Tuesday 15 May 2018

Water plumes on Jupiter's moon Europa?

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Scientists re-examining data from an old mission bring new insights to the tantalizing question of whether Jupiter's moon Europa has the ingredients to support life. The data provide independent evidence that the moon's subsurface liquid water reservoir may be venting plumes of water vapor above its icy shell.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Scientists use Dorset, UK, as model to help find traces of life on Mars

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By studying a stream on the UK coast, experts have calculated how much organic matter we might find on Mars, and where to look.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Announcement of the segregation of Graphenea Semiconductor (CVD) business

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The Shareholders meeting has approved the segregation of the CVD business of Graphenea SA into Graphenea Semiconductor SLU. Read official announcement (in Spanish).


via Graphenea

ScienceTake: How Asteroids May Have Brought Water to Earth

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It was thought that water bound up in asteroids would be lost in the intense heat of the impacts when they hit our planet. New experiments say no.
via New York Times

Graphenea launches new GFET product

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Graphenea has launched sales of GFETs – graphene field effect transistors, aimed at lowering barriers to adoption of graphene, especially on the market for sensors. Researchers needing GFETs for their applications, whether in gas or biosensing, or for other applications, needn’t worry anymore about consistently obtaining high-quality GFET devices.

Graphenea has for starters launched two standard GFET-for-sensing configurations dubbed GFET-S10 and GFET-S20, each including 36 individual GFETs on a one square centimeter die, but differing in device layout. The GFET-S10 has devices distributed evenly over the die and the GFET-S20 has the devices concentrated in the center of the die with electrical pads located at the die edge. The GFET-S20 devices all have a 2-probe geometry for probing electrical properties during sensing, whereas the GFET-S10 houses 30 devices with the Hall bar geometry and 6 with 2-probe geometry. The Hall bars enable magnetic field sensing, apart from applications in graphene device research, bioelectronics, biosensing, chemical sensing, and photodetectors that the 2-probe geometry also allows.

Customers can choose a device layout that satisfies their needs. The new product is especially suited to those looking to develop novel applications of graphene, without the desire or capacity to engage in full-scale graphene research that is required for consistent high-quality GFET devices. For those not happy with either of the two layouts, in the coming months the company will launch a custom design service for the same high-quality GFETs in tailored arrangements.

Owing to the 2D nature of graphene and its excellent electrical, optical and mechanical properties, the material makes for an excellent sensor. Sensing power was most strikingly demonstrated by the sensing of the adsorption of a single gas molecule by the team at the University of Manchester, although numerous applications in chemical, bio, or magnetic sensors or photodetectors were also shown. All of those ultrasensitive devices operate on a GFET platform. The new devices from Graphenea have a specified carrier mobility above 1000 cm2/V*s, residual charge carrier density below 2 x 1012cm-2, the Dirac point between 10 and 40V, and a yield higher than 75%. The GFETs are made on the standard Si/SiO2 substrate, with Ni/Al metal contacts.


via Graphenea