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Closing the green gap: A cubic III-nitride active layer with 32% internal quantum efficiency

Color mixing is the process of combining two or more colors: red and green make yellow, blue and red make purple, red and green and blue make white. This process of mixing colors is the basis for the future of solid-state lighting. While currently white light is achieved by phosphor down-conversion, LED color mixing actually has a higher theoretical maximum efficiency, which is needed in order to achieve the 2035 DOE energy efficiency goals. …read more […]

Quantum magnetometers detect smallest material defects at an early stage

Quantum magnetometers are able to detect and visualize the tiniest damage in ferromagnetic materials. In aerospace technology or the automotive industry, they can help to significantly increase the resilience and safety of systems and materials. …read more […]

Now we know why Starship’s second flight test failed

SpaceX is often in the headlines; unfortunately, it is not always good news. On 18 November we saw the second of the Starship and SuperHeavy booster get off the launchpad successfully; it failed before reaching orbit. In a recent event, Elon Musk explained how a fuel venting near the end of the burn was responsible but entirely avoidable next time. …read more […]

Webb Telescope captures massive star-forming complex

This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. This nebula, known as N79, is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized, captured here by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). …read more […]

Liquid lithium on the walls of a fusion device helps the plasma within maintain a hot edge

Emerging research suggests it may be easier to use fusion as a power source if liquid lithium is applied to the internal walls of the device housing the fusion plasma. …read more […]

Metalens array to enable next-generation true-3D near-eye displays

Integral imaging (II) display is one of the most promising near-eye displays (NEDs) due to its compact volume, full parallax, convenient full-color display, and, more importantly, true-3D and more realistic depth perception from eliminating the vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC). However, II displays based on the conventional optical architecture, such as microlens arrays, are limited in resolution, field of view, depth of field, etc. …read more […]

Life on Earth uses water as a solvent. What are some other options for life as we don’t know it?

There is a vast menagerie of potentially habitable worlds in the cosmos, which means the universe could be home to a diversity of life beyond what we can imagine. Creatures built on silicon rather than carbon, or organisms that breathe hydrogen instead of oxygen. But regardless of how strange and wondrous alien life may be, it is still governed by the same chemistry as life on Earth, and that means it needs a chemical solvent. …read more […]

The next generation LIFE telescope could detect some intriguing biosignatures

The Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) project is an ambitious plan to build a space telescope with four independent mirrors. The array would allow the individual mirrors to move closer or farther apart, similar to the way the Very Large Array (VLA) does with radio antennas. …read more […]

This is the oldest black hole ever seen

There’s an incredibly ancient black hole out there that’s challenging astronomers to explain how it could exist only 400 million years after the Big Bang. It’s at the heart of a galaxy called GN-z11. Astronomers using JWST saw evidence of it gobbling up that galaxy, which is one way a black hole can grow. …read more […]

Vera Rubin will help us find the weird and wonderful things happening in the solar system

The Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is something special among telescopes. It’s not built for better angular resolution and increased resolving power like the European Extremely Large Telescope or the Giant Magellan Telescope. It’s built around a massive digital camera and will repeatedly capture broad, deep views of the entire sky rather than focus on any individual objects. …read more […]

Hubble observes an askew galaxy coaxing star formation from its partner

Arp 300 consists of two interacting galaxies, UGC 05028 (the smaller face-on spiral galaxy) and UGC 05029 (the larger face-on spiral). Likely due to its gravitational dance with its larger partner, UGC 05028 has an asymmetric, irregular structure, which is not as visible from ground-based telescopes but is quite distinct in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. …read more […]

The physics behind 300-year-old firefighting methods could inform knowledge of how our hearts work

Today, water pressure technology is ubiquitous, and any person who showers, waters a garden, or fights fires is benefiting from the technology devised to harness it. In the 17th and 18th centuries, though, a steady stream of water not punctuated by pressure drops was a major breakthrough. …read more […]

Tiny water-walking bugs provide scientists with insights on how microplastics are pushed underwater

Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that can cause big problems when they enter the water supply. One way my fluid dynamics lab explores microplastic movement is by studying how tiny water-walking insects are pushed underwater by raindrops. …read more […]

Team discovers evidence of cometary dust hitting the asteroid Ryugu

Ryugu is a near-Earth asteroid that gained significant attention when the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission collected samples and returned them to Earth. These samples have proven to offer a treasure trove of insights into the solar system, including the possible role of asteroids in delivering organic molecules to Earth. …read more […]

Potential use of topological magnets for magneto-thermoelectric energy conversion

In the pursuit of efficient energy utilization, scientists are looking into thermoelectric materials that can efficiently turn heat into electricity. One specific type, called topological magnets, is getting a lot of attention because they exhibit the anomalous Nernst effect. In the anomalous Nernst effect, a voltage is generated perpendicular to both the temperature gradient and an applied magnetic field in a ferromagnetic material. …read more […]