Lifeboat Foundation

Diamond has long been the go-to material for quantum sensing due to its coherent nitrogen-vacancy centers, controllable spin, sensitivity to magnetic fields, and ability to be used at room temperature. With such a suitable material so easy to fabricate and scale, there’s been little interest in exploring diamond alternatives.

But this GOAT of the quantum world has one Achilles Heel—It’s too big. Just as an NFL linebacker is not the best sportsperson to ride in the Kentucky Derby, diamond is not an ideal material when exploring quantum sensors and information processing. When diamonds get too small, the super-stable defect it’s renowned for begins to crumble. There is a limit at which diamond becomes useless.

HBN has previously been overlooked as a quantum sensor and a platform for quantum information processing. This changed recently when a number of new defects were discovered that are shaping up to be compelling competitors to diamond’s nitrogen vacancy centers.

The simplicity of the approach stumped even reviewers of the journal Nature and needed further proof to be believed.

Researchers at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at Wuhan University in China have achieved a significant ‘breakthrough’ in materials science that allows alloys to be made from a diverse range of metals and at much lower temperatures than conventional methods, the South China Morning Post.

Since the Bronze Age, alloys have contributed to the advancement of our civilization. Modern-day applications of alloys involve creating and manufacturing high-entropy alloys (HEAs) composed of five or more metallic elements.

Cambridge scientists have developed a new prototype for computer memory that could make for faster chips that could hold up to 100 times more data. The system is made up of barium bridges between films of a disordered material.

As powerful as current computer technology can be, there are a few hard limits to it. Data is encoded into just two states – one or zero. And this data is stored and processed in different parts of a computer system, so it needs to be shuttled back and forth, which consumes energy and time.

But an emerging form of computer memory, known as resistive switching memory, is designed to be far more efficient. Rather than flipping a bit of information into one of two possible states, this new kind of memory can create a continuous range of states. This is done by applying an electrical current to certain types of materials, which causes their electrical resistance to become either stronger or weaker. A broad spectrum of these slight differences in electrical resistance creates a series of possible states to store data.

Overlapping lattices and innovative techniques have unlocked the secrets of bosonic materials, opening doors to unprecedented possibilities in condensed matter physics.

Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have unlocked the secrets of an extraordinary material made of bosons. Traditionally, the scientific community has focused on understanding the behavior of fermions, the subatomic particles responsible for the stability and interaction of matter. However, this recent breakthrough explores the unique properties of bosons, shedding light on a less explored realm of particle physics.

By overlapping lattices of tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide in a twisted configuration known as a moiré… More.

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A team of chemists from MIT and Duke University has discovered a counterintuitive way to make polymers stronger: introduce a few weaker bonds into the material.

Working with a type of polymer known as polyacrylate elastomers, the researchers found that they could increase the materials’ resistance to tearing up to tenfold, simply by using a weaker type of crosslinker to join some of the polymer building blocks.

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MIT engineers have synthesized a superabsorbent material that can soak up a record amount of moisture from the air, even in desert-like conditions.

As the material absorbs water vapor, it can swell to make room for more moisture. Even in very dry conditions, with 30 percent relative humidity, the material can pull vapor from the air and hold in the moisture without leaking. The water could then be heated and condensed, then collected as ultrapure water.

The transparent, rubbery material is made from hydrogel, a naturally absorbent material that is also used in disposable diapers. The team enhanced the hydrogel’s absorbency by infusing it with lithium chloride — a type of salt that is known to be a powerful dessicant.

MIT researchers have found a new mechanism by which the superconductor iron selenide transitions into a superconducting state. Unlike other iron-based superconductors, iron selenide’s transition involves a collective shift in atoms’ orbital energy, not atomic spins. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for discovering unconventional superconductors.

Under certain conditions — usually exceedingly cold ones — some materials shift their structure to unlock new, superconducting behavior. This structural shift is known as a “nematic transition,” and physicists suspect that it offers a new way to drive materials into a superconducting state where electrons can flow entirely friction-free.

But what exactly drives this transition in the first place? The answer could help scientists improve existing superconductors and discover new ones.

Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr. Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar material in a nearby star-forming region. The research is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

High amounts of tryptophan were detected in the Perseus molecular complex, specifically in the IC348 star system, a star-forming region that lies 1,000 light years away from Earth—relatively close in astronomical terms. The region is generally invisible to the naked eye, but shines brightly when viewed in infrared wavelengths.

Tryptophan is one of the 20 amino acids essential for the formation of key proteins for life on Earth, and produces one of the richest pattern of spectral lines in the infrared. It was therefore an obvious candidate to be explored using the extensive spectroscopic database of the Spitzer satellite, a space-based infrared telescope.

Architecture studio Snøhetta has released photos showing how its underwater restaurant, Under, has become covered in marine life since reaching completion in Norway three years ago.

Located in the remote Lindesnes area, the 495-square-metre structure is submerged off of a craggy shoreline and now doubles as an artificial reef.

The Norwegian studio designed Under as a concrete tube that is intended to resemble a sunken periscope. The concrete was left exposed externally, forming a rough finish onto which algae and molluscs can latch.