Research & Development World

By Karen McNulty Walsh The search is on to discover new states of matter, and possibly new ways of encoding, manipulating and transporting information. One goal is to harness materials’ quantum properties for communications that go beyond what’s possible with conventional electronics. Topological insulators — materials that act mostly as insulators but carry electric current…

by Avery Luedtke, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, MilliporeSigma, 6000 N. Teutonia Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53209 Perovskite Solar Cells Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are photovoltaic (PV) devices containing a light-absorbing layer that has the general formula AMX3,[1] and a crystal structure similar to the mineral perovskite (CaTiO3). The advantageous electronic and optical properties of perovskites have contributed…

Thermo Fisher Scientific today announced new collaborations of the Thermo Fisher Precision Medicine Science Center (PMSC) with AstraZeneca and the University of Nebraska Medical Center as part of its ongoing development of innovative solutions for unmet needs in clinical biomarker discovery. The new alliances strengthen the PMSC’s mission of creating standardized workflows with pharma and…

By varying the energy and dose of tightly focused electron beams, researchers have demonstrated the ability to both etch away and deposit high-resolution nanoscale patterns on two-dimensional layers of graphene oxide. The 3D additive/subtractive “sculpting” can be done without changing the chemistry of the electron beam deposition chamber, providing the foundation for building a new…

By Karen K Dunlap Prometheus Fuels has licensed an ethanol-to-jet-fuel conversion process developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ORNL technology will enable cost-competitive production of jet fuel and co-production of butadiene for use in renewable polymer synthesis. The mission of Prometheus Fuels, a startup based in Santa Cruz,…

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the potential to be much less expensive and more efficient for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis and fuel cells. At their most fundamental, these industry processes involve splitting strong chemical bonds, like…

By varying the energy and dose of tightly focused electron beams, researchers have demonstrated the ability to both etch away and deposit high-resolution nanoscale patterns on two-dimensional layers of graphene oxide. The 3D additive/subtractive “sculpting” can be done without changing the chemistry of the electron beam deposition chamber, providing the foundation for building a new…

By Theresa Duque A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has demonstrated a powerful new technique that uses light to measure how electrons move and interact within materials. With this technique, the researchers observed exotic states of matter in stacks of atomically thin…

Crews at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have taken the first 3,200-megapixel digital photos – the largest ever taken in a single shot – with an extraordinary array of imaging sensors that will become the heart and soul of the future camera of Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The images are so large that…