Lifeboat Foundation

^{Credit: VENTRIS/Science Photo Library via Getty Images}

^{By Amal Pushp, Affiliate Physicist at the Resonance Science Foundation}

Quantum mechanics prohibits any quantum system from achieving a temperature that is equal to absolute zero. However, using Laser cooling, which is a highly efficient spectroscopic technique, atomic samples could be cooled to near absolute zero thus bringing them to their lowest achievable quantum energy state. Scientists have been advancing this technique for decades now and an important question that arose recently is whether carbon molecules, which are an integral component of life on earth, could be laser-cooled.

Eurowind Energy is building wind-solar capacity at five onshore energy centers and is also considering hydrogen electrolysis. It says each of the sites will include battery storage to offer grid services.

The right temperature ensures the success of technical processes, the quality of food and medicines, or affects the lifetime of electronic components and batteries. Temperature indicators enable to detect (un)desired temperature exposures and irreversibly record them by changing their signal for a readout at any later time.

Of particular interest are small-sized temperature indicators that can be easily integrated into any arbitrary object and subsequently monitor the objects’ temperature history autonomously, i.e. without power supply. Accordingly, the indicators’ signal readout permits to verify successful bonding processes, to uncover temperature peaks in global supply chains, or to localize hot spots in electronic devices.

Prof. Dr. Karl Mandel (Professorship for Inorganic Chemistry) and his research group have succeeded in developing a new type of temperature indicator in the form of a micrometer-sized particle, which differs from previously established, mostly optical indicators mainly due to its innovative magnetic readout method. The results of the research work have now been published in the journal Advanced Materials (“Recording Temperature with Magnetic Supraparticles”).