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Category: materials – Page 115

MIT developed ML-tool for material prediction beats human wisdom

The tool uses first-principle calculations to arrive at material behavior in a few thousand steps rather than a million possibilities.

How well did the system perform?

The researchers have not yet put the system under extensive analysis but have seen some encouraging results in the limited cases so far.

For instance, when the framework was applied to a strontium titanium oxide or SrTiO3, perovskite material that has been studied using conventional methods for over three decades, the researchers found two new atomic configurations that have not been described before. Interestingly, one of the configurations identified earlier was deemed to be unstable by the framework.

Superconductors’ Secret: Old Physics Law Stands the Test of Time in Quantum Material Conundrum

This surprising result is important for understanding unconventional superconductors and other materials where electrons band together to act collectively.

Long before researchers discovered the electron and its role in generating electrical current, they knew about electricity and were exploring its potential. One thing they learned early on was that metals were great conductors of both electricity and heat.

Discovery of the Wiedemann-Franz Law.

New Era of Soft Robotics Inspired by Octopus-Like Sensory Capabilities

SUMMARY: A soft robot with octopus-inspired sensory and motion capabilities represents significant progress in robotics, offering nimbleness and adaptability in uncertain environments.

Robotic engineers have made a leap forward with the development of a soft robot that closely resembles the dynamic movements and sensory prowess of an octopus. This groundbreaking innovation from an international collaboration involving Beihang University, Tsinghua University, and the National University of Singapore has the potential to redefine how robots interact with the world around them.

The blueprint for this highly adaptable robot draws upon the intelligent, soft-bodied mechanics of an octopus, enabling smooth movements across a variety of surfaces and environments with precision. The sensorized soft arm, lovingly named the electronics-integrated soft octopus arm mimic (E-SOAM), embodies advancements in soft robotics with its incorporation of elastic materials and sophisticated liquid metal circuits that remain resilient under extreme deformation.

Meteorites likely source of nitrogen for early Earth, Ryugu samples study finds

Micrometeorites originating from icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system may be responsible for transporting nitrogen to the near-Earth region in the early days of our solar system. That discovery was published in Nature Astronomy by an international team of researchers, including University of Hawai’i at Mānoa scientists, led by Kyoto University.

Nitrogen compounds, such as ammonium salts, are abundant in material born in regions far from the sun, but evidence of their transport to Earth’s orbital region had been poorly understood.

“Our recent findings suggest the possibility that a greater amount of than previously recognized was transported near Earth, potentially serving as for life on our planet,” says Hope Ishii, study co-author and affiliate faculty at the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

Thought To Be Impossible — Scientists Uncover Hidden World Using Newly Found Properties of a Graphene-Like Material

A breakthrough in nanofluidics is set to revolutionize our grasp of molecular dynamics at minuscule scales. Collaborative efforts from scientists at EPFL and the University of Manchester have uncovered a previously hidden world by using the newly found fluorescent properties of a graphene-like 2D material, boron nitride. This innovative approach enables scientists to track individual molecules within nanofluidic structures, illuminating their behavior in ways never before possible. The study’s findings were recently published in the journal Nature Materials.

Nanofluidics, the study of fluids confined within ultra-small spaces, offers insights into the behavior of liquids on a nanometer scale. However, exploring the movement of individual molecules in such confined environments has been challenging due to the limitations of conventional microscopy techniques. This obstacle prevented real-time sensing and imaging, leaving significant gaps in our knowledge of molecular properties in confinement.

Why It’s Hard to Break Plastics

The crack resistance of polymer materials is explained by a new model that incorporates a network of stretchable polymer chains.

Plastics and other polymer materials are often very resistant to cracking—a fact that models have not been able to accurately capture. Now a research team has developed a model of polymer fracture that explains how these materials remain intact under intense stretching. [1]. The key to the model is that it accounts for polymer chains that extend deep within the material and that can share the strain that would break a material with more localized chains. The insights could lead to the development of new structures with an enhanced resistance to shocks.

Researchers typically study fracture by cutting a small notch or crack into a material and then pulling it apart. The amount of work required to enlarge the crack is called the fracture energy. For most materials, the fracture energy is equal to the energy it takes to break the molecular bonds located along the crack tip, where the enlargement occurs. For polymers, the situation is more complex, as the molecules are long chains. In the 1960s, theorists came up with a model of polymer fracture based on the rupture of individual chains at the crack tip [2]. “The problem is that this model underestimates by a factor of 10 to 100 the energy required to fracture a polymer material,” says Xuanhe Zhao from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.