Lifeboat Foundation

Newly discovered magnetic interactions in the Kagome layered topological magnet TbMn₆Sn₆ could be the key to customizing how electrons flow through these materials. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducted an in-depth investigation of TbMn₆Sn₆ to better understand the material and its magnetic characteristics. These results could impact future technology advancements in fields such as quantum computing, magnetic storage media, and high-precision sensors.

Kagomes are a type of material whose structure is named after a traditional Japanese basket weaving technique. The weave produces a pattern of hexagons surrounded by triangles and vice-versa. The arrangement of the atoms in Kagome metals reproduces the weaving pattern. This characteristic causes electrons within the material to behave in unique ways.

Solid materials have electronic properties controlled by the characteristics of their electronic band structure. The band structure is strongly dependent on the geometry of the atomic lattice, and sometimes bands may display special shapes such as cones. These special shapes, called topological features, are responsible for the unique ways electrons behave in these materials. The Kagome structure in particular leads to complex and potentially tunable features in the electronic bands.

A team of researchers with The NNPDF Collaboration has found new evidence to support the theory of “intrinsic” charm quarks. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they used a machine learning model to develop a proton structure and then used it to compare against results from real-world collisions in particle accelerators and what they learned by doing so. Ramona Vogt, with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team on this new effort. Nature has also published a podcast where Nick Petrić Howe and Benjamin Thompson discuss the work done by the team.

Prior research involving the use of particle accelerators has suggested that protons contain quarks that are held together by gluons. A reasonable amount of evidence has also shown that there are at least two up quarks and one down quark. There have also been theories suggesting that there is another, the so-called charm quark, but little real evidence of them exists. That might be changing, however, as the researchers on this new effort have used a new approach to “prove” that they exist.

They have found evidence of one small part (0.5%) of a proton’s momentum coming from a charm quark. The researchers found this new evidence by using a machine learning model to build a hypothetical proton structure, including different flavors of quarks, and of course the elusive charm quark. They then ran their model and compared characteristics of the model with real-world data that has been observed from over 500,000 collisions in accelerators over the last decade.

The spin state of molecular qubits can be made more stable by changing the chemical environment in which the qubits sit.

A special microscope has visualized changes of electron current distribution that clearly indicate a transition from ohmic to viscous electron flow in graphene.

Imagine a breeze of moist air condensing into water drops and dripping down on a cold glass. Electrons can undergo a transition that resembles this gas-to-fluid condensation: the transition is controlled by temperature and produces a fluid-like state in which electrons display remarkably different dynamics than in the gas-like state. Unlike the condensation of water vapor, however, the electron transition cannot be directly imaged with a camera. One reason for this difficulty is that the pattern of this electron fluid varies at submicron scales that can’t be clearly resolved by visible light. Another reason is that electron collisions and the redistribution of electron currents do not yield a change of surface morphology that can be picked up by light reflection. This imaging challenge has so far limited our microscopic understanding of these types of electronic transitions and their use in practical devices.

By epitaxially growing films from colloids, researchers show that they can monitor interactions and behaviors of the particles that are difficult—and sometimes impossible—to capture for similar films grown from atoms.

Experiments in zero gravity show how a static droplet oscillates on a vibrating hydrophobic surface.

Researchers detail DarkTortilla, an evasive crypter used by hackers to spread a broad array of commodity malware and targeted payloads.

Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is an ocean world encased beneath a thick crust of ice — a place where snow floats upward.

The underwater snow forms in the global ocean and travels up though the water to attach to submerged ravines and inverted ice peaks, according to new research. This same phenomenon takes place below ice shelves on Earth — and it may be how Europa builds its ice shell.

The finding, published Monday in the journal Astrobiology, suggested Europa’s ice shell may not be as salty as scientists first thought. Understanding the salt content of the ice crust is crucial as engineers work on assembling NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which is preparing to launch to Europa in October 2024.

The harmful molecules are everywhere, but chemists have made progress in developing a method to break them down.