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A University of Minnesota-led team has, for the first time, engineered an atomically thin material that can absorb nearly 100% of light at room temperature, a discovery that could improve a wide range of applications from optical communications to stealth technology. Their paper has been published in Nature Communications.

Materials that absorb nearly all of the incident light —meaning not a lot of light passes through or reflects off of them—are valuable for applications that involve detecting or controlling light.

“Optical communications are used in basically everything we do,” said Steven Koester, a professor in the College of Science and Engineering and a senior author of the paper. “The internet, for example, has optical detectors connecting fiber optic links. This research has the potential to allow these optical communications to be done at higher speeds and with greater efficiency.”

The fear of artificial intelligence is largely a Western phenomenon. It is virtually absent in Asia. In contrast, East Asia sees AI as an invaluable tool to relieve humans of tedious, repetitive tasks and to deal with the problems of aging societies. AI brings productivity gains comparable to the ICT (information and communications technology) revolution of the late 20th century.

China is using AI as an integral part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which brings together different “Industry 4.0” technologies – high-speed (fifth-generation) communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, etc. Chinese ports unload container ships in 45 minutes, a task that can take up to a week in other countries.

Today’s fear of AI has many parallels to the fear of machines at the end of the 19th century. French textile workers, fearing mechanical weaving would endanger their jobs and devalue their craft, threw their “sabots” (clogs) into weaving machines to render them inoperable. They gave us the word sabotage.

The next generation of 2D semiconductor materials doesn’t like what it sees when it looks in the mirror. Current synthesizing approaches to make single-layer nanosheets of semiconducting material for atomically thin electronics develop a peculiar “mirror twin” defect when the material is deposited on single-crystal substrates like sapphire. The synthesized nanosheet contains grain boundaries that act as a mirror, with the arrangement of atoms on each side organized in reflected opposition to one another.

This is a problem, according to researchers from the Penn State’s Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium-Materials Innovation Platform (2DCC-MIP) and their collaborators. Electrons scatter when they hit the boundary, reducing the performance of devices like transistors. This is a bottleneck, the researchers said, for the advancement of next-generation electronics for applications such as Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. But now, the research team may have come up with a solution to correct this defect. They have published their work in Nature Nanotechnology.

This study could have a significant impact on semiconductor research by enabling other researchers to reduce mirror twin defects, according to lead author Joan Redwing, director of 2DCC-MIP, especially as the field has increased attention and funding from the CHIPS and Science Act approved last year. The legislation’s authorization increased funding and other resources to boost America’s efforts to onshore the production and development of semiconductor technology.

SpaceX set a new record and did a launch at the same tower only 3 days, 22 hours, and 33 minutes after the last launch there. And this was after the launch was rescheduled due to bad weather.

If SpaceX could maintain a pace of once every 4 days for all 3 towers, they would be doing about 274 launches/year! While they clearly won’t launch that fast in the near future, they are gaining steam. And they are working on activating a fourth tower!

Continue reading “Starlink-96 (6-8) Mission (Falcon 9)” »

A number of military leaders around the world have expressed concerns to US officials over the dominance and control of SpaceX founder Elon Musk over satellite internet, according to a new report.

Over the past decade Musk’s SpaceX has changed the launch industry with its reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The company has pressed this advantage to establish itself as the leading player in satellite internet through Starlink.

Scientists have discovered a new way to accomplish fast data transmissions through light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs.

While research has progressed in significantly optimizing light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the modulation characteristics of perovskite LEDs remain unclear.

In recent developments, scientists have discovered a new way to transmit data quickly through LEDs. This could allow homes and offices to use the fast internet through lights instead of setting up a wifi router.

Perovskite-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) could be the key to developing internet bandwidths orders of magnitude faster than what is now available, while also keeping energy consumption and cost down, researchers have claimed. Other potential applications lie in laser technology.

Perovskite is a natural mineral first identified in Russia’s Ural Mountains in 1,839 and composed primarily of calcium, titanium, and oxygen – all in the 10 most common elements in the Earth’s crust. The mineral gave its name to a class of materials based on the same elements but doped with small quantities of others. For almost the first two centuries after their discovery, these perovskites were largely a curiosity of interest only to chemists.

More recently, however, the ability of perovskites to display different electrical properties depending on the atoms with which they are doped has turned them into a wonder material. Perovskites now represent one of the most efficient ways to trap energy from sunlight and are continuing to improve at unprecedented rates. Moreover, perovskites have the potential to be manufactured far more cheaply than traditional silicon-based solar cells, while a layer of perovskite over a silicon base could capture more light than either on their own.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully placed the commercial communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit, adding 500 gigabits per second capacity to the network’s services.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket has successfully placed in geosynchronous orbit the world’s heaviest commercial communications satellite, Jupiter-3, Space News.

SpaceX

Continue reading “Jupiter-3: World’s heaviest communication satellite is now in orbit” »

This is older but this is just the tip of the iceberg. China is rumored to be working on genetic engineering to create “super soldiers” and they’re one country that isn’t stopped by ethics concerns. In the Prime TV series “The peripheral” it has something similar and I don’t want to spoil it beyond that. I think there’s a Vin Diesel movie called Blood Shot where he’s made into a super soldier. It’s a shame that this is used for warfare but the plus side is it’ll, some of the tech, will make its way down to civilian life such as the Internet did.