When sunlight is absorbed in a solar cell, some of the energy that could be used is lost as heat. Because this complex loss process occurs in a fraction of a second, characterizing it has long been a challenge. For the first ...
General Physics
Jun 13, 2016
0
19
The outer planets of our solar system, Uranus and Neptune, are water-rich gas giants. These planets have extreme pressures 2 million times the Earth's atmosphere. They also have interiors as hot as the surface of the sun. ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 9, 2023
0
88
Quantum computers could tackle problems that current supercomputers can't. Quantum computers rely on quantum bits, or "qubits." Current computers perform millions of calculations, one after the other. Qubit coupling allows ...
Quantum Physics
Jun 19, 2018
0
67
Creating efficient, self-sustaining fusion power requires good confinement of the heat in the plasma. Plasma confinement is limited by particle and energy losses due to turbulence. A new analysis has used a powerful supercomputer ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 21, 2023
0
56
Inside a narrow glass tube sits a substance that can harm or cure, depending on how you use it. It gives off a faint blue glow, a sign of its radioactivity. While the energy and subatomic particles it emits can damage human ...
Materials Science
Jun 21, 2018
0
136
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, in collaboration with several partners, have discovered a less-expensive, more energy-efficient way to produce alane – aluminum trihydride – a hydrogen source ...
Materials Science
Sep 23, 2016
0
518
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by Arthur B. McDonald, the leader of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), and Takaaki Kajita, a leader of the Super-Kamiokande collaboration, "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, ...
General Physics
Dec 9, 2015
2
65
Bubbles in a glass of champagne, thin films rupturing into tiny droplets, and crashing ocean waves—scientists mathematically model these and other phenomena by solving the same series of equations. However, many computational ...
General Physics
Sep 5, 2016
0
27
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have discovered key conditions that give rise to fast magnetic reconnection, the process that triggers solar flares, auroras, ...
Plasma Physics
Mar 2, 2018
19
92
Does it conduct electricity? Or insulate against electricity? Physicists commonly classify material phases as one or the other. Machine learning is a powerful tool for pattern recognition and thus could help identify phases ...
General Physics
Jan 8, 2018
1
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