Category Uncategorised

A new fabrication process that could be used to build a quantum computer achieves an almost zero failure rate and has the potential to be scaled up, according to new research from engineers and physicists at UCL. The study, published in Advanced…

An electronic nose is a device that can detect gases and recognise odour. In general, however, they cannot yet compete with the versatility and sensitivity of the best biological noses. Drawing on a proposed theory of how humans identify odour…

The vibrational spectra of crystals, on which many thermal and mechanical properties depend, are known to be highly structured at low temperatures, with all of the energy restricted to a set of surfaces in reciprocal spacetime, known as the phonon bands.…

Solar cells are a promising renewable energy source due to theirability to convert sunlight into electricity without a negative impact on theenvironment. Most commercial photovoltaics are made from silicon but there is ademand for alternative technologies with greater efficiency and…

The interaction of nanoparticles with light plays an important role in many applications, for example solar cells or photocatalysis. The fundamental quantity that determines if a nanoparticle can absorb light is the energy gap between its highly occupied orbital and…

TYC members, Zhao and Di Tommaso (Queen Mary), and Crespo-Otero (UCL) have identified the role of copper (Cu) in diatomic catalysts in the electrochemical CO2 conversion to one-carbon (C1) value-added chemicals. Traditionally, Cu has been identified as the catalytic site…

The production of hydrogen using solar energy is a key step towards a green hydrogen economy. Palladium nanoparticles are good catalysts for the production of hydrogen, but they do not absorb much sunlight. This limitation of palladium nanoparticles can be…

Increasing electrical conductivity with insulating groups. Organic semiconducting crystals are carbon-based materials in which molecules are held together by weak intermolecular forces. These materials can conduct electrical current owing to the presence of relatively unbound and, in some cases, partially…

Thermoplasmonics attracts significant interest in nanoscale heat transport applications such as catalysis, biomedical nanodevices (thermal therapies for cancer treatment) or imaging. These structures rely on the heating using electromagnetic radiation and the subsequent heat transfer to the surroundings. The dynamic…

Data-Driven Solution of the Inverse Problem in Classical Statistical Mechanics Statistical mechanics aims to relate observable macroscopic properties of matter with its underlying microscopic structure via appropriate averaging. The central property which facilitates such averaging is the probability density ρ(r) of finding…