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Detectors

Harnessing Ultrasound Waves to Control Solid Particles in Liquids: A New Frontier in Biomedical Research

Researchers have detailed the physics behind a phenomenon that allows them to create spin in liquid droplets using ultrasound waves, which concentrates solid particles suspended in the liquid. The discovery will allow researchers to engineer technologies that make use of the technique to develop applications in fields such as biomedical testing and drug development.

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The discovery of a new phenomenon that allows researchers to control solid objects in liquids using ultrasound waves has sent shockwaves throughout the scientific community. The technique, which concentrates solid particles suspended in a liquid by inducing spin through the use of high-frequency sound waves, holds immense promise for biomedical testing and drug development.

At the heart of this innovation is the work of Chuyi Chen, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, who explains that the process involves creating ultrasound waves on the surface of a piezoelectric substrate. This causes the fluid inside the droplet to stream in a circle, while the surface tension of the droplet prevents it from spreading out into a flat sheet.

As a result, particles within the droplet are driven by a combination of forces – from the ultrasound waves, the spinning droplet itself, and the fluid moving within the droplet. This movement creates a helical pattern as particles corkscrew through the liquid to come together at a central point.

“This is a novel way of concentrating solid particles in a liquid solution,” Chen notes, “which can be extremely useful.” For instance, by making it easier for sensors to detect relevant materials within cells, this technique could significantly improve biomedical assays.

However, to fully harness this phenomenon and develop technologies that make use of it, researchers need to understand the underlying physics. This is precisely what Chen’s team has achieved in their groundbreaking research.

“This paper lays out in detail the physics responsible for controlling particles inside the droplet,” Chen says. “Now that we understand the forces involved, we can make informed decisions and engineer technologies to concentrate particles in a liquid sample in a controlled way.”

One key aspect of these findings is that researchers can manipulate several parameters – including surface tension, droplet radius, and ultrasound wave amplitude – to influence particle movement within the droplet. This gives them multiple mechanisms for fine-tuning rotation and behavior.

In addition to its potential utility in biomedical research, this new technique also holds promise for exploring fundamental physics questions related to rotating systems. By creating miniaturized tornado-like vortex flows or studying Coriolis-driven transport on a small scale, researchers can gain valuable insights into these phenomena without the need for extensive resources.

The work behind this discovery was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. As Chen notes, “This research opens up new avenues for exploring complex physics questions in a compact and relatively inexpensive way.”

Detectors

“Pioneering Electronics for Particle Physics: Columbia’s Breakthroughs at CERN”

Deep beneath the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider unleashes staggering amounts of energy and radiation—enough to fry most electronics. Enter a team of Columbia engineers, who built ultra-rugged, radiation-resistant chips that now play a pivotal role in capturing data from subatomic particle collisions. These custom-designed ADCs not only survive the hostile environment inside CERN but also help filter and digitize the most critical collision events, enabling physicists to study elusive phenomena like the Higgs boson.

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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is an extraordinary scientific instrument that accelerates particles close to the speed of light before smashing them together. This process produces tiny maelstroms of particles and energy, which hold secrets about the building blocks of matter. However, these collisions also generate enormous amounts of data and enough radiation to scramble electronic equipment.

Despite this challenge, physicists at CERN have made groundbreaking discoveries, including the Higgs boson, whose exact properties still hold mysteries. To advance research further, engineers from Columbia University have collaborated with their colleagues at CERN and other institutions to design specialized silicon chips that can collect data in one of the harshest environments in particle physics.

These chips are called analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), which capture electrical signals produced by particle collisions inside detectors and translate them into digital data. The Columbia-designed ADC chips have been tested and validated for radiation resistance, ensuring they can withstand the severe conditions at LHC for more than a decade.

The collaboration between physicists and engineers has led to the development of two essential components: the trigger ADC and the data acquisition ADC. The first chip enables the trigger system to filter billions of collisions each second, selecting only the most scientifically promising events to record. The second chip will very precisely digitize selected signals, allowing physicists to explore phenomena like the Higgs boson.

This project showcases the power of direct collaboration between fundamental physicists and engineers, creating opportunities for innovation and scientific discovery. As research at CERN advances, Columbia-designed components will contribute to data acquisition systems that support physicists in analyzing phenomena beyond the current limits of knowledge.

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Batteries

Nanotech Breakthrough Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency Beyond 10%

Scientists in China have developed a precise method to grow titanium dioxide nanorod arrays with controllable spacing, independent of rod size. This innovation boosts solar cell efficiency by allowing light capture and charge movement to be fine-tuned.

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The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of nanotechnology. A research team led by Prof. Mingtai Wang has developed a revolutionary method for creating titanium dioxide nanorod arrays (TiO2-NA) with precise control over rod spacing, without affecting individual rod size. This breakthrough has significant implications for high-performance solar cells and other applications.

The researchers used a carefully tuned process to grow TiO2 nanorods, which excel at harvesting light and conducting charge. Traditional methods, however, often result in linked parameters – adjusting one aspect affects others, potentially compromising device efficiency. The team’s innovative approach separates rod density from diameter and length, allowing for precise control over the former.

Their strategy involves extending the hydrolysis stage of a precursor film to create longer “gel chains,” which assemble into smaller anatase nanoparticles. These nanoparticles then convert in situ into rutile ones, serving as seeds for nanorod growth. By controlling this process, the team successfully produced TiO2-NA films with constant rod diameter and height, despite varying rod density.

When integrated into low-temperature-processed CuInS2 solar cells, these films achieved remarkable results – power conversion efficiencies exceeding 10%, peaking at 10.44%. To explain why spacing matters so profoundly, the researchers introduced a Volume-Surface-Density model, illustrating how rod density influences light trapping, charge separation, and carrier collection.

This research marks a significant step forward in regulating nanostructures and optimizing device performance. By establishing a complete system linking process regulation, microstructure evolution, and device optimization, this breakthrough has far-reaching implications for clean energy and optoelectronics applications.

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Chemistry

Unlocking New Horizons in Quantum Physics with Twisted Materials

Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new method for creating quantum states by twisting materials at the M-point, revealing exotic phenomena previously out of reach. This new direction dramatically expands the moiré toolkit and may soon lead to the experimental realization of long-sought quantum spin liquids.

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The world of modern physics has been revolutionized by the emergence of twisted materials, also known as moiré structures. These remarkable systems have been hailed as today’s “alchemy” due to their ability to create entirely new phases of matter through simple geometric manipulation. By carefully controlling the twist angle, physicists can engineer entirely new quantum states, opening doors previously closed to experimental science.

One striking example of this effect is twisted bilayer graphene, where superconductivity unexpectedly emerges, even though graphene layers individually cannot become superconducting. This phenomenon has fascinated scientists and engineers alike, as it holds promise for a wide range of technological applications, from quantum simulators to ultrasensitive terahertz sensors and single-photon detectors.

However, until now, the focus has predominantly been on hexagonal lattices twisted around what are known as K-points – special points of electronic momentum symmetric under 120-degree rotations. Only a handful of materials such as graphene, MoTe2, MoSe2, and WSe2 have been explored experimentally.

In a groundbreaking new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers introduces an entirely new twisting paradigm based on the M-point of the electron momentum, significantly expanding the moiré landscape. This breakthrough has opened up a completely new class of twisted quantum materials with entirely new quantum behavior.

The position of the electronic band minimum is key,” explains Dumitru Călugăru, a Leverhulme-Peierls fellow at the University of Oxford. “By shifting our focus to the M points, we unlock a completely new class of twisted quantum materials with entirely new quantum behavior.”

The research team began by identifying hundreds of candidate materials suitable for this novel type of twisting. These materials were systematically classified based on the position of their electronic band minimum, a critical feature controlling the resulting quantum properties of the twisted layers.

Out of these materials, two (SnSe2 and ZrS2) – with band minimum at the M point — were chosen for the in-depth current study. “Unlike K-point twisting, where moiré bands typically exhibit topological characteristics, we found the M-point twisted bands to be topologically trivial yet remarkably flat,” explained Haoyu Hu, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton.

Through extensive microscopic ab initio calculations – requiring over six months of computational effort – Yi Jiang and Hanqi Pi (Donostia International Physics Center) demonstrated that the electron bands become significantly flattened at low twist angles of about three degrees. Flattening electron bands effectively slows down electrons, enhancing their mutual interactions, and giving rise to novel quantum phenomena.

“This flattening can localize electrons in either a hexagonal lattice or a kagome lattice arrangement,” Jiang noted. Pi further elaborated, “Such localization means we can now experimentally realize diverse quantum states, potentially including quantum spin liquids.”

Quantum spin liquids, elusive states that have fascinated physicists, promise exciting applications including possible pathways to high-temperature superconductivity. However, they have never been conclusively observed experimentally in bulk materials, largely because of extreme difficulties in precisely controlling doping (adding or removing electrons) and other essential material properties.

Twisted materials, however, offer greater experimental controllability due to their tunable structure and the possibility of electrostatic gating – a technique which allows the doping of electrons without degrading the material, overcoming many of these historical hurdles.

The team’s theoretical predictions and detailed electronic models represent a major step toward observing these states in realistic materials. Other phases of matter identified, such as unidirectional spin liquids and orthonormal dimer valence bond phases, are entirely new and unique to the M-point system.

Yet, this research transcends theory. Collaborators in quantum materials chemistry – Leslie Schoop (Princeton University) and Claudia Felser (Max Planck Institute, Dresden) – have already successfully synthesized bulk crystals of several predicted candidate materials, providing the critical first step toward practical realization.

World-leading experts in 2D materials – including Dmitri Efetov (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), Jie Shan, and Kin Fai Mak (both at Cornell University) – then are exfoliating these bulk crystals into single-layer sheets, clearly to demonstrate the experimental feasibility of the proposed platform.

“The experimental realization of these materials is critical. Once twisted, gated, and measured, these new quantum states may become tangible realities,” said B. Andrei Bernevig, Professor of Physics at Princeton University. Every new twist we perform seems to yield surprises. Fundamentally, these materials offer a gateway to quantum states of matter nobody has envisioned.

Because they are so experimentally controllable, the possibilities truly are limitless.”

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