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Category: materials

Researchers pioneer pathway to mechanical intelligence by breaking symmetry in soft composite materials

A research team has developed soft composite systems with highly programmable, asymmetric mechanical responses. By integrating “shear-jamming transitions” into compliant polymeric solids, this innovative work enhances key material functionalities essential for engineering mechano-intelligent systems—a major step toward the development of next-generation smart materials and devices.

The work is published in the journal Nature Materials.

In engineering fields such as soft robotics, synthetic tissues, and flexible electronics, materials that exhibit direction-dependent responses to external stimuli are crucial for realizing intelligent functions.

Intelligent photodetectors ‘sniff and seek’ like retriever dogs to recognize materials directly from light spectra

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in collaboration with UC Berkeley, have developed a new type of intelligent image sensor that can perform machine-learning inference during the act of photodetection itself.

Reported in Science, the breakthrough redefines how spectral imaging, machine vision and AI can be integrated within a single semiconductor device.

Traditionally, spectral cameras capture a dense stack of images, each image corresponding to a different wavelength, and then transfer this large dataset to digital processors for computation and scene analysis. This workflow, while powerful, creates a severe bottleneck: the hardware must move and process massive amounts of data, which limits speed, power efficiency, and the achievable spatial–spectral resolution.

Scientists find cancer-fighting isotope hidden in accelerator waste

The photons in a particle accelerator’s beam dump are intense, high-energy radiation byproducts of the main physics experiment.

A team of researchers at the University of York states that this powerful radiation, specifically the photons, can be captured and repurposed. It can be utilized to create materials necessary for cancer treatment.

The target isotope, copper-67, is a highly valuable asset in oncology. The method shows potential for generating this rare isotope, which is used for both diagnosing and treating cancer.

Ultrafast UV-C laser pulses generated and detected using 2D materials

Scientists have developed a new platform for the generation and detection of ultrashort UV-C laser pulses on femtosecond timescales. This breakthrough could unlock new opportunities for transforming optical wireless communication systems, material processing applications and medical imaging.

Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy and Imperial College London developed the new platform. The source produces pulses of femtosecond duration, less than 1 trillionth of a second. These pulses are detected at room temperature by sensors based on ultrathin (two-dimensional, 2D) materials. The paper is published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

Professor Amalia Patané, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham, led the development of the sensors. “This work combines for the first time the generation of femtosecond UV-C laser pulses with their fast detection by a new class of 2D semiconductors. These can operate over a wide range of pulse energies and repetition rates, as required for many applications,” says Patané

Scientists Cracked Open a Lunar Rock And Found a Huge Surprise

A tiny sample of the Moon locked away for more than 50 years turns out to have been hiding an astronomical secret.

In specks of troilite dust collected by Apollo 17 in 1972, scientists have found material that may be as old – or even older – than the Moon itself, a 4.5-billion-year-old relic of the early Solar System.

“My first thought was, ‘Holy shmolies, that can’t be right,’” says planetary scientist James Dottin of Brown University in the US.

Puzzling ultraviolet radiation in the birthplaces of stars

Researchers used the MIRI instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to identify the presence of ultraviolet radiation in five young stars in the Ophiuchus region, and to understand its role in the formation of stars. The discovery of UV radiation around these protostars and its significant impact on the surrounding material is a challenge to models describing the formation of stars.

The paper is published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and the research team included Iason Skretas, a doctoral student at MPIfR, and Dr. Agata Karska (Center for Modern Inter-disciplinary Technologies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, and Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), Bonn, Germany).

Particle accelerator waste could help produce cancer-fighting materials

Energy that would normally go to waste inside powerful particle accelerators could be used to create valuable medical isotopes, scientists have found.

Researchers at the University of York have shown that intense radiation captured in particle accelerator “beam dumps” could be repurposed to produce materials used in cancer therapy. The study is published in the journal Physical Review C.

Scientists have now found a way to make those leftover photons do a second job, without affecting the main physics experiments.

Anomalous electronic state opens pathway to room-temperature superconductivity

Superconductive materials can conduct electricity with no resistance, but typically only at very low temperatures. Realizing superconductivity at room temperature could enable advanced, energy-efficient electronics and other technologies.

Now, an international research team is one step closer to such an achievement. The researchers made the first observation of a special electronic state known as a “nodal metal,” which provides more insight into electronic behavior at different temperatures, in a multilayer system comprising copper and oxygen.

The team, which includes researchers based in Japan, Taiwan and the United States, published their results in Nature Communications.

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