News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

When energy is added to uranium under pressure, it creates a shock wave, and even a tiny sample will be vaporized like a small explosion. By using smaller, controlled explosions, physicists can test on a microscale what could previously be tested only in larger, more dangerous experiments. In a recent experiment, scientists used a laser to ablate atomic uranium while recording chemical reactions as the plasma cooled, oxidized and formed species of more complex uranium.

For the first time, researchers have managed to view previously inaccessible details of certain chemical processes. They have shown there are significant discrete stages to these processes which build on our knowledge of chemical synthesis. These details could aid in the development of methods to synthesize chemicals with greater control and precision than ever before. Methods such as these could be useful in materials science and in drug development.

The research explains how random fluctuations affect the operation of microscopic machines like this tiny motor. In the future, such devices could be incorporated into other technologies to recycle waste heat and thus improve energy efficiency.

A new rechargeable high voltage manganese dioxide zinc battery, exceeding the 2 V barrier in aqueous zinc chemistry, is the latest invention by City College of New York researchers. With a voltage of 2.45-2.8V, the alkaline MnO2|Zn battery, developed by Dr. Gautam G. Yadav and his group in the CCNY-based CUNY Energy Institute, could break the long dominance of flammable and expensive lithium (Li)-ion batteries in the market.

A team of scientists from Ohio University, Argonne National Laboratory, Universitié de Toulouse in France and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan led by OHIO Professor of Physics Saw-Wai Hla and Prof. Gwenael Rapenne from Toulouse developed a molecular propeller that enables unidirectional rotations on a material surface when energized.

An experiment to test a popular theory of dark energy has found no evidence of new forces, placing strong constraints on related theories.

Physicists from HKUST and PKU have successfully created the world's first 3D simulation of topological matter consisting of ultracold atoms.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, collaborating with scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have shed new light on how superconductivity and charge order can exist adjacent to one another.

Newly discovered properties in the compound uranium ditelluride show that it could prove highly resistant to one of the nemeses of quantum computer development -- the difficulty with making such a computer's memory storage switches, called qubits, function long enough to finish a computation before losing the delicate physical relationship that allows them to operate as a group. This relationship, called quantum coherence, is hard to maintain because of disturbances from the surrounding world.