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Category: engineering – Page 5

Study shows domain walls in ferroelectrics can be the most stable state, enabling high-density memory

A research team, led by Professor Junhee Lee from the Graduate School of Semiconductor Materials and Devices Engineering at UNIST, has demonstrated through quantum mechanical calculations that charged domain walls in ferroelectrics—once thought to be unstable—can, in fact, be more stable than the bulk regions.

This discovery opens new avenues for developing high-density semiconductor memory devices capable of storing information as binary states (0s and 1s) based on the presence or absence of .

This research was conducted in collaboration with researchers Pawan Kumar and Dipti Gupta, who served as the first author and co-author, respectively. The research is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

A rule-breaking, colorful silicone that can conduct electricity

A newly discovered silicone variant is a semiconductor, University of Michigan researchers have discovered—upending assumptions that the material class is exclusively insulating.

“The material opens up the opportunity for new types of flat-panel displays, flexible photovoltaics, wearable sensors or even clothing that can display different patterns or images,” said Richard Laine, U-M professor of materials science and engineering and macromolecular science and engineering and corresponding author of the study recently published in Macromolecular Rapid Communications.

Silicone oils and rubbers—polysiloxanes and silsesquioxanes—are traditionally insulating materials, meaning they resist the flow of electricity or heat. Their water-resistant properties make them useful in biomedical devices, sealants, electronic coatings and more.

An accidentally discovered class of nanostructured materials can passively harvest water from air

A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the need for any external energy.

The research, published in Science Advances, describes a material that could open the door to new ways to collect water from the air in arid regions and devices that cool electronics or buildings using the power of evaporation.

The interdisciplinary team includes Daeyeon Lee, Russell Pearce and Elizabeth Crimian Heuer Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE); Amish Patel, Professor in CBE; Baekmin Kim, a postdoctoral scholar in Lee’s lab and first author; and Stefan Guldin, Professor in Complex Soft Matter at the Technical University of Munich.

Physics advance details new way to control solid objects in liquid

Researchers have detailed the physics behind a phenomenon that allows them to create spin in liquid droplets using ultrasound waves, which concentrates solid particles suspended in the liquid. The discovery will allow researchers to engineer technologies that make use of the technique to develop applications in fields such as biomedical testing and drug development.

“By creating on the surface of a piezoelectric substrate, we can induce spin in a liquid droplet that is resting on that substrate,” explains Chuyi Chen, an assistant professor of mechanical and at North Carolina State University and co-lead author of a paper on the work published in Science Advances.

The oscillation of the ultrasound waves pushes the fluid inside the droplet to stream in a circle, but the surface tension of the droplet prevents the droplet from spreading out into a flat sheet. A combination of forces from the ultrasound waves, the spinning droplet, and the fluid moving within the droplet drives particles inside the droplet to move in a helical pattern, essentially corkscrewing through the droplet to come together at a central point.

Is gravity quantum? Laser cooling brings torsional oscillators closer to answering this question

One of the most profound open questions in modern physics is: “Is gravity quantum?” The other fundamental forces—electromagnetic, weak, and strong—have all been successfully described, but no complete and consistent quantum theory of gravity yet exists.

“Theoretical physicists have proposed many possible scenarios, from being inherently classical to fully quantum, but the debate remains unresolved because we’ve never had a clear way to test gravity’s quantum nature in the lab,” says Dongchel Shin, a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE).

“The key to answering this lies in preparing that are massive enough to feel gravity, yet quiet enough—quantum enough—to reveal how gravity interacts with them.”

Unknown Species of Bacteria Discovered in China’s Space Station

Swabs from China’s Tiangong space station reveal traces of a bacterium unseen on Earth, with characteristics that may help it function under stressful environmental conditions hundreds of kilometers above the planet’s surface.

Naming their discovery after the station, researchers from the Shenzhou Space Biotechnology Group and the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering say the study of Niallia tiangongensis and similar species could be “essential” in protecting astronaut health and spacecraft functionality over long missions.

The swabs were taken from a cabin on board the space station in May 2023 by the Shenzhou-15 crew as part of one of two surveys by the China Space Station Habitation Area Microbiome Programme.

The case for Mars terraforming research

Terraforming Mars is widely discussed but rarely studied rigorously. This Perspective advocates for more research on the topic, ranging from warming methods to biological engineering, to clarify feasibility, costs, ethics and planetary impacts before any ambitious, large-scale attempts.

Study maps three decades of white LED progress and key innovation drivers

White light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the semiconductor devices underpinning the functioning of countless lighting technologies on the market today, were first released to the public in 1996. Following their commercial debut, these devices have fueled significant advancements within the electronics and lighting industry, due to their remarkable energy efficiencies and extended lifespans.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich recently carried out a study aimed at re-tracing the development of white LEDs over the past three decades, as well as trends in their costs and innovations in other engineering fields that fueled their advancement. Their paper, published in Nature Energy, was part of a larger research project that investigated the factors driving innovation in the clean energy sector.

“As part of our research, we looked at three key technologies at the forefront of the ongoing energy transition: solar photovoltaics for , lithium-ion batteries for , and white LEDs for efficient energy use in lighting,” Michael P. Weinold, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

Synthetic materials mimic seashells to enhance energy absorption

Millions of years of evolution have enabled some marine animals to grow complex protective shells composed of multiple layers that work together to dissipate physical stress. In a new study, engineers have found a way to mimic the behavior of this type of layered material, such as seashell nacre, by programming individual layers of synthetic material to work collaboratively under stress. The new material design is poised to enhance energy-absorbing systems such as wearable bandages and car bumpers with multistage responses that adapt to collision severity.

Many past studies have focused on reverse engineering to replicate the behavior of natural materials like bone, feathers and wood to reproduce their nonlinear responses to mechanical stress. A new study, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Shelly Zhang and professor Ole Sigmund of the Technical University of Denmark, looked beyond reverse engineering to develop a framework for programmable multilayered materials capable of responding to local disturbances through microscale interconnections.

The study findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

Scientists map activation of prostaglandin E₂ receptor EP1 at atomic level

Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), a bioactive lipid derived from arachidonic acid, mediates a broad range of physiological processes through four G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) subtypes: EP1–EP4. While the high-resolution structures of EP2, EP3 and EP4 have been resolved, EP1 remained structurally uncharacterized due to its intrinsic instability, hindering detailed understanding of its Gq-mediated signaling.

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team led by Eric H. Xu (Xu Huaqiang) and Xu Youwei from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the cryo– (cryo-EM) structure of the human EP1 receptor in complexes with PGE2 and the heterotrimeric Gq protein, completed structural atlas of EP receptor family, and revealed EP1-specific mechanisms of ligand recognition and signal transduction.

To overcome the instability of EP1, the researchers employed a multi-pronged engineering strategy, including BRIL fusion, truncation of flexible loops, incorporation of a mini-Gq chimera, and NanoBiT-assisted complex stabilization. They resolved the structure of the EP1–PGE2–Gq complex at 2.55 Å resolution using single-particle cryo-EM, enabling detailed analysis of both ligand binding and G protein coupling interfaces.