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Category: materials – Page 9

Scientists have used a pair of lasers and a supersonic sheet of gas to accelerate electrons to high energies in less than a foot. The development marks a major step forward in laser-plasma acceleration, a promising method for making compact, high-energy particle accelerators that could have applications in particle physics, medicine, and materials science.

In a new study soon to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters, a team of researchers successfully accelerated high-quality beams of electrons to more than 10 billion electronvolts (10 gigaelectronvolts, or GeV) in 30 centimeters. The preprint can be found in the online repository arXiv.

The work was led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), with collaborators at the University of Maryland. The research took place at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator Center (BELLA), which set a world record of 8-GeV electrons in 20 centimeters in 2019. The new experiment not only increases the , but also produces high-quality beam at this energy level for the first time, paving the way for future high-efficiency machines.

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A self-replicating machine is a type of autonomous robot that is capable of reproducing itself autonomously using raw materials found in the environment, thus exhibiting self-replication in a way analogous to that found in nature. Homer Jacobson, Edward F. Moore, Freeman Dyson, John von Neumann, Konrad Zuse and in more recent times by K. Eric Drexler in his book on nanotechnology, Engines of Creation (coining the term clanking replicator for such machines) and by Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle in their review Kinematic Self-Replicating Machinesmoons and asteroid belts for ore and other materials, the creation of lunar factories, and even the construction of solar power satellites in space. The von Neumann probeuniversal constructor, a self-replicating machine that would be able to evolve and which he formalized in a cellular automata environment. Notably, Von Neumann’s Self-Reproducing Automata scheme posited that open-ended evolution requires inherited information to be copied and passed to offspring separately from the self-replicating machine, an insight that preceded the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule by Watson and Crick and how it is separately translated and replicated in the cell.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine#:~:...n_probe_is, [ 9 ] A self-replicating machine is an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. The concept, first proposed by Von Neumann no later than the 1940s, has attracted a range of different approaches involving various types of technology. Certain idiosyncratic terms are occasionally found in the literature. For example, the term clanking replicator was once used by Drexler [ 10 ] to distinguish macroscale replicating systems from the microscopic nanorobots or “assemblers” that nanotechnology may make possible, but the term is informal and is rarely used by others in popular or technical discussions. Replicators have also been called “von Neumann machines” after John von Neumann, who first rigorously studied the idea.

The semiconductor industry’s long held imperative—Moore’s Law, which dictates that transistor densities on a chip should double roughly every two years—is getting more and more difficult to maintain. The ability to shrink down transistors, and the interconnects between them, is hitting some basic physical limitations. In particular, when copper interconnects are scaled down, their resistivity skyrockets, which decreases how much information they can carry and increases their energy draw.

The industry has been looking for alternative interconnect materials to prolong the march of Moore’s Law a bit longer. Graphene is a very attractive optionin many ways: The sheet-thin carbon material offers excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, and is stronger than diamond.

However, researchers have struggled to incorporate graphene into mainstream computing applications for two main reasons. First, depositing graphene requires high temperatures that are incompatible with traditional CMOS manufacturing. And second, the charge carrier density of undoped, macroscopic graphene sheets is relatively low.

Making smaller transistors, and the interconnections between them, is getting near impossible. Copper interconnects get more resistive as they are scaled down, making them worse and slower at carrying information. Startup Destination 2D thinks graphene is the solution. They have a novel technique of growing graphene that is CMOS compatible, promising 100x current density improvement over copper.

Continue reading “Graphene Interconnects to Moore’s Law’s Rescue” | >

A new study by Rice University physicist Qimiao Si unravels the enigmatic behaviors of quantum critical metals—materials that defy conventional physics at low temperatures. Published in Nature Physics Dec. 9, the research examines quantum critical points (QCPs), where materials teeter on the edge between two distinct phases, such as magnetism and nonmagnetism. The findings illuminate the peculiarities of these metals and provide a deeper understanding of high-temperature superconductors, which conduct electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures.

Key to this study is , a delicate state where the material becomes ultrasensitive to quantum fluctuations—microscopic disturbances that alter electron behavior. While ordinary metals obey well-established principles, quantum critical metals defy these norms, exhibiting strange and collective properties that have long puzzled scientists. Physicists call such systems “strange metals.”

“Our work dives into how quasiparticles lose their identity in strange metals at these quantum critical points, which leads to unique properties that defy traditional theories,” said Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy and director of Rice’s Extreme Quantum Materials Alliance.

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Intel Foundry has showcased “breakthrough” developments in the realm of transistor and packaging technologies, revealing material and silicon innovation.

Intel Foundry Showcases “Subtractive Ruthenium” & New Transistor Technologies To Ensure Node Scalability

[Press Release]: Today at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 2024, Intel Foundry unveiled breakthroughs to help drive the semiconductor industry forward into the next decade and beyond. Intel Foundry showcased new material advancements that help improve interconnections within a chip, resulting in up to 25% capacitance by using subtractive ruthenium.

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MXenes in grooved plastic create durable, heat-tolerant films that twist light beams.

A team of researchers at the University of Michigan employed MXenes, a type of ceramic-like material derived from industrial waste materials to develop heat-tolerant films capable of twisting light beams.

The MXenes were integrated into plastic sheets with microscopic grooves to create sturdy, heat-tolerant films capable of twisting light beams.

This innovation paves the way for imaging applications, such as capturing the hot turbulence of aircraft propulsion systems, helping aerospace engineers improve engine designs for better performance.

Continue reading “Ceramic-like material help craft heat-tolerant films from waste” | >

Ingestible devices are often used to study and treat hard-to-reach tissues in the body. Swallowed in pill form, these capsules can pass through the digestive tract, snapping photos or delivering drugs.

While in their simplest form, these devices are passively transported through the gut, there are a wide range of applications where you may want a device to attach to the tissue or other flexible materials. A rich history of biologically inspired solutions exist to address this need, ranging from cocklebur-inspired Velcro to slug-inspired medical adhesives, but the creation of on-demand and reversible attachment mechanisms that can be incorporated into millimeter-scale devices for biomedical sensing and diagnostics remains a challenge.

A new interdisciplinary effort led by Robert Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and James Weaver, of Harvard’s Wyss Institute, has drawn inspiration from an unexpected source: the world of parasites.

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Astronomers have used the unique capabilities of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to peer closer than ever into the throat of an energetic monster black hole powering a quasar. A quasar is a galactic center that glows brightly as the black hole consumes material in its immediate surroundings.

The new Hubble views of the environment around the quasar show a lot of “weird things,” according to Bin Ren of the Côte d’Azur Observatory and Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. “We’ve got a few blobs of different sizes, and a mysterious L-shaped filamentary structure. This is all within 16,000 light-years of the black hole.”

Some of the objects could be small satellite galaxies around the black hole, and so they could offer the materials that will accrete onto the central super massive black hole, powering the bright lighthouse.

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