New insights into bonding nature of antimony – implications for materials research

The findings could be used to optimise material properties

24-Jan-2025 - A new study that provides unprecedented insights into the chemical bonding of antimony could have a profound impact on materials research. The collaboration between scientists from Leipzig University, RWTH Aachen University and the DESY synchrotron in Hamburg combined experimental measurements ...

Chemical Bonding of Phase-Change Materials

Rational syntheses of such new materials are much easier

01-Aug-2024 - In principle, the nature of chemical bonding has been known for almost 100 years, and is based on quantum or wave mechanics. When atoms combine to form larger groups (molecules), they interact with each other via so-called electronic “wave functions”. In the case of the water molecule, H2O, the ...

First Tellurium-free thermoelectric modules for power generation for Low Temperatur Application

The replacement of the scarce element Tellurium makes the devices cheaper while remaining the performance

24-Feb-2021 - More than 60% of the energy generated by burning fossil fuels is dissipated as waste heat, of which more than half is low-grade heat with temperatures below 300°C. Effective harnessing this low-grade heat to generate electricity is vital for alleviating the burden on the energy supply and ...

Spontaneous formation of nanoscale hollow structures could boost battery storage

16-Jun-2020 - An unexpected property of nanometer-scale antimony crystals -- the spontaneous formation of hollow structures -- could help give the next generation of lithium ion batteries higher energy density without reducing battery lifetime. The reversibly hollowing structures could allow lithium ion ...

Rigid bonds enable new data storage technology

How new phase-change materials could lead to more efficient and faster data storage technologies

18-Jun-2019 - Phase-change materials are used in the latest generation of smartphones enabling higher storage densities and energy efficiency. Data is recorded by switching between glassy and crystalline material states by applying a heat pulse. However, to date it has not been possible to study what happens ...

A thousand times faster than flash memory

Fast storage material in neutron light

11-Dec-2018 - Novel phase change memory (PCM) materials can work a thousand times faster than current flash memory chips, while being significantly more durable. Using the research neutron source of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), German and American researchers have gained important insights into ...

Turbocharge for lithium batteries

11-Jun-2018 - Lithium-ion batteries are the ultimate benchmark when it comes to mobile phones, tablet devices, and electric cars. Their storage capacity and power density are far superior to other rechargeable battery systems. Despite all the progress that has been made, however, smartphone batteries only last ...

Rutgers-led research could lead to more efficient electronics

07-Jun-2018 - A Rutgers-led team of physicists has demonstrated a way to conduct electricity between transistors without energy loss, opening the door to low-power electronics and, potentially, quantum computing that would be far faster than today's computers. Their findings, which involved using a special mix ...

Recycled electrical products lead to hazardous chemicals appearing in everyday items

31-May-2018 - Hazardous chemicals such as bromine, antimony and lead are finding their way into food-contact items and other everyday products because manufacturers are using recycled electrical equipment as a source of black plastic, according to a new study. The substances are among those applied to devices, ...

New magnet with nearly massless charge carriers

01-Aug-2017 - Advances in modern electronics has demanded the requisite hardware, transistors, to be smaller in each new iteration. Recent progress in nanotechnology has reduced the size of silicon transistors down to the order of 10 nanometers. However, for such small transistors, other physical effects set ...