News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have reported a new catalyst composed of silica, a rhodium complex and tertiary amines(term1) that significantly boosts hydrosilylation reactions.

Fusion power has the potential to provide clean and safe energy that is free from carbon dioxide emissions. However, imitating the solar energy process is a difficult task to achieve. Two young plasma physicists at Chalmers University of Technology have now taken us one step closer to a functional fusion reactor. Their model could lead to better methods for decelerating the runaway electrons, which could destroy a future reactor without warning.

Dual modal imaging which shares the advantages of two imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging and optical imaging, has the ability to produce images with higher spatial resolution and higher sensitivity. Contrast agents having both magnetic and optical properties identifies the cancer cells efficiently. Europium doped gadolinium oxide nanorods were synthesized and subsequently coated with silica to improve the biocompatibility.

Capillary discharge plasma jets are created by a large current that passes through a low-density gas in what is called a capillary chamber. The gas ionizes and turns into plasma. When plasma expands in the capillary chamber due to arc energy heating, plasma ejects from the capillary nozzle forming the plasma jet. This week in Review of Scientific Instruments, a study examines how the dimensions of the capillary producing the plasma affect the jet's length.

It is crucial that mobile phones and other wireless devices -- so prevalent today -- have accurate and traceable measurements for electric fields and radiated power. Until recently, however, it wasn't possible to build self-calibrating probes that could generate independent and absolute measurements of these. To address this, researchers have developed a method to measure electric fields and a probe to carry out such measurements. They discuss their work in this week's Journal of Applied Physics.

Frequent measurement of a quantum system's state can either speed or delay its collapse, effects called the quantum Zeno and quantum anti-Zeno effect. But so too can 'quasimeasurements' that only poke the system and garner no information about its state.