News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Semiconductors convert energy from photons into an electron current. However, some photons carry too much energy for the material to absorb. These photons produce 'hot electrons', and the excess energy of these electrons is converted into heat. Materials scientists have been looking for ways to harvest this excess energy. Scientists from the University of Groningen and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) have now shown that this may be easier than expected.

Researchers at Drexel University's C&J Nyheim Plasma Institute have reported the production of the first pure polymeric nitrogen compound at near-ambient conditions. The substance, which has existed only in theory for the last three decades, is predicted to be able to produce massive amounts of clean energy with atmospheric nitrogen as its only byproduct.

New bio-inspired hydrogels can act like superglue in highly ionic environments such as seawater, overcoming issues in currently available marine adhesives.

The theoretical model proposed by Brazilian researchers can be applied to any system in which two energy scales coexist.

The texture of food is an important part of enjoying foods. In order to completely understand these properties, better methods for testing are required to capture the motion inside liquid materials, especially in the case of foods that are complex liquids, like gelled desserts. In a study in Physics of Fluids, researchers introduce an updated method that can measure linear viscoelasticity and phase lag simultaneously in an opaque liquid, capturing information about complex rheological properties.

Recently, researchers from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Utah reported their work on achieving enhanced membrane intercalation.

Researchers have adapted a light-based technology employed widely in biology -- known as optical traps or optical tweezers -- to operate in a water-free liquid environment of carbon-rich organic solvents. The optical tweezers act as a light-based 'tractor beam' that can assemble nanoscale semiconductor materials precisely into larger structures. Unlike the tractor beams of science fiction, which might grab massive spaceships, these optical tweezers can trap materials that are nearly one billion times shorter than a meter.