Condensed Matter news

Light-generating transistors to power labs on chips

Physics / Condensed Matter

3 minutes ago | not rated yet | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- What started out as 'blue-sky' thinking by a group of European researchers could ultimately lead to the commercial mass production of a new generation of optoelectronic components for devices ...

Absorbing Hydrogen Fluoride Gas to Enhance Crystal Growth

Physics / Condensed Matter

Dec 10, 2009 | 5 / 5 (1) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a method to control the buildup of hydrogen fluoride gas during the growth of precision crystals ...

Highlight: Exploiting strain fields

Physics / Condensed Matter

Dec 10, 2009 | not rated yet | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Electronic devices of the future may benefit from a fundamental discovery that allows researchers to customize the electronic properties of complex materials such as single-crystal thin-film structures.

Hunting for new zeolites

Physics / Condensed Matter

Nov 02, 2009 | 5 / 5 (3) | 0

In all the world, there are about 200 types of zeolite, a compound of silicon, aluminum and oxygen that gives civilization such things as laundry detergent, kitty litter and gasoline. But thanks to computations ...

Bacteria mix it up at the microscopic level

Physics / Condensed Matter

Nov 02, 2009 | 3.5 / 5 (4) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many hands -- or many flagella -- make light work. In studies of the motion of tiny swimming bacteria, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory found that ...

PhD student solves decade-long mystery of magnetism

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 27, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (32) | 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- A PhD student from the London Centre for Nanotechnology has won a prize for solving a decade-long mystery central to understanding modern magnetic systems.

The lotus's clever way of staying dry (w/ Video)

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 22, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (3) | 1

An ancient Confucian philosopher once said, "I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained."

Scientists find new set of multiferroic materials

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 20, 2009 | 2 / 5 (2) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The trail to a new multiferroic started with the theories of a U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory scientist and ended with a multidisciplinary collaboration that created ...

Unexpected Hydrides Become Stable Metals at Pressure Near One Quarter Required to Metalize Pure Hydrogen Alone

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 12, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (11) | 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- From detailed assessments of electronic structure, researchers at the University at Buffalo, Cornell University, Stony Brook University and Moscow State University discovered that unexpected ...

Puzzled Physicists Solve Decade-Long Discrepancies

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 09, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (31) | 7

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by physicists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) have resolved a decade-long puzzle that is set to have huge implications ...

Bacterium helps formation of gold

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 07, 2009 | 4 / 5 (8) | 0

Australian scientists have found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyses the biomineralisation of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechan ...

Breaking Down the Barrier for Smaller, Faster Electronic Devices

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 05, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (5) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of international researchers is the first to uncover the chemical composition and structure of a microelectronics element that is vital to producing ever smaller - and, thus, cheaper ...

New Sulfur- and Coking-Tolerant Material Could Expand Applications for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Physics / Condensed Matter

Oct 01, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (11) | 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new ceramic material described in this week's issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells - devices that generate electricity directly from a ...

Why they grow? Getting to the roots of lethal metal whiskers

Physics / Condensed Matter

Sep 29, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (10) | 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- A short circuit can be quite hairy: satellites have failed, a NASA computer centre was repeatedly paralysed and the US public heath authority recalled thousands of pacemakers - all because ...

Computation helps predict heat transfer in diamond

Physics / Condensed Matter

Sep 22, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (8) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cornell researcher Derek Stewart and collaborators have calculated the exact mechanism by which diamond conducts heat, a breakthrough that could lend insight into many fields, including electronics.

New beryllium reference material for occupational safety monitoring

Physics / Condensed Matter

Sep 22, 2009 | 5 / 5 (1) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in collaboration with private industry and other government agencies, have produced a new reference material for beryllium. ...

Scientists use low-gravity space station lab to study crystal growth

Physics / Condensed Matter

Sep 21, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (9) | 1

A research project 10 years in the making is now orbiting the Earth, much to the delight of its creator Rohit Trivedi, a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. Equipment recently ...

Physicists Find a World of Motion In the Mystery of Aging Glass

Physics / Condensed Matter

Sep 19, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (11) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists super-cooled a liquid into glass in order to observe the slowing of particles. It's a material that still perplexes researchers despite thousands of years of household and industrial use.