Memristor – An Electrical Device with MemoryPublished on Feb 10, 2017 X-ray imaging shows how memristors work at an atomic scale. Image credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory A tiny device called a memristor holds great promise for a new era of electronics. Unlike a conventional resistor, its resistance can be reset, and it remembers its resistance. It functions in a way that is similar to synapses in the human brain, where neurons pass and receive information. A memristor is a two-terminal device whose resistance depends on the voltages applied to it in the past. When the voltage is turned off, the resistance remains or remembers where it was previously. This little device actually learns. A commercially viable memristor could enable us to move away from flash memory and silicon-based computing to smart energy-efficient computers that operate similarly to the human brain, with the capability to comprehend speech and images, and with highly advanced memory retention. Read more... |
Migliori’s MysteriesPublished on Jan 12, 2017 Image credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory Condensed matter physicist Albert Migliori has been solving scientific mysteries for national security throughout his career. Migliori is a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) fellow, the Director of the Seaborg Institute for Actinide Science, and a member of the Science Advisory Council at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. He is best known for leading development of a technique called resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS), a powerful tool that uses acoustic tones to determine important measurements in condensed matter physics, including superconductivity. Read more... |
Green Energy from the Blue OceanPublished on Dec 13, 2016 Image Credit: DOE Water Power Program Movements of waves, tides, and currents in the ocean carry kinetic energy that can be harnessed and converted to electricity. There is vast potential for using this ocean resource to provide clean, renewable energy to communities and cities in coastal areas, and it could impact the nearly half of the U.S. population that lives within 50 miles of the coastlines. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Program supports the design, development, testing, and demonstration of marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies that can capture energy from waves, tides, and currents. This program also funds the creation of instrumentation, modeling, and simulation tools to enable real-condition testing of technologies. DOE recently announced $20 million in funding for projects that advance and monitor marine and hydrokinetic energy systems and will contribute to the development of a commercially viable MHK industry. Read more... |
Promising PerovskitesPublished on Nov 08, 2016 David Mandrus shows a model of the perovskite crystal structure. Image Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory An exciting race is underway in the field of solar energy to develop a commercially viable material for solar cells to capture the sun’s rays and produce cheap, abundant solar energy for the planet. A class of materials called perovskites has recently emerged that researchers believe promises to be the winner in this solar energy race. According to scientists at Ames Laboratory, perovskites are, “optically active, semiconducting compounds that are known to display intriguing electronic, light-emitting and chemical properties,” with lead-halide perovskites now one of the most favorable semiconductors for solar cells because of their, “low cost, easier processability and high power conversion efficiencies.” Perovskite materials are now considered to be the future of solar cells and are playing a role in next-generation electric batteries, sensors, lasers, fuel cells, memory devices, spintronics, and other applications. Read more... |
Tiny but Mighty Quantum DotsPublished on Oct 12, 2016 Image credit: National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Nicholas Brawand Quantum dots are tiny particles of semiconductor materials that are only a few nanometers in size. These tiny but mighty particles have immense potential because of their flexibility and highly tunable properties. Since they are so small, their optical and electronic properties behave quite differently from those of larger particles. They obey quantum-mechanics laws. They can be synthesized on-demand with nearly atomic precision. They emit extremely pure light that differs in color, depending on their size. They can be suspended in solutions, embedded into materials, and used to seek out cancer cells and deliver treatments. They can accept photons and convert them into electricity at substantial rates and they are exceptionally energy efficient. Quantum dots research holds great promise to improve our lives. Read more... |
Brady Hot Springs – A Geothermal Success StoryPublished on Sep 09, 2016 Fumaroles at Brady Hot Springs, Nevada. Image credit: DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Photo by Dante Fratta In the 1800s, the Brady Hot Springs geothermal fields were known as the “Springs of False Hope.” As pioneer wagon trains traveled across the northern Nevada desert on their way to California, their thirsty animals rushed to the springs only to find scalding 180° water and bare land. Additionally, the water was loaded with sodium chloride and boric acid. Read more... |
Incredible Laser InterferometersPublished on Aug 12, 2016 Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, LA. Image credit: LIGO Laboratory Interferometers are investigative tools used in many fields in science and engineering. They work by merging two or more sources of light or other waves to create an interference pattern, which can be precisely measured and analyzed. Interferometers are making possible significant advances in scientific research. One of these advances is in astronomy, where laser interferometers are opening a new era in the exploration of the universe. In 1972, a young Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor, Rainer Weiss, drew up a teaching exercise using a basic concept for an interferometer to detect gravitational waves. This work later became the blueprint for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a national facility for gravitational wave research. LIGO is funded by the National Science Foundation and other public and private institutions. Read more... |
The Soliton: A Solitary Wave that Retains Its Identity over DistancePublished on Jul 13, 2016 Two solitons in the same medium. Image credit: Mathematics and Statistics at ScholarWorks @UMass Amherst (Open Access) In 1834, naval engineer John Scott Russell was riding his horse along the Union Canal in the Scottish countryside when he made a mathematical discovery. As he subsequently described it in his “Report on Waves,” presented at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1844, Russell noticed a boat had stopped abruptly in the canal leaving the water in a state of violent agitation. A large solitary wave emerged from the front of the boat and rolled forward at about eight miles per hour without changing its shape or speed. He continued on his horse to follow the wave down the canal for nearly two miles until the wave became lost in the winding channel. Russell called this beautiful phenomenon the “wave of translation,” and it has become known as a solitary wave, or soliton. Read more... |
James Van Allen – Space PioneerPublished on Jun 10, 2016 James Van Allen’s space instrumentation innovations and his advocacy for Earth satellite planetary missions ensured his place among the early leaders of space exploration. After World War II, Van Allen begin his atmospheric research at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. He went on to become the Regent Distinguished Professor and head of the University of Iowa (UI) Department of Physics and Astronomy. Drawing on his many talents, Van Allen made tremendous contributions to the field of planetary science throughout his career. Van Allen used V-2 and Aerobee rockets to conduct high-altitude experiments, but the lift was limited. He devised a ‘rockoon,’ a rocket lifted by hot air balloons into the upper atmosphere where it was separated from the balloons and ignited to conduct cosmic-ray experiments. The rockoon, shown with Van Allen in the image above, achieved a higher altitude at a lower cost than ground-launched rockets. This research helped determine that energetic charged particles from the magnetosphere are a prime driver of auroras. Read more... |
Thorium – An Element with PromisePublished on May 09, 2016 Thorium (232Th), the chemical element named after the Norse god of thunder, has a history that is as colorful as its namesake. Although discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, thorium had no known useful applications until 1885, when it was used in gas mantles to light up the streets across Europe and North America. Then in 1898, physicist Marie Curie and chemist Gerhard Schmidt observed thorium to be radioactive, and subsequent applications for thorium declined due to safety and environmental concerns. The scientific community would later find that the element thorium held promise for the planet to have clean, safe, cheap, and plentiful nuclear power as an alternative fuel to plutonium-based nuclear power plants. Read more... |
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