Olympic figure skaters and electrons have a lot in common. In figure skating competitions, the “free skate” segment gives the skater the flexibility to travel in whichever pattern he or she chooses around the rink. Similarly, in metals, electrons in outer orbitals can wander fairly freely. However, when the magnetic field is increased dramatically, researchers have found…
Diamond Proves Useful Material for Growing Graphene
Graphene is the stuff of the future. For years, researchers and technologists have been predicting the utility of the one-atom-thick sheets of pure carbon in everything from advanced touch screens and semiconductors to long-lasting batteries and next-generation solar cells. But graphene‘s unique intrinsic properties – supreme electrical and thermal conductivities and remarkable electron mobility, to name…
Theorists Solve a Long-Standing Fundamental Problem
Artificial Leaf Transforms Carbon Dioxide into Fuel
As scientists and policymakers around the world try to combat the increasing rate of climate change, they have focused on the chief culprit: carbon dioxide. Produced by the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and car engines, carbon dioxide continues to accumulate in the atmosphere, warming the planet. But trees and other plants do…
Scientists Optimize Defects for Better Superconducting Effects
High-temperature superconducting materials hold enormous promise for a variety of different applications because of their ability to transmit a current without any dissipation at relatively high temperatures—up to around 90 Kelvin (about -300° F), which permits cooling with liquid nitrogen. However, this special ability decreases rapidly in the presence of a magnetic field, prohibiting their…