Lifeboat Foundation

Great writeup and goes well with the other posting on DiAmanti’s new perfected synthetic diamonds.

Scientists in Japan have successfully recorded the atomic bonds between diamond and cubic boron nitride: the hardest known materials on earth. This feat could ultimately lead to the design of new types of semiconductors.

Diamond is the hardest material in existence but is useless for cutting steel because it reacts with iron, from which steel is made, at high temperatures. Cubic boron nitride, a synthetic material, is the second hardest substance after diamond but is chemically stable against iron at high temperatures. If desirable composites of diamond and cubic boron nitride crystals could be obtained, a unique machining tool could be developed for work on hard rock and substances that contain iron. Also, a better understanding of the bonds formed between these two unique semiconducting materials could lead to the development of new types of semiconductors. The nature of these bonds was previously unknown.

Continue reading “Map of diamond-boron bond paves way for new materials” »

The newest material of modern art? Bone.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found a new way of generating light and other electromagnetic radiation, using a sheet of graphene, a pure two-dimensional form of carbon.

In experiments at two Department of Energy national labs – SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – scientists at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have experimentally confirmed critical aspects of how a new type of microelectronic device, the memristor, works at an atomic scale.

This result is an important step in designing these solid-state devices for use in future computer memories that operate much faster, last longer and use less energy than today’s flash memory. The results were published in February in Advanced Materials.

“We need information like this to be able to design memristors that will succeed commercially,” said Suhas Kumar, an HPE scientist and first author on the group’s technical paper.

Continue reading “X-ray Experiments Show Hewlett Packard Team How Memristors Work” »

Originally published on Gas2.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) says it has created a new material that is ten times stronger than steel but 5 times lighter than aluminum. Think about that for a minute. Assuming those claims can be verified, and also assuming the material is not otherworldly expensive, it may take the place of carbon fiber the way Saran Wrap displaced waxed paper.

Continue reading “Hyperloop Company Claims New Material Is 10X Stronger Than Steel, 5X Lighter Than Aluminum” »

More news on ORNL’s efforts around magnetic excitations in the metallic compound ytterbium-platinum-lead (Yb2Pt2Pb).

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their collaborators used neutron scattering to uncover magnetic excitations in the metallic compound ytterbium-platinum-lead (Yb2Pt2Pb). Surprisingly, this three-dimensional material exhibits magnetic properties that one would conventionally expect if the connectivity between magnetic ions was only one-dimensional. Their research is discussed in a paper published in the journal Science.

An electron can theoretically be understood as a bound state of three quasiparticles, which collectively carry its identity: spin, charge and orbit. It has been known that the spinon, the entity that carries information about electron spin, can “separate” itself from the others under certain conditions in one-dimensional chains of magnetic ions such as copper (Cu2+) in an insulating host. Now, the new study reveals that spinons are also present in metallic Yb2Pt2Pb.

Continue reading “Neutrons reveal unexpected magnetism in rare-earth alloy” »

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has improved Graphene’s bandgap.

New doping method makes graphene with low defects, high stability and a tunable bandgap.

The fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant is one of the cornerstones of physics, but scientists from the Philippines were able to add a twist to this tenet. And I mean it literally!

By changing how some light beams rotate, the researchers from the National Institute of Physics were able to slow down light in a vacuum. The physicists used circularly symmetric light beams, known as Laguerre-Gauss beams, to change the way light twists around itself. Suddenly, the light beams were propagating more slowly.

The speed of light varies when it moves through different materials, and it does so at the expense of accuracy in transmitting information. For this reason, more and more people are interested in ways of manipulating the speed of light without affecting accuracy.

Continue reading “Physicists Manage To Slow Down Light In A Vacuum” »

By NASA.

The iconic scene in the movie Terminator where T-1000 robot heals itself of the bullet holes has now become a technological reality.