Imagine trying to use a computer that looks and acts like no computer you’ve ever seen. There is no keyboard. There is no screen. Code designed for a normal computer is useless. The components don’t even follow the laws of classical physics. This is the kind of conundrum scientists are facing as they develop quantum…
Sniffing Out Ways to Make Better Sensors
The human nose can distinguish among a trillion different combinations of smells. Even so, there are plenty of gases that our noses can’t detect at the level of sensitivity we need. That’s where gaseous sensors come in. While some of the first sensors were animals — like canaries in coal mines — we’ve since replaced…
I Now Pronounce You Buckyball and Graphene
Scientists combined buckyballs, which resemble tiny soccer balls made from 60 carbon atoms, with graphene, a single layer of carbon, on an underlying surface. Positive and negative charges can transfer between the balls and graphene depending on the nature of the surface as well as the structural order and local orientation of the carbon ball.…
A Two-for-One Nanoplatelet Deal
Ultrapowerful computers and sensors need entangled packets of light. Entangled means the packets, or photons, can be in one of two states but are not meaningfully assigned to either state. Scientists found a way to create entangled photons with biexcitons. A biexciton is two pairs of bound electrons and holes. The team showed that ultrathin,…
Under Pressure, Graphene Flexes Its Muscles
Gas pressure was applied to a crumpled graphene membrane to cause it to bulge and stiffen. The result? The gas pressure revealed that this atomically thin carbon material — universally assumed to be strong and stiff — has a “softer side.” The greater than expected reduction of rigidity with increased crumpling caused researchers to refine…
Twisting Molecule Squeezes More Power from Solar Cells
Inside a solar cell, sunlight excites electrons. But these electrons often don’t last long enough to go on to power cell phones or warm homes. In a promising new type of solar cell, the solar-excited electrons have better odds going on to work. Why? Scientists revealed the dominant force behind the higher efficiency of these…
Spin-Polarized Surface States in Superconductors
When it comes to entirely new, faster, more powerful computers, Majorana fermions may be the answer. These hypothetical particles can do a better job than conventional quantum bits (qubits) of light or matter. Why? Because of the spooky way Majorana fermions interact with each other at a distance. When two fermions interact, they usually dissipate…
“Swimming” Particles Lead the Way to Self-Healing, Shape-Changing
“Living” liquid crystals combine the properties of human-made liquid crystals with features of swimming bacteria. Scientists built an accurate model of how the crystals control the motion, transport and position of swimming bacteria. The model can also simulate how other particles behave in the living crystal. Now, scientists can combine the model with on-demand synthesis…
Nanoimprinting Imaging Probes onto the Tip of Glass Fiber
Combining speed with incredible precision, a team of Molecular Foundry scientists and industry users developed a way to print extremely small devices on the tip of a glass fiber as thin as a human hair. These tiny devices precisely squeeze and manipulate light in ways that are unachievable by conventional optics. The team’s approach, called…
Light Plus Gold Equals Energy Breakthrough
Using light to sculpt tiny crystals able to do big jobs has garnered attention in the scientific community since scientists used such a process to create silver prisms in 2001. However, scientists have been unable to apply the process to gold—until now. A recent study describes a strategy that enables synthesis of desirable gold crystals…