Wonder material graphene claims yet another superlative

14-Apr-2023 - In a paper published in Nature, researchers from The University of Manchester report record-high magnetoresistance that appears in graphene under ambient conditions. Materials that strongly change their resistivity under magnetic fields are highly sought for various applications and, for example, ...

Next generation material that adapts to its history

Responsive material changes its behaviour based on earlier conditions

17-Nov-2022 - Inspired by living systems, researchers at Aalto University have developed a new material that changes its electrical behaviour based on previous experience, effectively giving it a basic form of adaptive memory. Such adaptive materials could play a vital role in the next generation of medical ...

Less risk, less costs: Portable spectroscopy devices could soon become real

New approach to enable measurements without strong magnetic fields

06-Sep-2022 - Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an analytical tool with a wide range of applications, including the magnetic resonance imaging that is used for diagnostic purposes in medicine. However, NMR often requires powerful magnetic fields to be generated, which limits the scope of its use. Researchers ...

Levitating rarities

Magnetic trapping of rare-earth ions may lead to a handy technology for their separation

09-Jun-2022 - Some raw materials are considered critical by the European Commission. These include many representatives from the rare-earth elements group, for which supply bottlenecks are imminent and no simple substitute options in technological applications exist. With currently no economically feasible ...

Microrobot collectives display versatile movement patterns

A model for future biomedical and environmental applications

28-Apr-2022 - Collective behavior and swarm patterns are found everywhere in nature. Robots can also be programmed to act in swarms. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), Cornell University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed collectives of microrobots which can ...

Visualization of the origin of magnetic forces by atomic resolution electron microscopy

Accelerating research and development on state-of-the-art materials such as magnets, semiconductors and quantum technology

28-Feb-2022 - The joint development team of Professor Shibata (the University of Tokyo), JEOL Ltd. and Monash University succeeded in directly observing an atomic magnetic field, the origin of magnets (magnetic force), for the first time in the world. The observation was conducted using the newly developed ...

Science Fiction Revisited: Ramjet Propulsion

Since the 1960s, there has been speculation about a hypothetical propulsion method for interstellar space travel

22-Dec-2021 - In science fiction stories about contact with extraterrestrial civilisations, there is a problem: What kind of propulsion system could make it possible to bridge the enormous distances between the stars? It cannot be done with ordinary rockets like those used to travel to the moon or Mars. Many ...

Novel quantum effect discovered in naturally occurring graphene

International research team finds atomically-thin carbon generates its own magnetic field

08-Oct-2021 - Usually, the electrical resistance of a material depends very much on its physical dimensions and fundamental properties. Under special circumstances, however, this resistance can adopt a fixed value that is independent of the basic material properties and “quantised” (meaning that it changes in ...

Magnetic field turns handed superconductor into liquid crystal-like nematic state

16-Sep-2021 - Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg and RWTH Aachen University have suggested a surprising connection between the nematic behavior of a superconductor in a magnetic field — a state that resembles liquid crystals used in LCDs — and its ...

Magnetic effect without a magnet

Surprise in solid-state physics: The Hall effect, which normally requires magnetic fields, can also be generated in a completely different way – with extreme strength

23-Feb-2021 - Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field – in conducting materials this leads to the so-called Hall effect. This effect is often used to measure magnetic fields. A surprising discovery has now been made at TU Wien, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute ...