Physics at MIT. e use ultracold atoms to map out
originally co-developed by Ketterle, to cool atoms of rubidium to nanokelvin temperatures. Atoms of rubidium are known as bosons,
for their even number of nucleons and electrons. When cooled to near absolute zero bosons form what called a Bose-Einstein condensate a superfluid state that was discovered first co by Ketterle,
After cooling the atoms, the researchers used a set of lasers to create a crystalline array of atoms,
or optical lattice. The electric field of the laser beams creates what known as a periodic potential landscape, similar to an egg carton,
whether this could be done with ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. Since the ultracold atoms are charged not,
as electrons are, but are instead neutral particles, their trajectories are unaffected normally by magnetic fields. Instead, the MIT group came up with a technique to generate a synthetic
ultrahigh magnetic field, using laser beams to push atoms around in tiny orbits, similar to the orbits of electrons under a real magnetic field.
and two additional laser beams to control the motion of the atoms. On a flat lattice, atoms can easily move around from site to site.
However, in a tilted lattice, the atoms would have to work against gravity. In this scenario, atoms could only move with the help of laser beams. ow the laser beams could be used to make neutral atoms move around like electrons in a strong magnetic field
added Kennedy. Using laser beams, the group could make the atoms orbit, or loop around, in a radius as small as two lattice squares, similar to how particles would move in an extremely high magnetic field. nce we had the idea,
we were excited really about it, because of its simplicity. All we had to do was take two suitable laser beams
and carefully align them at specific angles, and then the atoms drastically change their behavior,
Kennedy says. ew perspectives to known physics After developing the tilting technique to simulate a high magnetic field,
and electronic controls to avoid any extraneous pushing of the atoms, which could make them lose their superfluid properties. t a complicated experiment, with a lot of laser beams, electronics,
During that time, the team took time-of-flight pictures of the distribution of atoms to capture the topology
but to add strong interactions between ultracold atoms, or to incorporate different quantum states, or spins.
#Aluminum olk-and-Shellnanoparticle Boosts Capacity and Power of Lithium-ion Batteries One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries,
which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery negative electrode, or anode, are reported in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT professor Ju Li and six others.
Most present lithium-ion batteries the most widely used form of rechargeable batteries use anodes made of graphite, a form of carbon.
As a result, previous attempts to develop an aluminum electrode for lithium-ion batteries had failed.
a better conductor of electrons and lithium ions when it is very thin. Aluminum powders were placed in sulfuric acid saturated with titanium oxysulfate.
which shows that small ions can get through the shell. The particles are treated then to get the final aluminum-titania (ATO) yolk-shell particles.
while allowing lithium ions and electrons to get in and out. The result is an electrode that gives more than three times the capacity of graphite (1. 2 Ah/g) at a normal charging rate
A defectree layer is also impermeable to all atoms and molecules. This amalgamation makes it a terrifically attractive material to apply to scientific developments in a wide variety of fields, such as electronics, aerospace and sports.
Rare, but widely publicized, incidents of overheating or combustion in lithium-ion batteries have highlighted also the importance of safety in battery technology.
They describe a new approach to the development of solid-state electrolytes that could simultaneously address the greatest challenges associated with improving lithium-ion batteries,
was finding solid materials that could conduct ions fast enough to be useful in a battery. here was a view that solids cannot conduct fast enough,
he says. hat paradigm has been overthrown. he research team was able to analyze the factors that make for efficient ion conduction in solids,
The initial findings focused on a class of materials known as superionic lithium-ion conductors which are compounds of lithium, germanium, phosphorus,
While conventional lithium-ion batteries do not perform well in extreme cold, and need to be preheated at temperatures below roughly minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit,
and wee seeing the quantum effects in a trillion atoms instead of just one. Because this noisy quantum motion is always present
Carbon nanotubes are rolled-up arrays of perfect hexagons of atoms; graphene is a rolled out sheet of the same.
the way the atoms are arranged can influence all those properties. ome labs are actively trying to make these materials or measure properties like the strength of single nanotubes and graphene sheets,
or lose atoms to neighboring rings, depending on how they join with their neighbors. By forcing five, seven or even eight-atom rings
they found they could gain a measure of control over the hybrid mechanical properties. Turning the nanotubes in a way that forced wrinkles in the graphene sheets added further flexibility and shear compliance,
#Physicists Determine the Three-dimensional Coordinates of Individual Atoms A team of physicists from UCLA have determined the three-dimensional positions of individual atoms for the first time,
Atoms are the building blocks of all matter On earth, and the patterns in which they are arranged dictate how strong,
Now, scientists at UCLA have used a powerful microscope to image the three-dimensional positions of individual atoms to a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter,
for the first time, to infer the macroscopic properties of materials based on their structural arrangements of atoms, which will guide how scientists and engineers build aircraft components, for example.
For more than 100 years, researchers have inferred how atoms are arranged in three-dimensional space using a technique called X-ray crystallography,
X-ray crystallography only yields information about the average positions of many billions of atoms in the crystal,
Because X-ray crystallography doesn reveal the structure of a material on a per-atom basis,
the technique can identify tiny imperfections in materials such as the absence of a single atom.
and measures how many electrons interact with the atoms at each scan position. The method reveals the atomic structure of materials
because different arrangements of atoms cause electrons to interact in different ways. However scanning transmission electron microscopes only produce two-dimensional images.
the researchers were able to slowly assemble a 3-D model of 3, 769 atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample.
Miao and his team showed that the atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample were arranged in nine layers, the sixth
The researchers believe the defect was either a hole in an otherwise filled layer of atoms
or one or more interloping atoms of a lighter element such as carbon. Regardless of the nature of the point defect, the researchersability to detect its presence is significant,
demonstrating for the first time that the coordinates of individual atoms and point defects can be recorded in three dimensions. e made a big breakthrough,
Miao and his team plan to build on their results by studying how atoms are arranged in materials that possess magnetism or energy storage functions,
when Nili goes on to describe the capability of the newly tuned memristors. e have introduced now controlled faults or defects in the oxide material along with the addition of metallic atoms,
when it doped with lithium atoms. The researchers believe that this new property could lead to a new generation of superconducting nanoscale devices.
then deposited lithium atoms onto the graphene in a vacuum at 8 K, creating a version of graphene known as ecoratedgraphene.
But new results suggest the atom-thick carbon sheet has one clear advantage: precise but practical calibrations of electrical resistance.
whether hydrophobic chains are surrounded by as many atoms as possible. The game was launched in 2008 and has been played by approximately 400,000 people.
#Prosthetic hand restores sense of touch in 28-year-old A 28-year-old paraly sed man in the US has become the first person to"feel"physical sensa ions through a prosthetic
800 watts per hour to keep its lithium-ion battery charged. While electric vehicles have been on the market for some time,
Made from carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal sheet only one atom thick, graphene offers extraordinary properties:
CNTS are basically one-atom-thick graphene sheets rolled up onto themselves in order to form very long filaments with diameters of only a few nanometers. n this sense,
as well as a direct electrical stimulation can promote the attraction of charged ions from the environment to the cells.
with their atoms arranged in a highly organised and regular manner. Metallic glass alloys, however, have disordered a highly structure,
with the atoms arranged in a non-regular way. here are many types of metallic glass, with the most popular ones based on zirconium, palladium, magnesium, titanium or copper.
*and ion concentration--critical markers for many disorders--rely on various nanosensors that are probed using light at optical frequencies.
the scientists tested the sensors in solutions of varying ph, in solutions with ion concentration gradients,
possibly including things such as glucose, local temperatures, various ion concentrations, possibly the presence or absence of various enzymes and so forth."
In addition, they show how a simple control method-changing the concentration of positive ions in solution-can actively switch between different configurations:
In the silicon dodecahedron, in contrast, all atoms have a coordination number of four and are connected through single bonds,
Jan Tillmann, are filled always with a chloride ion. The Frankfurt chemists therefore suppose that the cage forms itself around the anion,
the cluster carries eight chlorine atoms and twelve Cl3si groups. These have highly symmetric arrangements in space,
and laser scanning microscopes, X-ray microscopes, electron and ion microscopes and spectrometer modules. Users are supported for software for system control, image capture and editing.
it is critical to have a large electrochemically accessible surface area, high electrical conductivity and short ion diffusion pathways.
and reduces the distance for ion diffusion process, "said Singh. He explained that supercapacitors store charges through a chemical process known as a redox reaction,
and transporting ions through another material at the interface between electrode and electrolyte. Larger redox reaction surfaces are essential for achieving a higher power density for supercapacitors."
-ion batteries. The ORNL team electron microscopy could help researchers address longstanding issues related to battery performance and safety.
and growth of lithium dendrite structures known to degrade lithium-ion batteries. CREDIT: ORNL Dendrites form when metallic lithium takes root on a battery anode
The researchers studied dendrite formation by using a miniature electrochemical cell that mimics the liquid conditions inside a lithium-ion battery.
and Power of Lithium-Ion Batteries One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging
which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery negative electrode, or anode, are reported in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by MIT professor Ju Li and six others.
Most present lithium-ion batteries the most widely used form of rechargeable batteries use anodes made of graphite, a form of carbon.
As a result, previous attempts to develop an aluminum electrode for lithium-ion batteries had failed.
a better conductor of electrons and lithium ions when it is very thin. Aluminum powders were placed in sulfuric acid saturated with titanium oxysulfate.
which shows that small ions can get through the shell. The particles are treated then to get the final aluminum-titania (ATO) yolk-shell particles.
while allowing lithium ions and electrons to get in and out. The result is an electrode that gives more than three times the capacity of graphite (1. 2 Ah/g) at a normal charging rate
The change in ion flow is measured by electronics surrounding the pore; the peaks and valleys of that signal can be correlated to each base.
and monomer form of the protein block a different number of ions, so we see a different drop in current
If one out of each 100 strontium ions is missing from the cube-shaped strontium titanate crystal,
The next step was to dissolve DNA in a thick liquid that contained charged ions and whose molecular structure can be tuned fine to change its thickness, or"viscosity gradient".
By combining ionic liquids with nanopores on molybdenum disulfide thin films, they hope to create a cheaper DNA sequencing platform with a better output.
#UCLA Scientists Use Powerful Microscope to Image 3d Positions of Individual Atoms Atoms are the building blocks of all matter On earth,
Now, scientists at UCLA have used a powerful microscope to image the three-dimensional positions of individual atoms to a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter,
to infer the macroscopic properties of materials based on their structural arrangements of atoms, which will guide how scientists and engineers build aircraft components, for example.
For more than 100 years, researchers have inferred how atoms are arranged in three-dimensional space using a technique called X-ray crystallography,
However, X-ray crystallography only yields information about the average positions of many billions of atoms in the crystal
Because X-ray crystallography doesn reveal the structure of a material on a per-atom basis,
the technique can identify tiny imperfections in materials such as the absence of a single atom.
and measures how many electrons interact with the atoms at each scan position. The method reveals the atomic structure of materials
because different arrangements of atoms cause electrons to interact in different ways. However, scanning transmission electron microscopes only produce two-dimensional images.
the researchers were able to slowly assemble a 3-D model of 3, 769 atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample.
Miao and his team showed that the atoms in the tip of the tungsten sample were arranged in nine layers, the sixth
The researchers believe the defect was either a hole in an otherwise filled layer of atoms
or one or more interloping atoms of a lighter element such as carbon Regardless of the nature of the point defect,
demonstrating for the first time that the coordinates of individual atoms and point defects can be recorded in three dimensions. e made a big breakthrough,
Miao and his team plan to build on their results by studying how atoms are arranged in materials that possess magnetism or energy storage functions,
when atoms are brought too close together-to detect a wide array of protein markers that are linked to various diseases.
#Quantity, Dimensions of Carbon black Nanoparticles Crucial for Lithium-Ion Battery Function A Stanford undergraduate has contributed to a discovery that confounds the conventional wisdom in lithium-ion battery design,
While lithium-ion batteries needed a substance called carbon black in order to function, the precise amount of that material had not been considered crucial to overall performance."
Lithium-ion batteries have been used commonly in laptop and tablet computers, electric vehicles and renewable energy systems for more than two decades.
"The industry standard for lithium-ion batteries is a low carbon model say, 5 percent of the total material by weight,
The first jolt induces the atoms to form a normal, crystalline structure that facilitates a flow of electrons.
or copper ions-depending on the nanoparticles used-as they percolate through the page.""Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles,
and those are absorbed by the microbes, "Dr Dankovich explained. According to her tests, one page can clean up to 100 litres of water.
or copper ions-depending on the nanoparticles used-as they percolate through the page.""Ions come off the surface of the nanoparticles,
and those are absorbed by the microbes, "Dr Dankovich explained. According to her tests, one page can clean up to 100 litres of water.
"Ions are also much heavier than electrons and do not tunnel easily, which permits aggressive scaling of memristors without sacrificing analog properties."
Researchers in the Queen University Ionic Liquid Laboratories (QUILL) Research Centre have developed a unique new perfume delivery system
This innovative perfume system has been created by tagging a raw fragrance onto an ionic liquid (salt in the form of liquid)
Dr Nimal Gunaratne, from the Queen's university Belfast Ionic Liquid Laboratories (QUILL) Research Centre, said: his is an exciting breakthrough that uses newly discovered ionic liquid systems to release material in a controlled manner.
The Wall street journal claims that's enough to assign an IP ADDRESS to every atom On earth. But not everyone is rushing to adapt to the new technology.
He and his colleagues were successfully able to perform teleportation on atoms for the first time. Their work was published in the journal Nature.
A team from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland (UMD) and the University of Michigan has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a substantial distance.
This allows connections to be made between atoms, with their information being sent to others farther away.
'Previous studies have shown atoms teleporting across a room, and light being teleported across the Danube river in Austria.
A group of Japanese techies have designed a toothbrush that uses super skinny nylon bristles wrapped in nano-size mineral ions to scrub teeth squeaky clean.
In order to study single atoms for example, researchers use the light focused by the mirrors to enhance the interaction between the light waves and the atoms.
A team of physicists at ETH Zurich, working within the framework of the National Centre of Competence in Research Quantum Science and Technology (NCCR QSIT), have managed now to build a resonator that focuses electrons rather than light waves.
a tiny trap for electrons, only a hundred nanometers wide, in which owing to quantum mechanics the electrons exist in well-defined energy states similar to those of an atom.
therefore, also known as"artificial atoms"."At the other end, just a few micrometers away, a bent electrode acts as a curved mirror that reflects electrons
Graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms, just one atom thick. Its flexibility, optical transparency and electrical conductivity make it suitable for a wide range of applications,
Cobalt atoms on graphene a powerful combo Graphene doped with nitrogen and augmented with cobalt atoms has proven to be an effective, durable catalyst for the production of hydrogen from water, according to scientists at Rice university.
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Texas at San antonio and the University of Houston have reported the development of a robust,
Catalysts can split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms, a process required for fuel cells.
but the use of atoms,"Tour said.""The particles doing this chemistry are as small as you can possibly get."
"There are so many atoms inside the nanoparticle that never do anything. But in our process the atoms driving catalysis have no metal atoms next to them.
We're getting away with very little cobalt to make a catalyst that nearly matches the best platinum catalysts."
Tour said single-atom catalysts have been realized in liquids, but rarely on a surface.""This way we can build electrodes out of it,
"The researchers discovered that heat-treating graphene oxide and small amounts of cobalt salts in a gaseous environment forced individual cobalt atoms to bind to the material.
Electron microscope images showed cobalt atoms widely dispersed throughout the samples. They tested nitrogen-doped graphene on its own and found it lacked the ability to kick the catalytic process into gear.
"Atom-thick graphene is the ideal substrate, Tour said, because of its high surface area, stability in harsh operating conditions and high conductivity.
#Single atom alloy platinum-copper catalysts cut costs, boost green technology A new generation of platinum-copper catalysts that require very low concentrations of platinum in the form of individual atoms to cleanly
isolated platinum atoms in much less costly copper surfaces can create a highly effective and cost-efficient catalyst for the selective hydrogenation of 1, 3 butadiene,
"We were excited to find that the platinum metal dissolved in copper, just like sugar in hot coffee, all the way down to single atoms.
We call such materials single atom alloys, "said Sykes. The Tufts chemists used a specialized low temperature scanning tunneling microscope to visualize the single platinum atoms and their interaction with hydrogen."
"We found that even at temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees F these platinum atoms were capable of splitting hydrogen molecules into atoms,
indicating that the platinum atoms would be very good at activating hydrogen for a chemical reaction,
"Sykes said. With that knowledge, Sykes and his fellow chemists turned to long-time Tufts collaborator Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, Ph d.,the Robert and Marcy Haber Endowed Professor in Energy Sustainability at the School of engineering,
such as platinum-copper single atom alloy nanoparticles supported on an alumina substrate, and then tested them under industrial pressure and temperatures."
because clusters of platinum atoms have compared inferior selectivity with individual atoms.""In this case, less is said more
and manipulate atoms and molecules, and I wanted to use its unique capabilities to gain insight into industrially important chemical reactions.
In the early 2000s, Maria's group had pioneered the single-atom approach for metals anchored on oxide supports as the exclusive active sites for the water-gas shift reaction to upgrade hydrogen streams for fuel cell use.
Together we embarked on a new direction involving single atom alloys as catalysts for selective hydrogenation reactions.
"Sykes and Flytzani-Stephanopoulos have used this approach to design a variety of single atom alloy catalysts that have,
and properties of single atom alloy surfaces and then applied this knowledge to develop a working catalyst.
Armed with this knowledge, we are now ready to compare the stability of these single atom alloy catalysts to single atom catalysts supported on various oxide or carbon surfaces.
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