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Categories: Energy: Technology, Physics: Optics

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Converting home heating systems from natural gas furnaces to electric heat pumps is seen as a way to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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As more and more people drive electric cars, congestion and queues can occur when many people need to charge at the same time. A new study shows how AI-controlled charging stations, through smart algorithms, can offer electric vehicle users personalized prices, and thus minimize both price and waiting time for customers. But the researchers point to the importance of taking the ethical issues seriously, as there is a risk that the artificial intelligence exploits information from motorists.

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A technical achievement marks a significant advance in the burgeoning field of observing individual molecules without the aid of fluorescent labels. While these labels are useful in many applications, they alter molecules in ways that can obscure how they naturally interact with one another. The new label-free method makes the molecules so easy to detect, it is almost as if they had labels.

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Engineers have helped design a new method to make hydrogen gas from water using only solar power and agricultural waste such as manure or husks. The method reduces the energy needed to extract hydrogen from water by 600%, creating new opportunities for sustainable, climate-friendly chemical production.

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Researchers probed the transit of cations across a nanopore membrane for the generation of osmotic energy. The team controlled the passage of cations across the membrane using a voltage applied to a gate electrode. This control allowed the cation-selective transport to be tuned from essentially zero to complete cation selectivity. The findings are expected to support the application of blue energy solutions for sustainable energy alternatives worldwide.

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The eyes of raptors such as eagles can accurately perceive prey from kilometers away. Is it possible to model the camera technology after the bird's eyes? Researchers developed a new type of camera, which was inspired by the structures and functions of bird's eyes.

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Lenses are used to bend and focus light. Normal lenses rely on their curved shape to achieve this effect, but physicists have made a flat lens of only three atoms thick which relies on quantum effects. This type of lens could be used in future augmented reality glasses.

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Growing concern about data theft and counterfeiting has inspired increasingly sophisticated security technologies, like hologram seals, that can help verify the authenticity of currency, passports and other important documents. However, as security technologies evolve, so do the techniques criminals use to get past them. To stay one step ahead of these bad actors, researchers report that they have developed a new photopatterning technique that creates two light-reactive images on one material.

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Advances in electrochromic coatings may bring us closer to environmentally friendly ways to keep inside spaces cool. Like eyeglasses that darken to provide sun protection, the optical properties of these transparent films can be tuned with electricity to block out solar heat and light. Now, researchers report demonstrating a new electrochromic film design based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that quickly and reliably switch from transparent to glare-diminishing green to thermal-insulating red.

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A new study may help redefine how scientists map the surface of the Moon, making the process more streamlined and precise than ever before.

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Researchers have managed to generate propagating spin waves at the nanoscale and discovered a novel pathway to modulate and amplify them. Their discovery could pave the way for the development of dissipation free quantum information technologies. As the spin waves do not involve electric currents these chips will be free from associated losses of energy. The rapidly growing popularity of artificial intelligence comes with an increasing desire for fast and energy efficient computing devices and calls for novel ways to store and process information. The electric currents in conventional devices suffer from losses of energy and subsequent heating of the environment.

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Offshore wind could have prevented the Fukushima disaster, according to a review of wind energy.

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Team develops a high-energy, high-efficiency all-solid-state Na-air battery platform.

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Plant hydraulics drive the biological process that moves fluids from roots to plant stems and leaves, creating streaming electric potential, or voltage, in the process. A study closely examined the differences in voltage caused by the concentrations of ions, types of ions, and pH of the fluid plants transport, tying the voltage changes to the plant's circadian rhythm that causes adjustments day and night. According to the authors, this consistent, cyclic voltage creation could be harnessed as an energy source.

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Imagine if your dead laptop or phone could charge in a minute or if an electric car could be fully powered in 10 minutes. New research could lead to such advances.

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Researchers have outlined a way to manipulate water molecules to make CO2R more efficient, with the ultimate goal of creating a clean energy loop. Through their new method, the team was able to perform CO2R with nearly 100% efficiency under mildly acidic conditions, using either gold or zinc as catalysts.

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Researchers have developed a new technique to view living mammalian cells. The team used a powerful laser, called a soft X-ray free electron laser, to emit ultrafast pulses of illumination at the speed of femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second. With this they could capture images of carbon-based structures in living cells for the first time, before the soft X-ray radiation damaged them.

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Many of today's quantum devices rely on collections of qubits, also called spins. These quantum bits have only two energy levels, the '0' and the '1'. However, spins in real devices also interact with light and vibrations known as bosons, greatly complicating calculations. Researchers now demonstrate a way to describe spin-boson systems and use this to efficiently configure quantum devices in a desired state.

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Researchers have fabricated a device no wider than a human hair that will help physicists investigate the fundamental nature of matter and light. Their findings could also support the development of more efficient lasers, which are used in fields ranging from medicine to manufacturing.

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Researchers introduce a polymer-based material with unique properties. This material allows sunlight to enter, maintains a more comfortable indoor climate without additional energy, and cleans itself like a lotus leaf. The new development could replace glass components in walls and roofs in the future.