http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. One of the most promising new kinds of battery to power electric cars is called a lithium-air battery, which could store up to four times as much energy per pound as today's best lithium-ion batteries. But progress has been slow: The nature of the electrochemical reactions as these batteries are charged remains poorly understood. http://phys.org/news287650555.html Nanotechnology Mon, 13 May 2013 08:30:03 EST news287650555 The latest research from a Kansas State University chemical engineer may help improve humidity and pressure sensors, particularly those used in outer space. http://phys.org/news287237867.html Nanotechnology Wed, 08 May 2013 13:18:00 EST news287237867 Electron transport through a single molecule offers a highly promising new technology for the production of electronic chips. However it is difficult to make a good conducting connection between the molecule and the metal contacts. Researchers from the FOM Foundation, Delft University of Technology and Leiden University have discovered an effect that plays a major role in this: the so-called 'image-charges' in the metal contacts strongly influence the electron transport through the molecule. The molecular conduction can differ by several orders of magnitude as a result of this. http://phys.org/news283423485.html Nanotechnology Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:44:52 EST news283423485 For almost 30 years, researchers have sought to identify a particular enzyme that is involved in regulating electron transport during photosynthesis. A team at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich has now found the missing link, which turns out to be an old acquaintance. http://phys.org/news276520071.html Biology Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:08:04 EST news276520071 The immune system generates antibodies to mark threats that need to be eliminated, and these protein complexes bind their targets with remarkable strength and selectivity. Scientists have learned how to generate cell lines that can produce large quantities of specific 'monoclonal' antibodies (mAbs) with desirable properties; these mAbs are powerful tools for diagnostics, medicine and biological research. http://phys.org/news276337487.html Biology Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:50:02 EST news276337487 The field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass. http://phys.org/news275067628.html Physics Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:40:40 EST news275067628 A team of physicists from Europe and South Africa showed that electrons moving randomly in graphene can mimic the dynamics of particles such as cosmic rays, despite travelling at a fraction of their speed, in a paper about to be published in the European Physical Journal B. http://phys.org/news270930710.html Nanotechnology Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:31:57 EST news270930710 (Phys.org) -- Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered a mechanism that controls the way that organisms breathe or photosynthesise, potentially paving the way for improved biofuel production. http://phys.org/news259856635.html Biology Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:30:03 EST news259856635 A synthetic compound long known to exhibit interesting transition properties may hold the key to new, non-magnetic forms of information storage, say researchers at the RIKEN SPring-8 Center and their collaborators. The team's latest findings shed light on the complex relationship between a compound's electron spin arrangement and its transport properties, an area researchers have long struggled to understand. http://phys.org/news258282309.html Physics Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:05:16 EST news258282309 (Phys.org) -- While quantum dot-based light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) are not made of organic materials, they share many of the same advantages as organic LEDs (OLEDs). For instance, both QLEDs and OLEDs outshine semiconductor-based LEDs in terms of their greater flexibility, better color quality, and potential for lower cost since they can be fabricated using a simple process on a large-area substrate. But ever since the first QLEDs were demonstrated in the mid-'90s, about a decade after OLEDs, their performance has lagged behind OLEDs despite ongoing improvements. Now in a new study, a team of researchers from South Korea has designed and demonstrated QLEDs with an improved efficiency and unprecedented brightness that matches the brightness of today's best fluorescent OLEDs. http://phys.org/news254123413.html Nanotechnology Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:51:14 EST news254123413 Physicists have recently devised a new method for handling the effect of the interplay between vibrations and electrons on electronic transport. Their paper is about to be published in the European Physical Journal B. This study, led by scientists from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, and the Centre for Computational Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore, could have implications for quantum computers due to improvements in the transport of discrete amounts of information, known as qubits, that are encoded in electrons. http://phys.org/news252667104.html Physics Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:18:30 EST news252667104 The Graphene Research Group at Toyohashi University of Technology (Japan) reports on the synthesis of graphene by reducing graphene oxide using microorganisms extracted from a local river. http://phys.org/news251617803.html Nanotechnology Thu, 22 Mar 2012 06:50:26 EST news251617803 Physicists at the University of New South Wales have observed a new kind of interaction that can arise between electrons in a single-atom silicon transistor. http://phys.org/news246546766.html Physics Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:12:53 EST news246546766 The discovery of a fundamental, previously unknown property of microbial nanowires in the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens that allows electron transport across long distances could revolutionize nanotechnology and bioelectronics, says a team of physicists and microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. http://phys.org/news231943377.html Nanotechnology Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:43:29 EST news231943377 Precise ordering in two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) superlattices formed by the self-assembly of individual nanocrystals (NCs) allows for control of the magnetic, optical, and electronic coupling between the individual NCs. This control can lead to useful collective properties such as vibrational coherence, reversible metal-to-insulator transitions, enhanced conductivity, spin-dependent electron transport, enhanced ferro- and ferrimagnetism, tunable magnetotransport, and efficient charge transport. These properties have many potential applications in solar cells, field-effect transistors, light-emitting devices, photodetectors, and photoconductors. http://phys.org/news217091715.html Nanotechnology Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:15:32 EST news217091715 (PhysOrg.com) -- Some bacteria grow electrical hair that lets them link up in big biological circuits, according to a University of Southern California biophysicist and his collaborators. http://phys.org/news206034371.html Nanotechnology Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:47:13 EST news206034371 Knowing an organism's metabolism can give scientists essential insights into how the organism uses its resources. These insights can then enable them to tweak the metabolism to enhance the microbe's use of these resources in beneficial ways, such as to reduce contamination in soil or to produce biofuels or other desirable chemicals efficiently. http://phys.org/news202574236.html Biology Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:37:48 EST news202574236 Using large-scale supercomputer calculations, researchers have analyzed how the placement of metallic contacts on graphene changes the electron transport properties of the material as a factor of junction length, width and orientation. The work is believed to be the first quantitative study of electron transport through metal-graphene junctions to examine earlier models in significant detail. http://phys.org/news186226770.html Nanotechnology Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:40:02 EST news186226770 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Graphene has been the subject of intense focus and research for a few years now," Philip Kim tells PhysOrg.com. "There are researchers that feel that it is possible that graphene could replace silicon as a semiconductor in electronics." http://phys.org/news185701353.html Nanotechnology Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:30:01 EST news185701353 Northwestern University researchers have developed compact, mid-infrared laser diodes that generate more light than heat - a breakthroughs in quantum cascade laser efficiency. http://phys.org/news182452533.html Physics Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:16:16 EST news182452533 Since its discovery just a few years ago, graphene has climbed to the top of the heap of new super-materials poised to transform the electronics and nanotechnology landscape. As N.J. Tao, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University explains, this two dimensional honeycomb structure of carbon atoms is exceptionally strong and versatile. Its unusual properties make it ideal for applications that are pushing the existing limits of microchips, chemical sensing instruments, biosensors, ultracapacitance devices, flexible displays and other innovations. http://phys.org/news166357423.html Nanotechnology Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:10:01 EST news166357423 A protein called STAT3 has been found to play a fundamental role in converting normal cells to cancerous cells, according to a new study led by David E. Levy, Ph.D., professor of pathology and microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center. http://phys.org/news165159246.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:10:03 EST news165159246 (PhysOrg.com) -- By integrating a solid-state electron emitter and a microcavity plasma device, researchers at the University of Illinois have created a plasma transistor that could be used to make lighter, less expensive and higher resolution flat-panel displays. http://phys.org/news152973325.html Physics Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:36:20 EST news152973325