News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan succeeded in clarifying a new synthesis mechanism regarding transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD), which are semiconductor atomic sheets having thickness in atomic order. Because it is difficult to directly observe the aspect of the growing process of TMD in a special environment, the initial growth process remained unclear, and it has been desirable to elucidate a detailed mechanism of synthesis to obtain high-quality TMD.

Data centers are processing data and dispensing the results at astonishing rates and such robust systems require a significant amount of energy -- so much energy, in fact, that information communication technology is projected to account for 20% of total energy consumption in the United States by 2020. To answer this demand, a team of researchers from Japan and the United States have developed a framework to reduce energy consumption while improving efficiency.

Physicists from the University of Groningen constructed a two-dimensional spin transistor, in which spin currents were generated by an electric current through graphene. A monolayer of a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) was placed on top of graphene to induce charge-to-spin conversion in the graphene. This experimental observation was described in an article in Nano Letters on Sept. 11, 2019.

Swedish and Chinese scientists have developed organic solar cells optimised to convert ambient indoor light to electricity. The power they produce is low, but is probably enough to feed the millions of products that the internet of things will bring online.

Local thermal perturbations of spins in a solid can convert heat to energy even in a paramagnetic material -- where spins weren't thought to correlate long enough to do so. This effect, which the researchers call 'paramagnon drag thermopower,' converts a temperature difference into an electrical voltage.