News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Computer simulations reveal new behavior of antiskyrmions in gradually increased electric currents.

A new study led by Tel Aviv University and MIT suggests that some properties of neutron stars may be influenced not only by their multitude of densely packed neutrons, but also by a substantially smaller fraction of protons. The finding may lead to a new understanding of how neutron stars behave.

Scientists have been playing with pure carbon compounds for centuries, starting with diamond and graphite and now with fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene. One type of 3D geometry has been missing, however: a negatively curved carbon-cage surface called schwarzite. UC Berkeley chemists have now shown that serendipitously produced materials called zeolite-templated carbons are in fact the long-sought schwarzites. Their recipe for making schwarzites could make them practical in electronics and gas storage.

A study exploring the coupling between heat and particle currents in a gas of strongly interacting atoms highlights the fundamental role of quantum correlations in transport phenomena, breaks the revered Wiedemann-Franz law, and should open up an experimental route to testing novel ideas for thermoelectric devices.

In a paper published online July 23 in the journal Nature, a UW-led research team reports that the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride can undergo 'ferroelectric switching.' Materials with ferroelectric properties can have applications in memory storage, capacitors, RFID card technologies and even medical sensors -- and tungsten ditelluride is the first exfoliated 2-D material known to undergo ferroelectric switching.

New discovery published in Science explains what happens during the phase transition in Dirac materials, paving the way for engineering advanced electronics that perform significantly faster.

Nanoribbons are promising topological materials displaying novel electronic properties. UC Berkeley chemists and physicists have found a way to join two different types of nanoribbon to create a topological insulator that confines single electrons to the junction between them. Alternating nanoribbon types create a chain of interacting electrons that act as metals, insulators or interacting spins - qubits for a quantum computer - depending on separation. This opens the door to designer materials with unique quantum properties.