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What if, instead of using X-rays or ultrasound, we could use touch to image the insides of human bodies and electronic devices? In a study publishing in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science (“A smart bionic finger for subsurface tactile-tomography”), researchers present a bionic finger that can create 3D maps of the internal shapes and textures of complex objects by touching their exterior surface.

“We were inspired by human fingers, which have the most sensitive tactile perception that we know of,” says senior author Jianyi Luo, a professor at Wuyi University. “For example, when we touch our own bodies with our fingers, we can sense not only the texture of our skin, but also the outline of the bone beneath it.”

“Our bionic finger goes beyond previous artificial sensors that were only capable of recognizing and discriminating between external shapes, surface textures, and hardness,” says co-author Zhiming Chen, a lecturer at Wuyi University.

Hubble easily resolves the Sombrero galaxy’s rich system of globular clusters, estimated to be nearly 2,000 in number — 10 times more than the number of globular clusters in our Milky Way.

York skeletal remains that belonged to a medieval anchoress were found to have an unusual crouching position. Live Science reports that further analyses revealed that the woman died of arthritis and syphilis.

Mysterious York Skeletal Remains

Continue reading “York Skeletal Remains of Medieval Anchoress Reveal Signs of Syphilis, Intriguing Mysteries of the Woman’s Life” »

As devices get smaller and more powerful, the risk of them overheating and burning out increases substantially. Despite advancements in cooling solutions, the interface between an electronic chip and its cooling system has remained a barrier for thermal transport due to the materials’ intrinsic roughness.

Material after graphene coating. (Image: CMU)

Sheng Shen, a professor of mechanical engineering Opens in new window, has fabricated a flexible, powerful, and highly-reliable material to efficiently fill the gap (ACS Nano, “3D Graphene-Nanowire “Sandwich” Thermal Interface with Ultralow Resistance and Stiffness”).

A new study led by DAI Qing’s team from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Javier Abajo from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Spain has shown a gate-tunable nanoscale negative refraction of polaritons in the mid-infrared range through a van der Waals heterostructure of graphene and molybdenum trioxide. The atomically thick heterostructures weaken scattering losses at the interface while enabling an actively tunable transition of normal to negative refraction through electrical gating.

The work was published in Science (“Gate-tunable negative refraction of mid-infrared polaritons”).

Basic principle of the “polariton transistor”. The van der Waals heterostructure is constructed by decorating graphene on the molybdenum trioxide, and the antenna stimulates the polariton to transmit through the interface to form negative refraction. (Image: DAI Qing et al.)

Quantum dots are semiconductor particles measuring just a few nanometres across, which are now widely studied for their intriguing electrical and optical properties.

Through new research published in EPJ B (“Third-order nonlinear susceptibility in CdS/Cdx1Zn 1-x1 S/ZnS multilayer spherical quantum dot,”), Kobra Hasanirokh at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University in Iran, together with Luay Hashem Abbud at Al-Mustaqbal University College, Iraq, show how quantum dots containing spherical defects can significantly enhance their nonlinear optical properties.

By fine-tuning these defects, researchers could tightly control the frequency and brightness of the light emitted by quantum dots.

An international team led by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a universal connector to assemble stretchable devices simply and quickly, in a ‘Lego-like’ manner.

Stretchable devices including soft robots and wearable healthcare devices are assembled using several different modules with different material characteristics — some soft, some rigid, and some encapsulated.

However, the commercial pastes (glue), currently used to connect the modules often either fail to transmit mechanical and electrical signals reliably when deformed or break easily.

A team led by Professor Andrea Morello has just demonstrated the operation of a new type of quantum bit, called ‘flip-flop’ qubit, which combines the exquisite quantum properties of single atoms, with easy controllability using electric signals, just as those used in ordinary computer chips.

“Sometimes new qubits, or new modes of operations, are discovered by lucky accident. But this one was completely by design,” says Prof. Morello. “Our group has had excellent qubits for a decade, but we wanted something that could be controlled electrically, for maximum ease of operation. So we had to invent something completely new.”

Prof. Morello’s group was the first in the world to demonstrate that using the spin of an electron as well as the nuclear spin of a single phosphorus atom in silicon could be used as ‘qubits’ – units of information that are used to make quantum computing calculations. He explains that while both qubits perform exceptionally well on their own, they require oscillating magnetic fields for their operation.

A new all-dry polymerization technique uses reactive vapors to create thin films with enhanced properties, such as mechanical strength, kinetics and morphology. The synthesis process is gentler on the environment than traditional high-temperature or solution-based manufacturing and could lead to improved polymer coatings for microelectronics, advanced batteries and therapeutics.

“This scalable technique of initiated chemical vapor deposition polymerization allows us to make new materials, without redesigning or revamping the whole chemistry. We just simply add an ‘active’ solvent,” said Rong Yang, assistant professor in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Cornell Engineering. “It’s a little bit like a Lego. You team up with a new connecting piece. There’s a ton you can build now that you couldn’t do before.”

This micrograph image shows an initiated chemical vapor deposition coating made by doctoral student Pengyu Chen in the lab of Rong Yang, assistant professor in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Cornell Engineering. (Image: Cornell University)