A material with atomically thin layers of water holds promise for energy storage technologies, and researchers have now discovered that the water is performing a different role than anyone anticipated. The finding was possible due to a new atomic force microscopy (AFM) method that measures the sub-nanoscale deformation rate in the material in response to changes in the material caused by energy storage. (more…)
At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information’s ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware.
A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today’s silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal Science, display properties that make it well suited to a wide range of applications in memory, sensing and low-cost energy storage. (more…)
Researchers from North Carolina State University have created flower-like structures out of germanium sulfide (GeS) – a semiconductor material – that have extremely thin petals with an enormous surface area. The GeS flower holds promise for next-generation energy storage devices and solar cells.
“Creating these GeS nanoflowers is exciting because it gives us a huge surface area in a small amount of space,” says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. “This could significantly increase the capacity of lithium-ion batteries, for instance, since the thinner structure with larger surface area can hold more lithium ions. By the same token, this GeS flower structure could lead to increased capacity for supercapacitors, which are also used for energy storage.” (more…)
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a universal technique for stripping nanocrystals of tether-like molecules that until now have posed as obstacles for their integration into devices. These findings could provide scientists with a clean slate for developing new nanocrystal-based technologies for energy storage, photovoltaics, smart windows, solar fuels and light-emitting diodes.
Nanocrystals are typically prepared in a chemical solution using stringy molecules called ligands chemically tethered to their surface. These hydrocarbon-based or organometallic molecules help stabilize the nanocrystal, but also form an undesirable insulating shell around the structure. Efficient and clean removal of these surface ligands is challenging and has eluded researchers for decades. (more…)
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new computational approach to improve the utility of superconductive materials for specific design applications – and have used the approach to solve a key research obstacle for the next-generation superconductor material yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO).
A superconductor is a material that can carry electricity without any loss – none of the energy is dissipated as heat, for example. Superconductive materials are currently used in medical MRI technology, and are expected to play a prominent role in emerging power technologies, such as energy storage or high-efficiency wind turbines. (more…)
