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Blog – Page 26

Imagine you are playing the guitar—each pluck of a string creates a sound wave that vibrates and interacts with other waves. Now shrink that idea down to a small single molecule, and instead of sound waves, picture vibrations that carry heat.

A team of engineers and at the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder has recently discovered that these tiny thermal vibrations, otherwise known as phonons, can interfere with each other just like musical notes—either amplifying or canceling each other, depending on how a molecule is “strung” together.

The research is published in the journal Nature Materials.

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The use of light signals to connect electronic components is a key element of today’s data communication technologies, because of the speed and efficiency that only optical devices can guarantee. Photonic integrated circuits, which use photons instead of electrons to encode and transmit information, are found in many computing technologies. Most are currently based on silicon—a good solution because it is already used for electronic circuits, but with a limited bandwidth.

An excellent alternative is tetragonal barium titanate (BTO), a ferroelectric perovskite that can be grown on top of silicon and has much better optoelectronic properties. But since this material is quite new in the field of applied optoelectronics, a better comprehension of its quantum properties is needed in order to further optimize it.

A new study by MARVEL scientists published in Physical Review B presents a new computational framework to simulate the optoelectronic behavior of this material, and potentially of other promising ones.

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Astronomers are unraveling the mystery behind Ansky, a black hole system emitting powerful, repeating X-ray bursts called QPEs. These outbursts may result from a small object colliding with a gas disk, sending debris flying at near-light speeds. New Glimpse Into Mysterious X-Ray Outbursts For t

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Astronomers using NASA’s IXPE satellite have finally cracked a cosmic mystery—how X-rays are produced in the energetic jets of supermassive black holes like the blazar BL Lacertae. The blazar BL Lacertae—a type of active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole with bright, fast-moving jets ai

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A global study estimates that exposure to the plastic additive DEHP caused over 356,000 heart disease deaths in 2018, with most deaths occurring in rapidly industrializing regions. A new analysis of global population data suggests that daily exposure to certain chemicals used in plastic household

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Free-range atoms, roaming around without restrictions, have been captured on camera for the first time – enabling physicists to take a closer look at long predicted quantum phenomena.

It’s a bit like snapping a shot of a rare bird in your back garden, after a long time of only ever hearing reports of them in the area, and seeing the food in your bird feeder diminish each day. Instead of birdwatching, though, we’re talking about quantum physics.

The US researchers behind the breakthrough carefully constructed an “atom-resolved microscopy” camera system that first puts atoms in a contained cloud, where they roam freely. Then, laser light freezes the atoms in position to record them.

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By Chuck Brooks.

Source: Forbes

Robotics is now revolutionizing numerous industry sectors through the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and reinforcement learning, as well as advances in computer vision that empower robots to make complicated judgments.

Industrial automation in factories and warehouses has been the main emphasis of robotics for many years because of its efficiency and affordability. These settings are usually regulated, organized, and predictable. Consequently, industries like manufacturing, agriculture, warehouse operations, healthcare, and security have utilized robotics to automate mundane programmable tasks.

Robotics in those and many other industries are becoming more refined and capable with the contributions of new material sciences, and artificial intelligence tools. It now appears that with those advances, we are at the precipice of building functional, dexterous, and autonomous humanoid robots that were once the topic of futurist writing.

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Researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and Harvard University have experimentally demonstrated that new artificial materials known as metamaterials, with magnetic properties, can have their mechanical and structural behavior reprogrammed without altering their composition. This breakthrough could drive innovations in fields such as soft robotics and biomedicine.

The study explains how flexible magnets embedded within the structure of mechanical metamaterials can be used to reprogram their behavior.

The integration of flexible magnets in metamaterials allows for reprogrammable structures, offering vast potential in robotics and biomedical engineering.

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