Sunday 27 April 2014

Chemical vapor deposition used to grow atomic layer materials on top of each other

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Cross-sectional HRTEM of Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2) /epitaxial graphene demonstrating the nucleation and subsequent lateral growth of MoS2 on a SiC step edge covered with epitaxial graphene. Credit: Yu-Chuan Lin   Researchers at Penn State’s Center for Two-Dimensional and Layered Materials and the University of Texas at Dallas have shown the ability to grow high quality, single-layer materials one on top of the other using chemical vapor deposition. This highly scalable technique, often used in the semiconductor industry, can produce new materials with unique properties that could be applied to solar cells, ultracapacitors for energy storage, or advanced transistors for energy efficient electronics, among many other applications. “People have been trying to stack these layered materials using the scotch tape method (an exfoliation method developed by Nobel laureates Novoselov and Geim to produce graphene), but that leaves residue on the layers and is not scalable,” explains Joshua Robinson of Penn State, corresponding author on a recent article published online in ACS Nano. Other groups have utilized the chemical vapor deposition method to grow layered materials on a copper substrate, but this method requires some sophisticated techniques to transfer the layered material to a more functional substrate without causing tears or contamination. Robinson and his

The post Chemical vapor deposition used to grow atomic layer materials on top of each other has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Image: Hubble's Messier 5

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"Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ..." begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous catalog of nebulae and star clusters.



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Why climate change hits the world’s poor harder

Science Focus

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Ethiopians carrying jerrycans of water.

You’re living in Sub-Saharan Africa during a drought entering its second year. The diminished harvests have left you without enough food, and your family is trying to figure out how to get by. You’ve settled on selling some of your livestock and securing a small loan to help cover the cost of food, confident that you’ll be able to recover quickly and repay your debt.

Some of your friends, however, have less wealth than you. If they sell their last two cattle, it could be a long time before they could afford to replace them. And given that their annual income is highly variable, they can’t risk taking out a loan they may not be able to pay back. So rather than dig themselves into a potentially inescapable hole, they eat less and go hungry. Some of those families have growing children, but they see no other way.

In situations like these, those in poverty can be significantly more vulnerable than their wealthier counterparts. When you have little, your flexibility to deal with unpredictable crises is limited.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
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original post: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/XQnuDWrrJjY/
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Shiny quantum dots brighten future of solar cells

Science Focus

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A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently harvest sunlight. “The key accomplishment is the demonstration of large-area luminescent solar concentrators that use a new generation of specially engineered quantum dots,” said lead researcher Victor Klimov of the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) at Los Alamos. Quantum dots are ultra-small bits of semiconductor matter that can be synthesized with nearly atomic precision via modern methods of colloidal chemistry.  Their emission color can be tuned by simply varying their dimensions. Color tunability is combined with high emission efficiencies approaching 100 percent. These properties have recently become the basis of a new technology – quantum dot displays – employed, for example, in the newest generation of the Kindle Fire ™ e-reader. Light-harvesting antennas A luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a photon management device, representing a slab of transparent material that contains highly efficient emitters such as dye molecules or quantum dots. Sunlight absorbed in

The post Shiny quantum dots brighten future of solar cells has been published on Technology Org.

 
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original post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/x_JLAzLCLT4/
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VIDEO: US dark matter hunt at critical phase

Science Focus

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The quest to find the most mysterious particles in the Universe is entering a critical phase, scientists say. 
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original post: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26932334#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Name, Carina Nebula, Gas-cloud outer space image Wrapping Paper

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tagged with: star forming activity, star nurseries, stellar winds, young hot stars, carina nebula, galaxy stars, hubble space photography, gas clouds, outer space sculpture, hrbstslr cnbigc

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A beautiful space photograph featuring the 7500 light year distant Carina Nebula. This Hubble image shows rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new stars. As a proto star forms, the gas clouds get dragged to its surface and some gets emitted as tight jets of material travelling at hundreds of miles per second. These in turn help sculpt the gas clouds into weird and grotesque shapes, some looking like strange worms, swimming through space.
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image code: cnbigc

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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SuitSat-1: A Spacesuit Floats Free

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Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous design featuring a composite image of the Cat's Eye nebula from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
This famous nebula represents a phase of stellar evolution after a star like our Sun runs out of fuel. In this phase, a star becomes an expanding red giant and sheds some of its outer layers, eventually leaving behind a hot core that collapses to form a dense white dwarf star. A fast wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere, pushes it outward, and creates the graceful filamentary structures.
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image code: tcenebnch

Image credit: NASA/Chandra www.nasa.gov

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Spiral Galaxy iPad Mini Case

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Spiral Galaxy

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Lithium-sulfur batteries last longer with nanomaterial-packed cathode

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Electric vehicles could travel farther and more renewable energy could be stored with lithium-sulfur batteries that use a unique powdery nanomaterial. Researchers added the powder, a kind of nanomaterial called a metal organic framework, to the battery’s cathode to capture problematic polysulfides that usually cause lithium-sulfur batteries to fail after a few charges. A paper describing the material and its performance was published online April 4 in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.   PNNL developed a nickel-based metal organic framework, shown here in an illustration, to hold onto polysulfide molecules in the cathodes of lithium-sulfur batteries and extend the batteries’ lifespans. The colored spheres in this image represent the 3D material’s tiny pores into with the polysulfides become trapped.     “Lithium-sulfur batteries have the potential to power tomorrow’s electric vehicles, but they need to last longer after each charge and be able to be repeatedly recharged,” said materials chemist Jie Xiao of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Our metal organic framework may offer a new way to make that happen.” Today’s electric vehicles are typically powered by lithium-ion batteries. But the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries limits how much energy they can store. As a result, electric vehicle

The post Lithium-sulfur batteries last longer with nanomaterial-packed cathode has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Breathtaking views of well-known galaxies

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Breathtaking views of well-known galaxies
Thank you #Chandra et al :)

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory originally shared:

Professional and Amateur Astronomers Join Forces
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/proam/

This quartet of galaxies comes from a collaboration of professional and amateur astronomers that combines optical data from amateur telescopes with data from the archives of NASA missions. Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, the galaxies are M101 (the "Pinwheel Galaxy"), M81, Centaurus A, and M51 (the "Whirlpool Galaxy"). In these images, X-rays from Chandra are in pink, infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are red, and the optical data are in red, green, and blue.  The two astrophotographers who donated their images for these four images -- Detlef Hartmann and Rolf Olsen -- used their personal telescopes of 17.5 inches and 10 inches in diameter respectively.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
 
original post: https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/KYv6WKhAU7U
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Moonshadow Print

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A massive solar eclipse observed on a distant moon.

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Omega Nebula - Our Amazing Universe Stickers

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Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three-colour composite image of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17, or NGC 6618), based on images obtained with the EMMI instrument on the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory. North is down and East is to the right in the image. It spans an angle equal to about one third the diameter of the Full Moon, corresponding to about 15 light-years at the distance of the Omega Nebula. The three filters used are B (blue), V ("visual", or green) and R (red).

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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Celestron FirstScope Reflector Telescope for Under $50

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For a limited time, get the Celestron FirstScope reflector telescope for under $50 from Amazon.com.
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Name, Tadpole Nebula, Auriga Constellation Gift Wrap

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Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome outer space picture featuring the Tadpole Nebula, a star forming hub located about 12000 light years away in the Auriga constellation.
This nebula is brimming with new-born stars, many as young as only a million years of age. It's called the Tadpole nebula because the masses of hot, young stars are blasting out ultraviolet radiation that has etched the gas into two tadpole-shaped pillars, called Sim 129 and130, the yellow forms that seem to be swimming away from the three red stars close to the centre of the picture.
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image code: tnitac

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

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Ngc 3603 Emission Nebula Wall Stickers

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Star birth in Carina Nebula from Hubble's WFC3 det iPad Folio Covers

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ImageID: 42-23286264 / STScI / NASA/Corbis / Star birth in Carina Nebula from Hubble's WFC3 detector

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