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  Rechargeable batteries are part of our everyday life. Scientists are working on batteries that hold their charge longer, making them safer.  Part of this movement is a push towards all-solid-state batteries. The main challenge is discovering which solid electrolyte will work effectively. Scientists are Osaka Metropolitan University have developed an electrolyte with electrochemical stability, high conductivity and formability. Their work was published in the journal Chemistry of Materials. High conductivity was achieved by adding tantalum chloride and sodium chloride to tantalum pentoxide. The resulting electrolyte has higher electrochemical stability than regular chlorides and far better mechanical properties.  Professor Kota Motohashi is an Assistant Professor at Osaka Metropolitan University. He summarizes, "The results of this research are expected to make a significant contribution to the development of composite solid electrolytes, in addition to the glass and cry...

 City University in Hong Kong is studying the reduction of energy loss in metal nanostructures. By changing the dimensions of these structures, the scientists have unlocked their full potential. This study and research paves the way for more efficient and powerful nanoscale optical devices. Dr. Liang Yao is from the Department of Electrical Engineering at City UHK. He is the first author of this research. The paper is titled, "From Local to Nonlocal High-Quality Plasmonic Metasurfaces." It was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Yao reports, " This breakthrough resolves the longstanding issue of energy loss, allowing for high-performance nanoscale optical devices." There is a universal rule that has been discovered. It is called the inverse square root law. It shows how changing the dimensions of the plasmonic nanostructures can greatly reduce energy loss. The study relates localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) and surface plasmon polaritons (SP...

 A new research review appeared a few weeks ago in the journal eLight. Scientists are excited about its potential. Microcombs are miniature devices that create precise time and frequency standards. Researchers claim these microcombs will bring big changes to several fields, including high-resolution measurements, high-speed communication devices and even change atomic clocks. In the past, frequency combs were complex and quite large. Microcombs are tiny and very powerful. This is possible thanks to the Kerr effect. This is also referred to as optoelectronic modulation. During this effect, light interacts with nonlinear materials. It creates a broad spectrum of cogent frequencies.  Recently, there are significant advancements in micro combs, it will lead to new methods of gathering and storing information. There is a vast array of applications for microcombs. They are considered information carriers, as they can achieve multifaceted signal generation. Microcombs are known to bo...

A group of quantum specialists, engineers, and physicists at Google research are working to best classical computers. The team has found that by reducing noise to a specific level allows Google's new Sycamore quantum chip to beat classical computers using random circuit sampling (RCS). The team published their work in the journal Nature. They modified the conditions which their processor wasrunning. They reduced the amount of noise interference to a level that surpassed classical computers running RCS.  Computer scientists have been trying to build a super computer for several decades. They haven't found one yet to run the algorithms that would take conventional computers hundred, thousands, or even millions of years to complete. They are just beginning to introduce this new technology.  One of the biggest issues that computer scientists face is errors that are created by environmental noise. This has led to a lot of research into error correction procedures. Research has led ...

  Graphene is harder than a diamond. It is stronger than steel and is as flexible as rubber. Graphene is far lighter than aluminum. There are many amazing properties to graphene. Although it's been of huge interest to scientists and researchers, there is no cheap and sustainable manufacturing method for industrial use.  Scientists from the University of Cordoba (UCO) have presented a study in a journal called the Chemical Engineering Journal. This prototype could represent a huge leap forward towards large scale manufacture of graphene. The new design has already been associated with a patent, and is based on a previous patent published by the team. It increases graphene production by 22%. This process maintains the high quality that graphene requires. The process uses the fourth state of matter. Based on plasma technology, the graphene is created by using a partially ionized gas. In nature, there are numerous natural plasmas, like the Northern Lights and even lightening. The ...

  BitEnergy AI is an inference technology company. The team has published a paper that describes a new technique to reduce the energy needs of AI applications. The group has proposed reducing AI's energy consumption by 95%.  The use of AI applications has gone mainstream. It has lead to a rise in energy needs and costs. Chat GPT is an LLM that requires a LOT of computing power. This means a LOT of electricity is needed to run them. Chat GPT uses 564 kWh daily. That is enough energy to power approximately 18,000 homes. Some have suggested that AI might use around 100 TWh in just a few years. (That's a Bitcoin mining operation's worth of power!) The new method is somewhat simple. The old method used complex floating multiplication (FPM). The new method uses integer addition. Apps use FPM to handle very large (or very small) numbers. This allows applications to carry out calculations. And the calculations are extremely precise. It's the most energy-intensive part of comput...

  Roy Lichtenstein once said, "Color is crucial." Color's significance extends far beyond art. Color and its creation have always mirrored technological progress. Two current examples of this are Prussian blue (the first synthetic pigment) and quantum dots in modern display technology. Scientists at ETH Zurich's Laboratory for Nanometallurgy have created a new method of making non-primitive metasurfaces. The colors of these metasurfaces represent light-matter interactions. The research was presented in the journal Advanced Optical Materials. To show what these metasurfaces can do, researchers got creative. They have recreated Lichtenstein's iconic "Sinking Sun" in nanoscale! This reproduction work shows how color (or specific resonant states) can be fabricated through meticulous control of materials and geometry. Because of this control, these metasurfaces are perfectly suited for encoding information in ways that remain imperceptible.  These metasurface...