and emit light energy is such that it can make itself--and, in applications, other very small things--appear 10,000 times as large as its physical size."
amplifying itself as the surrounding environment manipulates the physical properties of its wave energy. The researchers took advantage of this by creating an artificial material in
Much as a very thin string on a guitar can absorb a large amount of acoustic energy from its surroundings
In addition, Yu envisions simply letting the resonator emit that energy in the form of infrared light toward the sky,
#Density-near-zero acoustical metamaterial made in China: Researchers create a tunable membrane'metamaterial'with near-zero density,
effectively recreating the quantum tunneling effect for sound waves When a sound wave hits an obstacle and is scattered,
Researchers have created a tunable membrane'metamaterial'with near-zero density, effectively recreating the quantum tunneling effect for sound waves.
from AIP Publishing, was an acoustical"metamaterial"with an effective density near zero (DNZ). This work could help to endow a transmission network with coveted properties such as high transmission around sharp corners, high-efficient wave splitting,
whether we could make a simple but compact density-near-zero metamaterial from just a few tiny membranes,
minimalist realization of their original density-near-zero idea, consisting of 0. 125 mm-thick polyethylene membranes perforated with 9-millimeter-radius holes in a square grid inside of a metal
or distorting the wavefront--analogous to the quantum tunneling effect, in which a particle crosses through a potential energy barrier otherwise insurmountable by classical mechanics.
the metamaterial would likely be integrated into acoustic circuits and structures. When implemented in a wave splitter,
the researchers found an 80 percent increase in the efficiency of energy transmission, regardless of the wave's incident angle.
Additionally, the researchers are able to tune the frequency of the metamaterial network by altering the membrane's tension and physical dimensions,
In atomic-scale transistors, this current is extremely sensitive to single electrons hopping via discrete energy levels.
The team mixed blood plasma from mice and, separately humans with magnetic aapcs bearing antigens from tumors.
They then ran the plasma through a magnetic column. The tumor-fighting T cells bound to aapcs and stuck to the sides of the column,
2015nanocrystalline Thin-film Solar cells July 15th, 2015better memory with faster lasers July 14th, 2015cancer Nanospheres shield chemo drugs,
2015nanocrystalline Thin-film Solar cells July 15th, 2015better memory with faster lasers July 14th, 2015polymer mold makes perfect silicon nanostructures July 14th,
2015nanocrystalline Thin-film Solar cells July 15th, 2015polymer mold makes perfect silicon nanostructures July 14th, 2015interviews/Book reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers For faster,
Acute Market Reports July 14th, 2015density-near-zero acoustical metamaterial made in China: Researchers create a tunable membrane'metamaterial'with near-zero density,
effectively recreating the quantum tunneling effect for sound waves July 14th, 2015patents/IP/Tech Transfer/Licensing Nanospheres shield chemo drugs,
2015grants/Awards/Scholarships/Gifts/Contests/Honors/Records Nanocrystalline Thin-film Solar cells July 15th, 2015better memory with faster lasers July 14th, 2015simpore, Uofr,
Eindhoven researchers make important step towards a solar cell that generates hydrogen A solar cell that produces fuel rather than electricity.
The material gallium phosphide enables their solar cell to produce the clean fuel hydrogen gas from liquid water.
The electricity produced by a solar cell can be used to set off chemical reactions. If this generates a fuel
One of the possibilities is to split liquid water using the electricity that is generated (electrolysis.
or combusted in fuel cells-in cars for example-to drive engines. Solar fuel cell To connect an existing silicon solar cell to a battery that splits the water may well be an efficient solution now
but it is a very expensive one. Many researchers are therefore targeting their search at a semiconductor material that is able to both convert sunlight into an electrical charge and split the water, all in one;
when it is a large flat surface as used in Gap solar cells. The researchers have overcome this problem by making a grid of very small Gap nanowires, measuring five hundred nanometers (a millionth of a millimeter) long and ninety nanometers thick.
This immediately boosted the yield of hydrogen by a factor of ten to 2. 9 percent.
even though this is still some way off the fifteen percent achieved by silicon cells coupled to a battery.
-so you then actually have a fuel cell in which you can temporarily store your solar energy.
and lead to faster transistors, cheaper solar cells, new types of sensors and more efficient bioelectric sensory devices.
and it can conduct electricity as well as copper, carrying electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature, a property known as ballistic transport.
#Rice university finding could lead to cheap, efficient metal-based solar cells: Plasmonics study suggests how to maximize production of'hot electrons'Abstract:
and reduce the costs of photovoltaic solar cells. Although the domestic solar-energy industry grew by 34 percent in 2014,
if the U s. is to meet its national goal of reducing the cost of solar electricity to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
LANP graduate student Bob Zheng and postdoctoral research associate Alejandro Manjavacas created a methodology that solar engineers can use to determine the electricity-producing potential for any arrangement of metallic nanoparticles.
including metallic nanoparticles that convert light into plasmons, waves of electrons that flow like a fluid across the particles'surface.
Today's most efficient photovoltaic cells use a combination of semiconductors that are made from rare and expensive elements like gallium and indium.
"The efficiency of semiconductor-based solar cells can never be extended in this way because of the inherent optical properties of the semiconductors."
"Plasmonic-based photovoltaics have had typically low efficiencies, and it hasn't been entirely clear whether those arose from fundamental physical limitations or from less than-optimal designs."
"To make use of the photon's energy, it must be absorbed rather than scattered back out.
but it provides no way of determining how many of those electrons are actually useful, high-energy, hot electrons,
because his experimental setup selectively filtered high-energy hot electrons from their less-energetic counterparts.
"This is an important step toward the realization of plasmonic technologies for solar photovoltaics. This research provides a route to increasing the efficiency of plasmonic hot-carrier devices
and shows that they can be useful for converting sunlight into usable electricity.""Additional co-authors include Hangqi Zhao and Michael Mcclain, both of Rice.
including medicine, electronics and energy. Discovered only 11 years ago, graphene is one of the strongest materials in the world, highly conductive, flexible, and transparent.
Daniel Feuermann and Jeffrey Gordon) that reconstitutes the immense brightness within the plasma of high-power xenon discharge lamps at a remote reactor,
#Researchers boost wireless power transfer with magnetic field enhancement Wireless power transfer works by having a transmitter coil generate a magnetic field;
a receiver coil then draws energy from that magnetic field. One of the major roadblocks for development of marketable wireless power transfer technologies is achieving high efficiency."
"Our experimental results show double the efficiency using the MRFE in comparison to air alone,
One of the leading candidates proposed for enhancing efficiency has been called a technology metamaterials.""We performed a comprehensive analysis using computer models of wireless power systems
and found that MRFE could ultimately be five times more efficient than use of metamaterials and 50 times more efficient than transmitting through air alone,
"Ricketts says. By placing the MRFE between the transmitter and the receiver (without touching either) as an intermediate material,
"The researchers conducted an experiment that transmitted power through air alone, through a metamaterial, and through an MRFE made of the same quality material as the metamaterial.
The MRFE significantly outperformed both of the others. In addition, the MRFE is less than one-tenth the volume of metamaterial enhancers."
"This could help advance efforts to develop wireless power transfer technologies for use with electric vehicles, in buildings,
or in any other application where enhanced efficiency or greater distances are important considerations, "Ricketts says s
#Reshaping the solar spectrum to turn light to electricity: UC Riverside researchers find a way to use the infrared region of the sun's spectrum to make solar cells more efficient A huge gain in this direction has now been made by a team of chemists at the University of California,
Riverside that has found an ingenious way to make solar energy conversion more efficient. The researchers report in Nano Letters that by combining inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals with organic molecules, they have succeeded in"upconverting"photons in the visible and near-infrared regions of the solar spectrum."
"The infrared region of the solar spectrum passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today's solar cells,
"This is energy lost, no matter how good your solar cell. The hybrid material we have come up with first captures two infrared photons that would normally pass right through a solar cell without being converted to electricity,
then adds their energies together to make one higher energy photon. This upconverted photon is absorbed readily by photovoltaic cells,
generating electricity from light that normally would be wasted.""Bardeen added that these materials are essentially"reshaping the solar spectrum
"so that it better matches the photovoltaic materials used today in solar cells. The ability to utilize the infrared portion of the solar spectrum could boost solar photovoltaic efficiencies by 30 percent or more.
In their experiments, Bardeen and Tang worked with cadmium selenide and lead selenide semiconductor nanocrystals.
The organic compounds they used to prepare the hybrids were diphenylanthracene and rubrene. The cadmium selenide nanocrystals could convert visible wavelengths to ultraviolet photons,
almost doubling the energy of the incoming photons. The researchers were able to boost the upconversion process by up to three orders of magnitude by coating the cadmium selenide nanocrystals with organic ligands,
"This 550--nanometer light can be absorbed by any solar cell material, "Bardeen said.""The key to this research is the hybrid composite material--combining inorganic semiconductor nanoparticles with organic compounds.
the inorganic component absorbs two photons and passes their energy on to the organic component for combination.
The organic compounds then produce one high-energy photon. Put simply, the inorganics in the composite material take light in;
and industries, including laser, solar cells, production of transistors and nanomedicine. The colloid form of these particles have very interesting properties and characteristics,
The large difference between surface and volume energy of nanoparticles is the cause of this problem.
and a member of the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute at Berkeley (Kavli ENSI.""The asymmetry necessary for diode behavior originates with the different exposed electrode areas and the ionic solution,
"The efficiency of the tunneling process depends intimately on the degree of alignment of the molecule's discrete energy levels with the electrode's continuous spectrum.
At the Molecular Foundry we developed an approach to accurately compute energy-level alignment and tunneling probability in single-molecule junctions.
in nearly perfect alignment with the Fermi electron energy levels of the gold electrodes. Symmetry was broken by a substantial difference in the size of the area on each gold electrode that was exposed to the ionic solution.
and the junction energy level alignment, a positive voltage increases current substantially; a negative voltage suppresses it equally significantly."
"In addition to breaking symmetry, double layers formed by ionic solution also generate dipole differences at the two electrodes,
and energy flow at the nanoscale. What is exciting to me about this field is its multidisciplinary nature-the need for both physics and chemistry-and the strong beneficial coupling between experiment and theory."
Capacitors often complement batteries in these applications because they can provide large amounts of current quickly.
"But to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time these two types of materials have been combined into high-density energy storage devices."
"The research, supported by the Office of Naval Research and the Air force Office of Scientific research, was reported July 14 in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.
The need for efficient, high-performance materials for electrical energy storage has been growing along with the ever-increasing demand for electrical energy in mobile applications.
But it has been challenging to find a single dielectric material able to maximize permittivity, breakdown strength, energy density and energy extraction efficiency.
"It's really a bilayer hybrid material that takes the best of both reorientation polarization and approaches for reducing injection and improving energy extraction."
"In their structures, the researchers demonstrated maximum extractable energy densities up to 40 joules per cubic centimeter, an energy extraction efficiency of 72 percent at a field strength of 830 volts per micron,
The performance exceeds that of conventional electrolytic capacitors and thin-film lithium ion batteries, though it doesn't match the lithium ion battery formats commonly used in electronic devices and vehicles."
"This is the first time I've seen a capacitor beat a battery on energy density, "said Perry."
"The combination of high energy density and high power density is uncommon in the capacitor world.""Researchers in Perry's lab have been making arrays of small sol-gel capacitors in the lab to gather information about the material's performance.
The devices are made on small substrates about an inch square.""What we see when we apply an electric field is that the polarization response
have longer battery life and generate less heat than existing mobile devices. The first supercomputers using silicon photonics--already under development at companies such as Intel
Graphene ink with binders usually conducts electricity better than binder-free ink, but only after the binder material,
With its high electrical conductivity, ability to store energy, and ultra-strong and lightweight structure, graphene has potential for many applications in electronics, energy, the environment,
and even medicine. Now a team of Northwestern University researchers has found a way to print three-dimensional structures with graphene nanoflakes.
and graphene's electrical conductivity most likely contributed to the scaffold's biological success."Cells conduct electricity inherently--especially neurons,
Light interaction with graphene produces particles called plasmons while light interacting with hbn produces phonons.
the plasmons and phonons can couple, producing a strong resonance. The properties of the graphene allow precise control over light,
#Researchers form complete nanobatteries inside nanopores Nanostructured batteries, when properly designed and built, offer promise for delivering their energy at much higher power and longer life than conventional technology.
To retain high energy density, nanostructures (such as nanowires) must be paced into dense"nanostructure forests, "producing 3-D nanogeometries in
Up to a billion of these nanopore batteries could fit in a grain of sand. The nanobatteries were fabricated by atomic layer deposition to make oxide nanotubes (for ion storage) inside metal nanotubes for electron transport, all inside each end of the nanopores.
they can transfer half their energy in just a 30 second charge or discharge time,
Research Insights Tiny batteries formed inside nanopores were used to demonstrate that properly scaled nanostructures can utilize the full theoretical capacity of the charge storage material
Science Impact These nanobatteries delivered their stored energy efficiently at high power (fast charge and discharge) and for extended cycling, demonstrating that precise nanostructures can be constructed to assess the fundamentals of ion
when placed in a magnetic field and generate negligible amounts of wasteful heat during energy harvesting, has been discovered by researchers at Temple University and the University of Maryland.
In the 1840s, physicist James Prescott Joule discovered that iron-based magnetic materials changed their shape but not their volume when placed in a magnetic field.
This phenomenon is referred to as"Joule Magnetostriction, "and since its discovery 175 years ago, all magnets have been characterized on this basis."We have discovered a new class of magnets,
or convert energy with minimal heat loss.""""The response of these magnets differs fundamentally from that likely envisioned by Joule,
"said Wuttig.""He must have thought that magnets respond in a uniform fashion.""Chopra and Wuttig discovered that
since they are limited by Joule magnetostriction. Actuation, even in two directions, requires bulky stacks of magnets,
These magnets could also find applications in efficient energy harvesting devices; compact micro-actuators for aerospace, automobile, biomedical, space and robotics applications;
This research has the potential to catapult sustainable energy-efficient materials in a very wide range of applications
"An interferogram showing the photoelectron energy vs. delay time between identical femtosecond pump and probe pulses,
The interferogram is taken from a movie of photoelectron energy vs. momentum with one frame corresponding to a 50-attosecond delay.
Detecting excitons in metals could provide clues on how light is converted into electrical and chemical energy in solar cells and plants.
soft and elastic batteries (Nanowerk News) A method for making elastic high-capacity batteries from wood pulp was unveiled by researchers in Sweden and the US.
foam-like battery material that can withstand shock and stress (Nature Communications, "Self-assembled three-dimensional and compressible interdigitated thin-film supercapacitors and batteries").
"This is a closeup of the soft battery, created with wood pulp nanocellulose. Image: Max Hamedi and Wallenberg Wood Science Center)" It is possible to make incredible materials from trees
and cellulose,"says Max Hamedi, who is a researcher at KTH and Harvard university. One benefit of the new wood-based aerogel material is that it can be used for three-dimensional structures."
"There are limits to how thin a battery can be, but that becomes less relevant in 3d,
"A 3d structure enables storage of significantly more power in less space than is possible with conventional batteries,
In fact, this type of structure and material architecture allows flexibility and freedom in the design of batteries,"Hamedi.
which adds ink that conducts electricity within the aerogel. You can coat the entire surface within."
Similarly, a single cubic decimeter of the battery material would cover most of a football pitch,
"Hamedi says the aerogel batteries could be used in electric car bodies, as well as in clothing, providing the garment has a lining.
Another partner is leading battery researcher, Professor Yi Cui from Stanford university y
#Intelligent bacteria for detecting disease Another step forward has just been taken in the area of synthetic biology.
and prevents penetration by gases and electrolytes. It provides protection against corrosion caused by aggressive aqueous solutions,
New materials for energy application, new concepts for medical surfaces, new surface materials for tribological systems and nano safety and nano bio.
Electrons that are driven toward the center absorb enough energy so that some of them emit blue light at double the frequency of the incoming infrared light.
It also has a number of unusual properties owing to the relationship between some of its energy states and its crystal structure.
This produces a plasma consisting of carbon ions, which is deposited as a coating on the workpiece in the vacuum.
The cylinder is converted evenly into plasma thanks to the scanning motion and rotation. To ensure a consistently smooth coating
a magnetic field guides the plasma and filters out any particles of dirt. The laser arc method can be used to deposit very thick ta-C coatings of up to 20 micrometers at high coating rates.
create jobs and stabilize energy prices involves converting the world's entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy.
and the ways we currently consume energy, but indicate that the conversion is technically and economically possible through the wide-scale implementation of existing technologies."
who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy."
"The study is published in the online edition of Energy and Environmental sciences("100%clean and renewable wind, water,
and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United states")."An interactive map summarizing the plans for each state is available at http://www. thesolutionsproject. org.
Jacobson and his colleagues started by taking a close look at the current energy demands of each state,
To create a full picture of energy use in each state, they examined energy usage in four sectors:
residential, commercial, industrial and transportation. For each sector, they then analyzed the current amount and source of the fuel consumed-coal oil, gas, nuclear,
if all fuel usage were replaced with electricity. This is a significantly challenging step-it assumes that all the cars on the road become electric,
and the energy savings would be significant.""When we did this across all 50 states, we saw a 39 percent reduction in total end-use power demand by the year 2050,
but the bulk is the result of replacing current sources and uses of combustion energy with electricity."
"The next step involved figuring out how to power the new electric grid. The researchers focused on meeting each state's new power demands using only the renewable energies-wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric,
and how many south-facing, non-shaded rooftops could accommodate solar panels. They developed and consulted wind maps
and determined whether local offshore wind turbines were an option. Geothermal energy was available at a reasonable cost for only 13 states.
The plan calls for virtually no new hydroelectric dams but does account for energy gains from improving the efficiency of existing dams.
The report lays out individual roadmaps for each state to achieve an 80 percent transition by 2030,
as they already generate nearly 30 percent of their electricity from wind power. California, which was the focus of Jacobson's second single-state roadmap to renewables after New york,
The plan calls for no more than 0. 5 percent of any state's land to be covered in solar panels or wind turbines.
The inhomogeneous electromagnetic field of the control signal's optical mode transmits a dipole moment to the cantilever,
impacting the dipole at the same time so that the cantilever starts to oscillate. The sinusoidally modulated control signal makes the cantilever oscillate at an amplitude of up to 20 nanometers.
Because the changes of the electromagnetic field in such systems are measured in tens of nanometers, researchers use the term"nanophotonics"-so the prefix"nano"is used not here just as a fad!
#'Nano-raspberries'could bear fruit in fuel cells (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the National Institute of Standards
which offers high surface area for catalyzing reactions in fuel cells. Individual particles are 3-4 nm in diameter
Curtin/NIST)( click on image to enlarge) The research could help make fuel cells more practical.
Nanoparticles can act as catalysts to help convert methanol to electricity in fuel cells. NIST's 40-minute process for making nano-raspberries, described in a new paper,*has several advantages.
For fuel cells, nanoparticles often are mixed with solvents to bind them to an electrode. To learn how such formulas affect particle properties,
For applications such as liquid methanol fuel cells, catalyst particles should remain separated and dispersed in the liquid,
Metals conduct electricity and heat very well, and they're very robust. Therefore, 3d printing in metals would allow manufacturing of entirely new devices and components,
High energy In this study, the researchers used a surprisingly high laser energy in comparison to earlier work,
In previous attempts, physicists used low laser energies. This allowed them to print smaller drops,
They had predicted previously this speed for different laser energies and materials. This means that the results can be translated readily to other metals as well.
One remaining problem is that the high laser energy also results in droplets landing on the substrate next to the desired location.
While the APSS own synchrotron is a powerful source for high-energy x-ray beams, the APS will not conduct single-shot single-particle imaging studies,
so the energy enough to break up the nanotubes into ribbons, but the details of the dynamics are difficult to monitor,
which can easily create self-ordered arrays of sub-20 nm features through simple spin-coating and plasma treatments.
"In addition, he wrote a review paper regarding the nanotechnology-based electronic devices in the June online issue of Advanced Materials entitled"Performance Enhancement of Electronic and Energy Devices via Block copolymer Self-Assembly
#Hematite're-growth'smoothes rough edges for clean energy harvest (Nanowerk News) Finding an efficient solar water splitting method to mine electron-rich hydrogen for clean
But by'regrowing'the mineral's surface, a smoother version of hematite doubled electrical yield, opening a new door to energy harvesting artificial photosynthesis,
whose research focuses on discovering new methods to generate clean energy.''This unassisted water splitting, which is very rare,
when enough heat or other energy is applied, the forces that bond the atoms together cause the atoms to vibrate
and spread the energy throughout the material, akin to how the vibration of a violin's string resonates throughout the body of the violin when played.
take out or move energy around inside a material. In particular, finding effective ways to remove heat energy is vital to the continued miniaturization of electronics.
and measure how much energy the electrons have transferred to the vibrating atoms. But it's difficult.
"Unlike a violin that sounds at the lightest touch, according to Natterer, phonons have a characteristic threshold energy.
unless they get just the right amount of energy, such as that supplied by the electrons in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).
the unwanted signals also varied in energy, but the phonons remained fixed at their characteristic frequency.
ranging from the catalysts used for the generation of energy-dense fuels from sunlight and carbon dioxide, to how bridges and airplanes rust."
and causing atoms in the material to emit energy in the form of electrons rather than photons.
#New NMR tool helps scientists study elusive battery reaction (Nanowerk News) When working on a unique lithium-germanide battery with colleagues from the National University of Singapore,
scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory encountered a catch-22: They knew an exciting reaction was occurring inside the battery that increased its energy storage capacity dramatically
-but they could not observe the reaction. The researchers needed to understand the process, but taking the battery apart caused the reaction to stop.
PNNL scientist Jian Zhi Hu displays a tiny experimental battery mounted in NMR apparatus used to observe the chemical reaction inside.
To solve the problem, the PNNL scientists encapsulated the battery cell in a plastic holder to allow magnetic waves to penetrate it
and developed a powerful nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique to"see "and understand the electrochemical reactions taking place inside.
lithium-germanide battery and demonstrated how their unique NMR"camera"can be used to examine it
and gather data about reactions that can be observed only as they are happening inside a battery("Probing Lithium Germanide Phase Evolution and Structural Change in a Germanium-in-Carbon nanotube Energy storage system").
"Why It Matterslithium-ion batteries have many uses besides powering cell phones and laptops. Developing safer, more powerful cells with longer life is a worldwide challenge,
Germanium can take on more lithium during the reaction than other materials-making it a promising component for delivering higher battery capacity and superior discharge speeds,
but high battery performance resulting from its favorable uptake of lithium may be a factor in making lithium-germanide batteries attractive in the marketplace.
Scientists can create high-energy density batteries by using lithium with a number of different materials.
and reduce battery life and storage capacity. By using the NMR process to look inside the battery
and observe this reaction as it happened, the scientists found a way to protect the germanium from expanding
This technique significantly stabilizes battery performance. Without embedding germanium in carbon tubes, a battery performs well for a few charging-discharging cycles,
but fades rapidly after that. Using the"core-shell"structure, however, the battery can be discharged and charged thousands of times.
What's Next? Scientists are testing many different materials, including sulfur, cobalt, magnesium, manganese and others, to use with lithium in making batteries.
Many of these materials are potentially useful, but only those that are safe to use
The NMR technique used to enhance the performance of the lithium-germanide reaction may prove useful to scientists working on other types of batteries
"It's all about how to engineer the battery to make it safer and more powerful with a longer life,"said Jian Zhi Hu of PNNL, the lead NMR investigator and a collaborator in the project with Kian Ping Loh,
the leader of the team at the National University of Singapore where the battery was developed."
you have to understand the electrochemistry in the battery. Using NMR to understand hard-to-observe battery reaction phases is useful
when they exist only inside the battery. The procedure could lead to additional opportunities to collaborate with other researchers
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011