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Category: engineering – Page 3

Electrons stay put in layers of mismatched ‘quantum Legos’

Electrons can be elusive, but Cornell researchers using a new computational method can now account for where they go—or don’t go—in certain layered materials.

Physics and engineering researchers have confirmed that in certain quantum materials, known as “misfits” because their crystal structures don’t align perfectly—picture LEGOs where one layer has a square grid and the other a hexagonal grid—electrons mostly stay in their home layers.

This discovery, important for designing materials with quantum properties including superconductivity, overturns a long-standing assumption. For years, scientists believed that large shifts in energy bands in certain misfit materials meant electrons were physically moving from one layer to the other. But the Cornell researchers have found that chemical bonding between the mismatched layers causes electrons to rearrange in a way that increases the number of high-energy electrons, while few electrons move from one layer to the other.

Wearable device offloads up to 90% of body armor weight, improving comfort and mobility

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a lightweight wearable device that shifts body armor weight off the shoulders and back of soldiers, helping reduce pain and injury risk.

A new study, “Wearable weight distribution devices for reducing injury risk: How varying amounts of body armor offloading affect biomechanics and comfort,” is published in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

The research study was led by Paul Slaughter, a recent Vanderbilt Ph.D. graduate, and Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical engineering. Slaughter and Zelik, in partnership with Vanderbilt senior research engineer Chad Ice, also filed a patent on this wearable weight distribution device.

Quantum technology moves from lab to life, but widespread use remains years away

Quantum technology is accelerating out of the lab and into the real world, and a new article argues that the field now stands at a turning point—one that is similar to the early computing age that preceded the rise of the transistor and modern computing.

The article, authored by scientists from University of Chicago, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, offers an assessment of the rapidly advancing field of quantum information hardware, outlining the major challenges and opportunities shaping scalable quantum computers, networks, and sensors. The paper appears in Science.

“This transformative moment in quantum technology is reminiscent of the transistor’s earliest days,” said lead author David Awschalom, the Liew Family Professor of molecular engineering and physics at the University of Chicago, and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange and the Chicago Quantum Institute.

Dirty water boosts prospects for clean hydrogen

Wastewater can replace clean water as a source for hydrogen, eliminating a major drawback to hydrogen fuel and reducing water treatment costs of hydrogen production by up to 47%, according to new research from Princeton Engineering.

The findings, reported Sept. 24 in the journal Water Research, are a step toward making hydrogen a practical pathway to decarbonize industries that are difficult to electrify, such as steel and fertilizer production.

Z. Jason Ren, the senior study author, said that current electrolytic hydrogen production requires a large amount of clean water, increasing costs and straining local water supplies. His research team wanted to find out whether treated water processed by wastewater plants could be substituted.

Sensor-integrated food wrapper can facilitate real-time, non-destructive detection of nutritional components

Food quality and safety are crucial. However, conventional food-monitoring methods, including ribotyping and polymerase chain reaction, tend to be destructive and lengthy. These shortcomings limit their potential for broad applications. In this regard, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing, with real-time, non-destructive, and high sensitivity capabilities, is a highly promising alternative.

In a new breakthrough, a team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Ji-Hwan Ha from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National University, Republic of Korea, has developed a two-in-one nanostructured SERS sensor integrated into a stretchable and antimicrobial wrapper (NSSAW) that not only monitors food directly on the surface but also actively preserves it.

Their novel findings are published in the journal Small.

Programmable metamaterial can morph into more configurations than there are atoms in the universe

The Wave Engineering for eXtreme and Intelligent maTErials (We-Xite) lab, led by engineering assistant professor Osama R. Bilal, has developed a reconfigurable metamaterial that can control sound waves—bending them, dampening them, or focusing them—while encoding real-time tuning with almost infinite possible shapes.

Their work is now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Metamaterials are artificial materials that can achieve extraordinary properties not easily found in nature,” explains Ph.D. candidate Melanie Keogh ‘22 (ENG), the first author of the study. In this case, the research team wanted to develop a material that could control sound waves, while being adjustable in both frequency and function, with potential applications ranging from medical imaging to soundproofing.

Nanoflowers rejuvenate old and damaged human cells by replacing their mitochondria

Biomedical researchers at Texas A&M University may have discovered a way to stop or even reverse the decline of cellular energy production—a finding that could have revolutionary effects across medicine.

Dr. Akhilesh K. Gaharwar and Ph.D. student John Soukar, along with their fellow researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, have developed a new method to give damaged cells new mitochondria, returning energy output to its previous levels and dramatically increasing cell health.

Mitochondrial decline is linked to aging, heart disease and neurodegenerative disorders. Enhancing the body’s natural ability to replace worn-out mitochondria could fight all of them.

New light, strong material developed, withstands 932°F temperature

Researchers have developed very light and extremely strong material that can withstand extreme heat. The material could be useful for aerospace and other high-performance industries.

Developed by researchers from University of Toronto Engineering, the material can withstand temperatures up to 932°F (500° C).

The new composite material is made of various metallic alloys and nanoscale precipitates, and has a structure that mimics that of reinforced concrete, but on a microscopic scale.

ClickFix attack uses fake Windows Update screen to push malware

ClickFix attack variants have been observed where threat actors trick users with a realistic-looking Windows Update animation in a full-screen browser page and hide the malicious code inside images.

ClickFix is a social-engineering attack where users are convinced to paste and execute in Windows Command Prompt code or commands that lead to running malware on the system.

The attack has been widely adopted by cybercriminals across all tiers due to its high effectiveness and has continually evolved, with increasingly advanced and deceptive lures.

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