Kolomeisky and Rice graduate student Alexey Akimov have taken a large step toward defining the behavior of these molecular whirligigs with a new paper in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Through molecular dynamics simulations, they defined the ground rules for the rotor motion of molecules attached to a gold surface. American …
1. Graphene and ‘spintronics’ combo looks promising Graphene, a two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon, is being touted as a sort of “Holy Grail” of materials. It boasts properties such as a breaking strength 200 times greater than steel and, of great interest to the semiconductor and data storage industries, electric currents that can blaze through …
Broadband infrared (IR) resonators have been developed by Fractal Antenna Systems Inc. Infrared development for efficient fractal “metasurface” heat transfer is likely to be 2 to 5 years away By juxtaposing the fractal resonators very close to one another in a layered grid, they generate “surface” waves that can transfer IR energy. This fractal “metasurface” …
Applies Physics Letters – Hybrid spintronics and straintronics: A magnetic technology for ultra low energy computing and signal processing The authors show that the magnetization of a magnetostrictive/piezoelectricmultiferroic single-domain shape-anisotropic nanomagnet can be switched with very small voltages that generate strain in the magnetostrictive layer. This can be the basis of ultralow power computing and …
A 3D view of the theoretical device studied in this paper, with fission mantle, coolant outflow pipes and magnetic expanders at the ends Journal of Fusion Energy – Field and Coil Design for a Quadrupolar Mirror Hybrid Reactor The mirror machine with the entire coil set, where the circular coils reside outside the quadrupolar coils. …
The Congressional Budget Office describes the future of the federal debt and the risk of a fiscal crisis (8 pges from July 2010) This is not a blogger telling you that loose budgets are going to cause huge problems, this is a blogger summarizing what the Congressional Budget Office is warning. Congress must fix the …
Researchers used an algorithm to evaluate potential speed in classical computation. Called the matrix multiplicative weights update method, it was developed from research in two mathematical fields of study, combinatorial optimization and learning theory. The researchers showed that “for a certain class of semi-definite programs you can get not the exact answer but a very …
1. Construction of AP1000 units in China has seen three milestones this month: on-site, at a new module factory and in fuel fabrication. * Building work on the first of the Westinghouse-designed units at Sanmen moved on with the lifting in of the fourth ring of the reactor’s containment vessel. Shandong Nuclear Power Company said …
MIT Technology Review – The Oasys forward osmosis desalination system requires just one-tenth as much electricity as a reverse-osmosis system because water doesn’t have to be forced through a membrane at high pressure. That’s a crucial source of savings, since electricity can account for nearly half the cost of reverse-osmosis technology. Not working with pressurized …
The Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project in Europe aims to develop a wireless system that will allow cars on a public highway or motorway to join in a platoon, or semi-autonomous “road train” of vehicles with a professional driver in a single vehicle (such as a bus or truck) at the front …
Although only a handful of economists think India’s growth will outpace China’s next year, a larger number believe it will do so this decade. The reasons are largely demographic. China’s economy cannot go on rapidly expanding once its labour force starts shrinking. Thanks to its one-child policy, introduced in 1978, the number of young Chinese …