All materials are made up of atoms, which vibrate. These vibrations, or 'phonons', are responsible, for example, for how electric charge and heat is transported in materials. Vibrations of metals, semiconductors, and insulators ...
Nanophysics
Mar 9, 2016
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Stacking layers of nanometer-thin semiconducting materials at different angles is a new approach to designing the next generation of energy-efficient transistors and solar cells. The atoms in each layer are arranged in hexagonal ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 2, 2016
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23
A collaboration of scientists from the RIKEN SPring-8 Center, Osaka University, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute have published research clarifying the role of magnetism ...
Superconductivity
Jan 25, 2016
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Engines, laptops and power plants generate waste heat. Thermoelectric materials, which convert temperature gradients to electricity and vice versa, can recover some of that heat and improve energy efficiency. A team of scientists ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 19, 2015
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46
As you heat up a piece of iron, the arrangement of the iron atoms changes several times before melting. This unusual behavior is one reason why steel, in which iron plays a starring role, is so sturdy and ubiquitous in everything ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 13, 2015
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For more than 50 years, scientists have debated what turns particular oxide insulators, in which electrons barely move, into metals, in which electrons flow freely. Some scientists sided with Nobel Prize-winning physicist ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 10, 2014
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(Phys.org) —A team of researchers in the U.S. has added the ability to detect atomic lattice vibrations to a scanning tunneling electron microscope. In their paper describing their efforts, published in the journal Nature, ...
Natural gas (methane) can be converted into hydrogen (H2), which is used in clean energy, synthetic fertilizers, and many other chemicals. The reaction requires water and a nickel catalyst. Methane and water molecules attach ...
Materials Science
May 1, 2014
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3
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers working at China's University of Science and Technology has succeeded in developing a chemical mapping technique capable of revealing the constituent atoms of a single molecule. In their ...
Carbon nanotubes and magnetic molecules are considered building blocks of future nanoelectronic systems. Their electric and mechanical properties play an important role. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and ...
Nanophysics
Mar 15, 2013
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