Credit: ACS Applied Energy Materials
A new report by Skoltech scientists and their colleagues describes an organic material for the new generation of energy storage devices, which structure follows an elegant molecular design principle. It has recently been published in
ACS Applied Energy Materials and made the cover of the journal.
While the modern world relies on energy storage devices more and more heavily, it is becoming increasingly important to implement sustainable battery technologies that are friendlier to the environment, are easy to dispose, rely on abundant elements only, and are cheap. Organic batteries are desirable candidates for such purposes. However, organic cathode materials that store a lot of energy per mass unit can be charged quickly, are durable and can be easily produced on a large scale at the same time, remain underdeveloped.
Graphene is an ultrathin material characterized by its ultrasmall bending modulus, superflimsiness. Now the researchers at the Nanoscience Center of the University of Jyväskylä have demonstrated how an experimental technique called optical forging can make graphene ultrastiff, increase its stiffness by several orders of magnitude. The research was published in Nature Partner Journals in May 2021.
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IMAGE: A Rice University-led study finds a unique form of tunable and ultrastrong spin-spin interactions in orthoferrites under a strong magnetic field. The discovery has implications for quantum simulation and sensing.. view more
Credit: Illustration by Motoaki Bamba/Kyoto University
HOUSTON - (May 25, 2021) - Sometimes things are a little out of whack, and it turns out to be exactly what you need.
That was the case when orthoferrite crystals turned up at a Rice University laboratory slightly misaligned. Those crystals inadvertently became the basis of a discovery that should resonate with researchers studying spintronics-based quantum technology.
Rice physicist Junichiro Kono, alumnus Takuma Makihara and their collaborators found an orthoferrite material, in this case yttrium iron oxide, placed in a high magnetic field showed uniquely tunable, ultrastrong interactions between magnons in the crystal.
Scientists at Empa and EPFL have identified a new type of defect as the most common source of disorder in on-surface synthesized graphene nanoribbons, a novel class of carbon-based materials that may prove extremely useful in next-generation electronic devices. The researchers identified the atomic structure of these so-called bite defects and investigated their effect on quantum electronic transport. These kinds of defective zigzag-edged nanoribbons may provide suitable platforms for certain applications in spintronics.
A new semimetal has been found, showing remarkable properties: It is a quantum critical material, which means that it has phase transitions at absolute zero temperature. Usually, quantum criticality can only be created under very specific environmental conditions a certain pressure or an electromagnetic field. But the new material is quantum critical on its own.