Wisconsin Oven delivers two-zone belt conveyor oven for steel tempering

Wisconsin Oven Corporation, East Troy, WI, announced the shipment of a two-zone belt conveyor oven designed for tempering steel parts following induction hardening. The system is engineered for precise temperature control and enhanced energy efficiency, meeting industry specifications for uniform heating.

The oven has the capacity to heat 2,400 pounds of steel per hour from 70°F to 350°F, with a maximum temperature rating of 500°F. It features a top-down airflow recirculation system with a 32,000 CFM blower, evenly distributed between the two heating zones. Temperature control is managed by a Watlow F4T digital recorder/controller, which includes Ethernet communication capabilities and adaptive PID temperature control. A temperature uniformity survey verified uniformity within ±10°F at 350°F, ensuring compliance with AIAG specification CQI-9.

The conveyor system utilizes a continuous belt with a variable frequency drive for speed adjustments, and the work zone measures 4’0” W x 21’0” L x 14” H. To improve energy efficiency, the oven is equipped with the E-Pack™ Energy Efficiency Package, which includes additional insulation and variable frequency drives on the recirculation blowers. These features reduce energy consumption and operational costs, potentially providing substantial annual savings depending on utility rates and operating conditions.

The system’s design optimizes heat-up efficiency and uniformity, making it well-suited for high-volume steel tempering applications. The oven incorporates programmable temperature controls with auto-tuning functionality, ensuring consistent and repeatable performance for industrial heat treatment processes.

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Sustainable building components create a good indoor climate

Researchers from ETH Zurich have explored a new passive dehumidification approach for indoor spaces, where high humidity is absorbed by walls and ceilings and temporarily stored in a hygroscopic material. This method, which releases moisture when the room is ventilated, offers an energy-efficient alternative to mechanical dehumidification systems commonly used in high-traffic areas like offices, museums, and government buildings. According to Professor Guillaume Habert, this solution is ideal for spaces where existing ventilation systems are insufficient.

Habert and his research team followed the principle of the circular economy in their search for a suitable hygroscopic material. The starting point is finely ground waste from marble quarries. A binder is needed to turn this powder into moisture-binding wall and ceiling components. This task is performed by a geopolymer, a class of materials consisting of metakaolin (known from porcelain production) and an alkaline solution (potassium silicate and water). The alkaline solution activates the metakaolin and provides a geopolymer binder that binds the marble powder to form a solid building material. The geopolymer binder is comparable to cement but emits less CO2 during its production.

In the ETH project, the scientists succeeded in producing a prototype of a wall and ceiling component measuring 20 × 20 cm and 4 cm thick. Production was carried out using 3D printing in a group led by Benjamin Dillenburger, Professor for Digital Building Technologies. In this process, the marble powder is applied in layers and glued by the geopolymer binder (binder jet printing technology). “This process enables the efficient production of components in a wide variety of shapes,” says Benjamin Dillenburger.

Combining geopolymer and 3D printing to produce a moisture reservoir is an innovative approach to sustainable construction. Building physicist Magda Posani led the study of the material’s hygroscopic properties at ETH Zurich before recently taking on a professorship at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. The project is based on the doctoral theses of materials scientist Vera Voney, supervised by Senior Research Associate Coralie Brumaud and architect Pietro Odaglia, who developed the material and the 3D printing machine at ETH.

“We were able to demonstrate with numerical simulations that the building components can significantly reduce humidity in heavily used indoor spaces,” says Posani, summarising the main result of the research project. For the simulation, it was assumed that the walls and ceiling of a reading room used by 15 people in a public library in Oporto, Portugal had been completely lined with hygroscopic components. Magda Posani calculated how often and to what extent the humidity exceeded the comfort zone, i.e. 40 to 60 percent relative humidity in this virtual reading room over the course of a year. From this, she calculated a discomfort index, a figure that expresses the loss of comfort caused by excessively high or low humidity. If the reading room were fitted with the moisture-binding components, the discomfort index could be reduced by 75 percent compared to a conventional painted wall. If components were used that were 5 cm thick instead of just 4 cm, the discomfort index fell by as much as 85 percent.

The hygroscopic wall and ceiling components are climate-friendly, i.e. they cause significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions over a 30-year life cycle than a ventilation system that dehumidifies air quality to the same extent. In the simulation calculations, the wall and ceiling components were also compared with a clay plaster that has been used since time immemorial and also passively regulates the air humidity in indoor spaces. This old technique proved to be even more climate-friendly than the hygroscopic components. However, the plaster has a lower storage capacity for water vapour.

The research at ETH has shown that the combination of geopolymer and 3D printing can be used to produce wall and ceiling components for efficient moisture buffering. After this proof of concept, the technology is, in principle, ready to be further developed and scaled for industrial manufacture. At the same time, research continues. In a project with Turin Polytechnic and Aalto University, ETH Zurich is working to produce wall and ceiling components with even lower greenhouse gas emissions. Because one thing is clear: if Switzerland wants to achieve its net zero target by 2050, it needs buildings that cause as little greenhouse gas emissions as possible during construction and use.

For more information: Nature Communications

Designing nano-architected materials using ML and 3D printing

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have used machine learning and 3D printing to create nano-architected materials that combine the strength of carbon steel with the lightness of Styrofoam. In a new paper, Professor Tobin Filleter’s team describes these nanomaterials, which offer exceptional strength, light weight, and customizability, potentially benefiting industries from automotive to aerospace.

“Nano-architected materials combine high-performance shapes, like making a bridge out of triangles, at nanoscale sizes, which takes advantage of the ‘smaller is stronger’ effect, to achieve some of the highest strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios, of any material,” said Peter Serles, the first author of the new paper. “However, the standard lattice shapes and geometries used tend to have sharp intersections and corners, which leads to the problem of stress concentrations. This results in early local failure and breakage of the materials, limiting their overall potential. “As I thought about this challenge, I realized that it is a perfect problem for machine learning to tackle.”

Nano-architected materials are made of tiny building blocks or repeating units measuring a few hundred nanometres in size – it would take more than 100 of them patterned in a row to reach the thickness of a human hair. These building blocks, which in this case are composed of carbon, are arranged in complex 3D structures called nanolattices.

To design their improved materials, Serles and Filleter worked with Professor Seunghwa Ryu and PhD student Jinwook Yeo at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, South Korea. This partnership was initiated through the University of Toronto’s International Doctoral Clusters program, which supports doctoral training through research engagement with international collaborators.

The KAIST team employed the multi-objective Bayesian optimization machine learning algorithm. This algorithm learned from simulated geometries to predict the best possible geometries for enhancing stress distribution and improving the strength-to-weight ratio of nano-architected designs.

Serles then used a two-photon polymerization 3D printer housed in the Centre for Research and Application in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT) to create prototypes for experimental validation. This technology enables 3D printing at the micro and nanoscale – creating optimized carbon nanolattices.

These optimized nanolattices more than doubled the strength of existing designs – withstanding stress of 2.03 megapascals for every cubic meter per kilogram of its density, which is about five times higher than titanium.

“This is the first time machine learning has been applied to optimize nano-architected materials, and we were shocked by the improvements,” said Serles. “It didn’t just replicate successful geometries from the training data; it learned from what changes to the shapes worked and what didn’t, enabling it to predict entirely new lattice geometries. Machine learning is normally very data-intensive, and it’s difficult to generate a lot of data when you’re using high-quality data from finite element analysis. But the multi-objective Bayesian optimization algorithm only needed 400 data points, whereas other algorithms might need 20,000 or more. So, we were able to work with a much smaller but an extremely high-quality data set.”

“We hope that these new material designs will eventually lead to ultra-lightweight components in aerospace applications, such as planes, helicopters, and spacecraft that can reduce fuel demands during flight while maintaining safety and performance,” said Filleter.

“This can ultimately help reduce the high carbon footprint of flying. For example, if you were to replace components made of titanium on a plane with this material, you would be looking at fuel savings of 80 liters per year for every kilogram of material you replace,” said Serles.

“Our next steps will focus on further improving the scale-up of these material designs to enable cost-effective macroscale components,” said Filleter. “In addition, we will continue to explore new designs that push the material architectures to even lower density while maintaining high strength and stiffness.”

For more information: Advanced Materials

Materials that absorb carbon and combat climate change

Switching to building materials designed to store carbon dioxide could significantly advance net-zero greenhouse gas emission efforts. A new study estimates that using CO2-sequestering materials could capture up to 16.6 ± 2.8 gigatons of CO2 annually, nearly 50% of 2021’s global CO2 emissions. Reducing atmospheric CO2 and lowering emissions is crucial for slowing global warming. Construction materials, due to their widespread use and long lifespan, could serve as major carbon reservoirs. Van Roijen and her team suggest incorporating carbon aggregates into concrete and using bio-based components in bricks.

The study highlights that the carbon storage potential depends more on the volume of material used (e.g., cement, which stores less carbon per unit but is ubiquitous) than the amount of carbon stored per unit weight. However, challenges remain, including resistance from builders hesitant to adopt new materials due to liability concerns, limited availability of carbon-sequestering minerals, and the need for a carefully managed supply chain.

These challenges, underscore the importance of systemic changes to make these innovations viable.

For more information: Science

Sandia partners with national labs to develop energy-efficient AI and computing tech

To address future energy needs, the Department of Energy Office of Science has announced the creation of three new Microelectronics Science Research Centers. One of these, the Microelectronics Energy Efficiency Research Center for Advanced Technologies (MEERCAT), will focus on energy efficiency by exploring solutions that integrate sensing, edge processing, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing. Sandia National Laboratories will be a founding member of MEERCAT and will lead one of its eight energy efficiency-related research projects.

The other two centers will work on resilience in extreme environments, including high-radiation, cryogenic and high magnetic field environments.

“Our center will provide industry with new, higher performance options for energy-efficient computing,” said Nelson, the principal investigator for the Sandia-led project.

Sandia is also partnering on two projects led by other laboratories: one on energy efficiency with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and another on extreme environments with Los Alamos National Laboratory.

AI is a major factor in rising energy demand because it uses more energy than conventional computer algorithms and has seen a surge in popularity within homes and workplaces. Along with the growth of other energy-intensive technologies like quantum computing and advanced sensors, this has created an urgent need for more efficient technologies.

The three new research centers will provide a total of $179 million for 16 multidisciplinary, fundamental research projects lasting up to four years. They are funded through DOE’s Office of Science and authorized by the Micro Act, passed in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. This legislation has invested billions of dollars through multiple agencies to help companies build new plants for advanced semiconductors in the U.S. It also funds fundamental research to advance the technologies these future factories will produce.

“We are working with companies to understand their problems and pulling experts together from across the DOE to solve these problems quickly,” Nelson said.

When the Energy Department announced its plan to form Microelectronics Science Research Centers in May 2024, Nelson reached out to a familiar team.

Two years earlier, a group of directors and experts from DOE’s five scientific user facilities, the Nanoscale Science Research Centers, had started holding regular, collaborative discussions.

“We met every two weeks for two years,” Nelson said. “We discussed our collective resources and how we can work together to achieve national priorities.”

Nelson is the director of one of these Office of Science user facilities, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, which is jointly operated by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. The other four user facilities: the Center for Nanoscale Materials, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, The Molecular Foundry and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences are spread across the country, each co-located at a national lab.

The team agreed that by working together they could advance new materials to make computing more powerful and energy-efficient.

Researchers had already found that materials like molybdenum disulfide, gallium arsenide and even diamond may be better than silicon for certain aspects of computing. In theory, computer chips made from one of these alternative materials might be far more energy-efficient and could solve the looming energy crisis.

“They’re very promising,” Nelson said.

But the task of taking any of these materials, perfecting them in a lab, learning how to mass produce them and then building a factory to make chips from them while competing against an established silicon industry and supply chain, the team agreed, felt daunting at best.

Taking a different route, the group of lab leads and other collaborators proposed a project entitled “Nano-Scale Research Center for Heterogeneous Integration Platforms.” This project would aim to leverage the existing infrastructure and expertise of the DOE user facilities and partnering institutions and develop ways to insert new materials into standard silicon fabrication processes.

Now greenlit with DOE’s recent announcement, the project will bring together resources from all five Nanoscale Science Research Centers. It will also include researchers from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

They will build on previous research in what scientists call heterogeneous integration. This means using many kinds of materials to make computer chips, all monolithically integrated into a silicon backbone. The tricky part is to ensure electrons and information flow seamlessly between different materials.

Sandia and its collaborators are aiming for breakthroughs that could help industry create much more energy-efficient computer chips.

“By collaborating across multiple national laboratories and universities, our goal is really to accelerate the innovation discovery process and make a positive impact on economic and national security,” Nelson said.

For more information: Sandia National Laboratories

Image: The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, pictured here, is one of five Department of Energy Nanoscale Science Research Centers teaming up to help make computer chips more energy-efficient.

Uncrackable: Scorpions and sponges inspire sustainable design

In a new study, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, led by Professor Daniel Wagner, demonstrate how design principles from ancient creatures like scorpions and sponges can enhance the resilience of human-made materials, promoting sustainable design. Professor Wagner explains that natural materials have evolved over millions of years in resource-limited and harsh environments, inherently developing sustainable structures such as trees, plants, bones, and skeletons.

“In this respect, durability is key,” says study coauthor Dr. Israel Greenfeld. “Living organisms, for example, display a variety of specialized strategies to deal with outside forces while expending the least amount of energy – which is why there is so much to be learned from nature, as we try to develop stronger and longer-lasting materials of our own.”

Improved, efficient materials offer an important avenue toward a more sustainable future because they can lead to less waste and a reduced need for fuel. But any attempt to enhance an advantageous property of a material tends to come at the expense of another of its attributes. Increasing strength, for instance, will typically lead to increased weight or decreased flexibility.

“Nature, it turns out, finds amazing ways to optimize the balance,” Greenfeld says. One optimization feature found in a variety of tough organic substances is laminate construction: materials composed of different substances layered or interlaced together. This type of composite material often exhibits strength and resilience, while maintaining other beneficial properties, such as being lightweight and flexible.

Wagner and Greenfeld examined two natural laminates that show an exceptional degree of toughness: the outer shell, or cuticle, of a scorpion and the inner skeleton, or spicule, of a sea sponge. The researchers found that the secret of their resilience lies in grading, a specialized strategy that is rarely found in human-made materials: a gradual change in properties from one layer to another.

In both creatures, the different layers vary in thickness, and in the scorpion’s shell, they also decrease in stiffness from exterior to interior, so that the surface facing the harsh world the scorpion inhabits has greater resilience than its shell’s interior. In fact, the researchers’ study of the scorpion – which built on the work commenced at Weizmann by Dr. Israel Kellersztein, a former student on Wagner’s team – showed that the organism’s complex shell is a composite constructed from eight different structural levels.

In both the scorpion and the sponge, a subtle yet powerful “reshuffling” or rearranging of laminate layers was found to serve as a biological tradeoff between conflicting properties, helping them withstand the types of stress they are typically up against.

Thanks to grading, the scorpion’s shell and the sponge’s skeleton, while being tough and strong, are particularly good at resisting cracks. Even though they differ in terms of chemical composition and structure, both optimize this resistance using the same principle: fracture deflection. This means that in both organisms, cracks are mitigated by diverting their path. As soon as a crack starts emerging in the material, it is “encouraged” by the material’s graded structure to change course and run parallel to the surface, rather than go deeper, where it would likely cause more massive structural damage, potentially leading to catastrophic collapse.

To better understand how grading works in both organisms, the researchers adapted a model from classical fracture mechanics, the field that deals with how things break. The model showed that without grading, obtaining the same resilience in both the scorpion and the sponge would have required more wasteful measures, such as thicker components. It also showed that resilience is improved by shifting more material to structural regions that are more critical in terms of durability.

The researchers didn’t stop there. They showed how, in bioinspired materials, grading could be used in ways that nature hadn’t yet come up with. “Using this model, we were able to shift around the grading levels in ways that the scorpion and the sponge hadn’t quite ‘thought’ of,” says Greenfeld.

Greenfeld and Wagner point out that importing concepts such as grading into human-made designs is highly challenging. “For humans, such design is innovative,” says Greenfeld. “Biological structures are created bottom-up – from tiny, nano-metric building blocks, to microscopic structures, and onward to larger and larger structures – whereas in engineering, one usually doesn’t start at the molecular level.”

Still, while the scorpion’s structure is especially complex, other natural microstructures, such as that of the sea sponge, can be more readily applied in engineering. In the sponge’s skeleton, for example, apart from grading, cracks are slowed down or stopped by the fact that brittle layers are interspersed with minute amounts of softer layers. “It’s a ceramic, it’s basically made of silica, not the type of material you usually expect to display strong fracture resistance,” Wagner says.

A better understanding of the strategies found in natural composite materials, explain the researchers, could help engineers optimize our own human-made composites, a wide family of materials that ranges from the ubiquitous cement to specialized fiber-reinforced laminates used in aerospace industries.

The scorpion cuticle is hair-thin – about 0.1mm thick, comprising some 20 layers made of many nested Bouligands. A Bouligand is a twisted helical structure consisting of about 100 nanolayers that are each 50 nanometers thick. A single nanolayer is built of 5 nanometer-thick chitin-protein fibrils, collected into fibers.

Wagner and Greenfeld, who have been working together for over a decade, come from different professional backgrounds. Wagner has long conducted basic research into the micromechanics of biological composite materials and of human-made nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes and graphene. Greenfeld, meanwhile, has enjoyed a career in aviation engineering, a field where efficiency is key. He also draws from different fields of material use, from structural design to systems engineering and invention. “Coming from the world of hands-on creation, Dr. Greenfeld brings a different perspective to our lab – and we both benefit from the collaboration,” Wagner says.

“Our work is not about copying, exactly,” he adds. “It’s about being inspired by nature’s designs.”

“How to use this inspiration depends, of course, on one’s engineering goals, but it’s also about expanding the horizons of what one can do with engineering,” says Greenfeld.

For more information: Scientific Reports

Researchers develop revolutionary Diamond fabrication technology

A research team led by Professors Zhiqin Chu and Yuan Lin at the University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with Professors Kwai Hei Li and Qi Wang, has developed a groundbreaking method for producing ultrathin and ultra-flexible diamond membranes. These membranes are compatible with current semiconductor manufacturing processes, allowing their integration into various applications, including electronic, photonic, mechanical, acoustic, and quantum devices.

The team’s innovative edge-exposed exfoliation method allows for the rapid, scalable production of free-standing diamond membranes. This technique surpasses traditional methods, which are typically expensive, time-consuming, and limited in size. Notably, the new process can produce a two-inch diamond wafer in just 10 seconds, setting a new benchmark for efficiency and scalability in the field.

These ultra-flat diamond surfaces, essential for high-precision micromanufacturing, along with the flexibility of the membranes, open up new possibilities for next-generation flexible and wearable electronic and photonic devices. The research team envisions significant industrial applications in electronics, photonics, mechanics, thermics, acoustics, and quantum technologies.

“We hope to promote the usage of the high-figure-of-merit diamond membrane in various fields, and to commercialize this cutting-edge technology and deliver premium diamond membranes, setting a new standard in the semiconductor industry. We are eager to collaborate with academic and industry partners to bring this revolutionary product to market and accelerate the arrival of the diamond era,” concluded Professor Chu.

Diamonds, renowned globally as valuable gemstones, possess exceptional versatility in various scientific and engineering applications. They are the hardest natural material, boasting unparalleled thermal conductivity at room temperature, extremely high carrier mobility, dielectric breakdown strength, an ultrawide bandgap, and optical transparency spanning from the infrared to the deep-ultraviolet spectrum. These remarkable properties make diamonds ideal for fabricating advanced high-power, high-frequency electronic devices, photonic devices, and heat spreaders to cool high-power-density electronic components, such as those in processors, semiconductor lasers, and electric vehicles. However, the inert nature and rigid crystal structure of diamonds pose significant challenges in fabrication and mass production, particularly for ultrathin and freestanding diamond membranes, thereby restricting their widespread usage.

For more information: Nature

Google’s quantum error correction has some competition

Google Quantum AI’s significant advance in quantum error correction using a surface code approach faces competition from a rival method that proponents claim offers greater efficiency and scalability. Researchers are divided on which approach will shape the future of practical quantum computing. Quantum computers, promising solutions to complex problems in materials science, chemistry, and logistics, are extremely sensitive and prone to errors, which increase as the machines scale up, making error correction crucial for practical use.

Researchers at Google Quantum AI recently demonstrated that their quantum processor, Willow, could mitigate this issue using the surface code, a mathematical framework that groups physical qubits into “logical qubits.” This grouping protects calculations from errors without negatively impacting performance.

The Google Quantum AI team members recently made headlines when they reported that they were able to scale from a 3×3 grid to 5×5 and then to 7×7 grids of physical qubits reduced errors by a factor of two each time.

The method they used — called a surface code — has long been the dominant strategy for quantum error correction. It arranges qubits in interwoven grids, with data qubits performing calculations and ancillary qubits monitoring for errors. While effective, it requires a significant number of qubits to operate, which has limited its utility, according to New Scientist.

In 2023, IBM introduced a rival method called QLDPC (quantum low-density parity-check) code. Unlike the surface code, QLDPC connects each qubit to six others, allowing them to monitor each other’s errors. According to IBM researchers, this method could achieve the same error-correction capabilities as the surface code but with far fewer qubits. For example, on paper, where the surface code might require 4,000 qubits, QLDPC could deliver equivalent performance with just 288 qubits.

“With QLDPC, that lower qubit overhead is hard to compete with,” said Joe Fitzsimons of Horizon Quantum, a quantum computing startup.

IBM has tailored its quantum chips to support the connectivity demands of QLDPC. While adding these connections poses engineering challenges, IBM has reported that the changes do not compromise the reliability of its chips.

Oliver Dial, an IBM researcher, emphasized the importance of tailoring codes to the capabilities of specific hardware during a presentation at the Q2B conference in December.

The competition between the surface code and the theoretical QLDPC highlights a broader challenge in quantum computing: the interplay between hardware and software. Superconducting qubits, like those used by Google and IBM, are limited in how they can be connected, making some error-correction methods more practical than others.

However, alternative technologies, such as qubits made from ultracold atoms, could provide greater flexibility.

“Maybe someone somewhere is working on a type of surface code that is really great, but right now there is competition [to the surface code],” said Yuval Boger of QuEra Computing, a U.S.-based quantum startup.

The QuEra team previously worked with ultracold-atom qubits to achieve one of the largest groups of logical qubits, exploring various codes to optimize their usefulness.

Despite the excitement around QLDPC, the surface code remains a strong contender, Google’s team countered. Its theoretical framework is well understood, having been studied for more than two decades. It also offers a balance between performance and hardware requirements, making it particularly suitable for the superconducting qubits used in Google’s Willow processor.

“The surface code is well understood, with a well-studied theoretical framework. It offers a balance between performance and required qubit connectivity,” said Sergio Boixo of Google Quantum AI.

Google, however, is not resting on its laurels. Boixo confirmed that the team is exploring alternative error-correction codes alongside the surface code.

For more information: Nature

Norman Noble enhances laser welding capabilities for medical device manufacturing

Norman Noble, Highland Heights, Ohio, announced advancements in its laser welding technology to support the precise manufacturing needs of next-generation medical implants and devices. The company’s state-of-the-art fiber laser systems are engineered to deliver exceptional power and positioning accuracy, resulting in highly precise and repeatable welds.

The enhanced laser welding capabilities enable superior joint integrity for complex geometries, with optimized parameters for weld penetration, width, and positioning. These processes are rigorously developed and tested to meet stringent tensile and fatigue requirements for thin-walled and miniature components, while minimizing visual imperfections in the welds.

Jeff Miller, laser process development manager at Norman Noble, emphasized the company’s ability to weld various materials in intricate applications, such as Nitinol-to-Nitinol joints in orthopedic implants and platinum marker welding for stent-like devices. He highlighted the team’s expertise in creating custom solutions tailored to complex medical device manufacturing.

Norman Noble’s ongoing investment in laser technology, including custom fixturing to ensure alignment and repeatability, reinforces its position as a trusted partner for original equipment manufacturers requiring high-quality components in the medical sector.

Read further here. 

 

Scientists discover a way to shrink quantum computer components by 1,000X

Researchers have discovered a method to make quantum computing more compact, potentially shrinking essential components by 1,000 times and requiring less equipment. Current quantum computers rely on entangled photons produced by shining a laser on millimeter-thick crystals, but this setup is too large for integration into a computer chip.

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have addressed this issue by producing entangled photon pairs using much thinner materials, just 1.2 micrometers thick, without needing additional optical gear to maintain the link, thereby simplifying the overall setup.

“Our novel method to create entangled photon pairs paves the way for making quantum optical entanglement sources much smaller, which will be critical for applications in quantum information and photonic quantum computing,” said NTU’s Professor Gao Weibo who led the researchers.

He added that the method could scale down the size of devices for quantum applications because many of these devices currently need large and bulky optical equipment, which are cumbersome to align, before they can work.

Quantum computers are expected to revolutionize the approach to many challenges, from helping us better understand climate change to finding new drugs faster by completing complex computations and quickly finding patterns in large data sets. For instance, calculations that would take supercomputers today millions of years to resolve could be done within minutes by quantum computers.

This is expected to happen because quantum computers perform many computations simultaneously instead of doing them one at a time like standard computers.

Quantum computers can do so as they perform calculations using tiny switches called quantum bits, or qubits, that can be in both the on and off position simultaneously. It is akin to flipping a coin in the air, with the spinning coin in a state between heads and tails. In contrast, standard computers use switches that can be on or off at any time, but not both.

Photons can be used as qubits for quantum computers to perform faster calculations as they can have on and off states at the same time. But being in two states simultaneously only happens if the photons are produced in a pair, with one photon linked, or entangled, to the other. An important condition for entanglement is that the paired photons need to vibrate in sync.

One advantage of using photons as qubits is that they can be produced and entangled at room temperature. Relying on photons can thus be easier, cheaper, and more practical than using other particles like electrons that need ultra-low temperatures close to the coldness of outer space before they can be used for quantum computing.

Researchers have been trying to find thinner materials to produce linked pairs of photons so that they can be worked into computer chips. However, one challenge is that when materials get thinner, they produce photons at a much lower rate, which is impractical for computing.

Recent advances showed that a promising new crystalline material called niobium oxide dichloride, which has unique optical and electronic properties, can produce pairs of photons efficiently despite its thinness. But these photon pairs are useless for quantum computers because they are not entangled when produced.

A solution was found by NTU scientists led by Professor Gao, from the University’s School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences, in collaboration with Professor Liu Zheng from the School of Materials Science & Engineering.

Professor Gao’s solution was inspired by an established method to create entangled pairs of photons with thicker and bulkier crystalline materials, which was published in 1999. It involves stacking two flakes of thick crystals together and positioning the crystalline grains of each flake perpendicularly to each other.

However, the vibrations of photons produced in a pair can still be out of sync due to how they travel within the thick crystals after they are created. Additional optical equipment is therefore needed to synchronize the photon pairs to maintain the link between the light particles.

Professor Gao theorized that a similar two-crystal set-up could be used with two thin crystal flakes of niobium oxide dichloride, with a combined thickness of 1.2 micrometers, to produce the linked photons without requiring extra optical instruments.

He expected this to happen because the flakes used are much thinner than the bulkier crystals from earlier studies. As a result, the pairs of photons produced travel a smaller distance within the niobium oxide dichloride flakes, so the light particles remain in sync with each other. Experiments by the NTU Singapore team proved that his hunch was correct.

Professor Sun Zhipei from Finland’s Aalto University, who specializes in photonics and was not involved in NTU’s research, said that entangled photons are like synchronized clocks that show the same time no matter how far apart they are and can thus enable instant communication.

He added that the NTU team’s method for generating quantum entangled photons “is a major advancement, potentially enabling the miniaturization and integration of quantum technologies.”

“This development has potential in advancing quantum computing and secure communication, as it allows for more compact, scalable, and efficient quantum systems,” said Professor Sun, a co-principal investigator at the Research Council of Finland’s Center of Excellence in Quantum Technology.

The NTU team plans to further optimize the design of their setup to generate even more linked pairs of photons than are currently possible.

Some ideas include exploring whether introducing tiny patterns and grooves on the surface of niobium oxide dichloride flakes can increase the number of photon pairs produced. Another one will examine whether stacking the niobium oxide dichloride flakes with other materials can boost photon production.

For more information: Nature Photonics

Image: PhD student Leevi Kallioniemi from NTU Singapore’s School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences with a blue laser set-up for generating entangled photon pairs. Credit: NTU Singapore

Researchers develop new semiconductor materials that change color

A team of scientists led by Associate Professor Nripan Mathews from NTU’s School of Materials Science and Engineering has successfully synthesized four groundbreaking types of perovskites, with Dr. Ayan Zhumekenov pioneering a unique method by incorporating dimethyl carbonate—a non-toxic solvent—into methylammonium-based perovskite crystals.

By examining the new crystal structures, the researchers found they could modify the band gap, which determines the material’s color and represents the energy needed for an electron to escape its bound state and achieve conductivity, by varying the proportions of methylammonium and dimethyl carbonate within the materials.

The capability to manipulate the width of the band gap is crucial for the diverse uses of perovskites. The newly developed 2D halide perovskites also demonstrate a dynamic “switchable” property.

The researchers discovered that one of the perovskites can alternate between two color states, transitioning from orange to red when subjected to a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius and returning to its initial color upon cooling back to room temperature.

The scientists showed that this color-changing reaction could be repeated for up to 25 cycles. This thermochromic switching phenomenon presents opportunities for applications such as smart coatings and heat-sensitive inks that alter color at varying temperatures.

The researchers are optimistic that their breakthrough will lead to technological advancements involving 2D halide perovskites in optoelectronics and other fields.

For more information: Journal of the American Chemical Society

Image: NTU’s novel perovskites. Credit: NTU.

 

Scientists grow stronger materials using cyanobacteria

Researchers have successfully grown bacterial cells within sand-based construction materials, marking a significant advance in biodesign, which combines biological and architectural innovations to create more sustainable building materials. By integrating living organisms into construction, this approach aims to transform how structures are designed and built. Cyanobacteria, known for their unique biological properties, have the potential to solidify inorganic materials like CO2, highlighting the immense value of incorporating living systems into industrial processes, particularly in the construction sector.

The process explored involves the biological deposition of bacteria – such as cyanobacterial calcium carbonate precipitation – and its integration with a robotic deposition, namely a sand-based biomixture, within an architectural biofabrication workflow.

After successfully growing two bacterial strains in potential sand-based construction materials, the researchers used microbiological protocols, such as optical density and fluorescence measurements, to follow bacterial growth and activity. This was done with the larger goal of harvesting light through photosynthesis and harnessing it to CO2 deposition and the sedimentation of calcium carbonate for strengthening sand-based construction components.

Ultimately, the researchers managed to outline a robotic deposition system for sand-based mixtures.

The paper was co-authored by researchers at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel, in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering.

For more information: Research Directions: Biotechnology Design

Image: Scientists are revolutionizing construction by incorporating cyanobacteria into sand-based materials. This biodesign approach enhances sustainability and structural strength while introducing eco-friendly innovations. 

Nanostructures pave the way for advanced robotics

Researchers at the University of Sydney Nano Institute have made a significant advance in molecular robotics by developing custom-designed and programmable nanostructures using DNA origami, an innovative method that leverages the natural folding power of DNA to create new and useful biological structures. This approach has potential applications in targeted drug delivery systems, responsive materials, and energy-efficient optical signal processing. As a proof-of-concept, the researchers created over 50 nanoscale objects, including a “nano-dinosaur,” a “dancing robot,” and a mini-Australia that is 150 nanometers wide, a thousand times narrower than a human hair.

The research, led by first author Dr. Minh Tri Luu and research team leader Dr. Shelley Wickham, focuses on the creation of modular DNA origami “voxels” that can be assembled into complex three-dimensional structures. (Where a pixel is two-dimensional, a voxel is realized in 3D.)

These programmable nanostructures can be tailored for specific functions, allowing for rapid prototyping of diverse configurations. This flexibility is crucial for developing nanoscale robotic systems that can perform tasks in synthetic biology, nanomedicine and materials science.

Dr. Wickham, who holds a joint position with the Schools of Chemistry and Physics in the Faculty of Science, said, “The results are a bit like using Meccano, the children’s engineering toy, or building a chain-like cat’s cradle. But instead of macroscale metal or string, we use nanoscale biology to build robots with huge potential.”

Dr. Luu said, “We’ve created a new class of nanomaterials with adjustable properties, enabling diverse applications—from adaptive materials that change optical properties in response to the environment to autonomous nanorobots designed to seek out and destroy cancer cells.”

To assemble the voxels, the team incorporate additional DNA strands on to the exterior of the nanostructures, with the new strands acting as programmable binding sites.

Dr. Luu said, “These sites act like Velcro with different colors—designed so that only strands with matching ‘colors’ (in fact, complementary DNA sequences) can connect.”

He said this innovative approach allows precise control over how voxels bind to each other, enabling the creation of customizable, highly specific architectures.

One of the most exciting applications of this technology is its potential to create nanoscale robotic boxes capable of delivering drugs directly to targeted areas within the body.

By using DNA origami, researchers can design these nanobots to respond to specific biological signals, ensuring medications are released only when and where they are needed. This targeted approach could enhance the effectiveness of cancer treatments while minimizing side effects.

In addition to drug delivery, the researchers are exploring the development of new materials that can change properties in response to environmental stimuli. For instance, these materials could be engineered to be responsive to higher loads or alter their structural characteristics based on changes in temperature or acidic (pH) levels.

Such responsive materials have the potential to transform medical, computing and electronics industries.

For more information: Science Robotics

Image: Dr. Minh Luu aligning and focusing an image on the Sydney Microscopy and Microanalysis transmission electron microscope to view a DNA origami nanostructure. Credit: Stefanie Zingsheim/University of Sydney

Seco/Warwick to supply Jetcaster technology to Turkish aviation company

Seco/Warwick, Meadville, Pa, announced that it will deliver a JetCaster induction vacuum furnace to a Turkish aviation company. The advanced furnace is designed for producing castings using directional solidification, single crystal, and equiaxed structure methods, as well as gas-cooled crystallization. The technology addresses the precision and quality requirements of aviation component manufacturing.

The JetCaster VIM50 DS/SC/EQ furnace, with a maximum load capacity of 50 kilograms, supports various crystallization techniques, offering flexibility and high performance. Its innovative Engineered Gas Cooling (DGCC) system shortens processing times while maintaining superior product quality, making it particularly suited to the stringent demands of the aviation sector.

Seco/Warwick’s CEO, Sławomir Woźniak, highlighted the increasing demand for the company’s vacuum metallurgy solutions within the aviation industry, noting its critical role in producing components for both civil and military aircraft. He emphasized the company’s collaboration with leading corporations globally to meet the sector’s high-quality standards.

This marks the first order of a melting furnace from this specific partner. Seco/Warwick customized the furnace design to accommodate future modifications, such as the addition of feeders for bulk materials or briquettes, ensuring adaptability to evolving production needs. The solution aims to enhance the partner’s production efficiency and innovation, solidifying its contribution to the aviation industry.

Read further here.

 

Ipsen supports Siemens AG with modernization of high-vacuum furnaces for energy infrastructure expansion

Ipsen, Cherry Valley, Ill., announced that it has successfully modernized its VHFC high-vacuum furnaces for Siemens AG, marking a significant milestone in their shared mission to enhance sustainability and efficiency in energy infrastructure. The project supports Siemens’ strategic efforts to expand medium and high-voltage grids globally, a key component of the energy transition and the broader push for electrification.

As part of this initiative, Ipsen is delivering three new VHFC-1000x1200x1000 (HV) high-vacuum brazing systems to Siemens’ production facilities in Goa, India, and Wuxi, China. The Goa facility will receive two systems, while the Wuxi facility will add one. All systems are manufactured in Germany and are critical to the production of vacuum interrupters, which are core components of switchgears used in power distribution networks.

These vacuum brazing systems play a pivotal role in enabling the switch from gas-insulated disconnectors to vacuum interrupters, effectively eliminating the use of fluorinated gases. This shift significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, aligning with global environmental protection goals.

Ipsen’s collaboration with Siemens reflects their joint commitment to supporting the expansion of renewable energy and sustainable energy infrastructure worldwide. The increased production capacity provided by these systems underscores the importance of advanced technology in achieving energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact.

Read further here.

ORNL research aims to support production of large-scale components

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee are leveraging advanced manufacturing techniques, such as Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) Powder Metallurgy and Additive Manufacturing, to produce parts weighing over 4,500 kg. ORNL highlights the urgent need for these large-scale components across various sectors, including aerospace, defense, nuclear, oil, gas, renewables, and construction. This demand is particularly pressing in the US, where traditional manufacturing methods like casting and forging have declined and moved overseas, leading to supply-chain shortages.

Senior research scientists Jason Mayeur and Soumya Nag are hoping to add Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), hybrid manufacturing, in-situ monitoring and advanced computational modeling to HIP technology to create molds faster and more accurately whilst leveraging the PM technology American manufacturers may be more acquainted with.

“PM-HIP is a vital pathway for diversifying the supply chain for producing large-scale metal parts that are becoming more difficult to source via conventional means,” Mayeur explained. “The technology is of particular interest to the nuclear and hydroelectric industrial sectors, as well as the Department of Defense.”

In contrast with traditional casting and forging techniques, PM-HIP involves fabricating pre-formed, hollow molds for each large-scale component and filling them with metal powder. Once the additively manufactured mold (aka a ‘can’ or ‘capsule’) receives an initial seal, any gas remaining inside is pumped out. Then, a more permanent hermetic seal is applied.

At this point, the capsule is heated and pressurized in prescribed cycles within a Hot Isostatic Press (essentially a pressurized furnace). Without melting, these cycles facilitate the consolidation of the metal powder into the required shape in a process exchange of heat and pressure known as solid-state bonding. When bonding is complete, acid leaching or machining is used to remove the exterior can, revealing the intended part.

Jason Mayeur works in the Deposition Science and Technology Group at ORNL, where he applies his knowledge in computational solid mechanics to manufacturing challenges. His two-decade research career began with the use of computational models to understand the relationships between materials microstructure and performance. He has since segued into the analysis of the structural material performance of metals and alloys.

In this arena, Mayeur develops theory, writes code to implement his theories, and then performs simulations of solids under various loading conditions to determine their suitability for use in a variety of applications. In short, Mayeur’s code can be used to improve the PM-HIP process, thus making it a more attractive alternative to traditional casting and forging.

Soumya Nag, Mayeur’s colleague at ORNL, works in the Materials Science and Technology Division, applying his own two decades of research experience in materials and manufacturing. Nag is a metallurgist with expertise in evaluating lightweight, high-temperature structural alloys fabricated via conventional and advanced manufacturing techniques.

“Jason is an expert in predictive modeling of deformation characteristics of Hot Isostatic Pressing canisters. I am more involved in the experimental side of things. Jason and I complement each other, and really, our two efforts are very much intertwined and critical toward the overall success of the task,” Nag said.

Nag’s research centers on the processing and materials science of HIP capsule fabrication, using various additive manufacturing techniques and assessing the quality of the resulting component parts.

“Additive Manufacturing offers unique design flexibility, which, combined with the reliability of PM-HIP, can pave the path toward precise manufacturing of large-scale, custom and complex, energy-related parts while also taking advantage of multi-material builds,” he explained.

Nag collaborates with Mayeur to design and perform experiments that characterize the metal powder material’s behavior and its mechanical properties in pursuit of a better, more accurate build while providing the necessary material property inputs for Mayeur’s computational models.

Mayeur’s work targets many technological challenges posed by the PM-HIP process, striving for quality and consistency in geometry to achieve dimensional accuracy at a very large scale. One challenge is shrinkage. During PM-HIP, the volume of metal powder within the can shrinks by approximately 30%, but not uniformly.

To address these inconsistencies, Mayeur’s computational models work to predict how the shrinkage occurs for different part geometries and capsule designs. This is an iterative process that occurs after initial capsule design, using the simulation results as a guide to modify the final design.

For more information: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

Image: This additively manufactured PM-HIP will be used to create an impeller for a hydropower impeller, demonstrating a new approach for creating large-scale clean energy components. (Courtesy Carlos Jones/ORNL, US DoE)

University of Illinois Chicago students write the book on automating diamond membrane creation for quantum devices

Six undergraduates at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) have been developing a process to accelerate the creation of diamond membranes, which are crucial for hosting qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information. This work is part of the research at Q-NEXT, a U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Argonne National Laboratory. During their 10-week internship at Argonne, the students wrote software to automate a labor-intensive part of diamond-membrane production, finding the experience both challenging and rewarding.

Their work is enabled through Break Through Tech Chicago, an initiative that provides women and nonbinary people with internship opportunities in science and technology. Argonne staff scientist Nazar Delegan, a Q-NEXT collaborator, and UIC professor Dale Reed led the student team.

Quantum information technologies are expected to revolutionize areas such as logistics, drug development and navigation in the coming decades. Diamond membranes are a new material for hosting qubits, the core of quantum devices. The membranes have desirable properties for quantum information processing, and they open paths for integrating quantum materials with current information technologies.

Scientists are investigating the most effective ways to fabricate diamond membranes. One of the production steps — a specific process in the etching stage — requires up to 60 minutes of continual human effort and supervision.

The task before the UIC students: Put that etching process on the path to full automation.

“There are factors that can disrupt the etching process. Someone has to constantly be checking that it’s being done right,” said Fernanda Villalpando, an information decision sciences senior and the group’s project manager. ​“So we worked to automate it.”

By demonstrating proof of concept, the students laid the groundwork for the procedure so that future researchers can scale it up to industry production levels.

The membranes are created by embedding a layer of graphite between two layers of diamond. The thick bottom diamond layer serves as a platform. The tissue-thin top layer — 100 to 1,000 nanometers thin, a hundred to a thousand times thinner than a sheet of paper — is the diamond membrane. Scientists use electrical probes to chemically etch away the graphite beneath the membrane, which can then be peeled off and integrated into a quantum device.

Currently, a human must watch over the roughly hour-long etching process to ensure its successful execution. But following the UIC group’s work, researchers will one day be able to say goodbye to human-supervised etching.

Building on image detection software called Open CV as part of the Python programming language, the students created a program to teach the computer to visually assess and respond to the etching process. Is there a bubble trapped between layers? An unexpected obstruction? With the UIC group’s program, the computer knows whether to stop the etch, continue or work around it.

“That way, the scientists don’t have to be there to push the ​‘off’ button, for example,” Villalpando said. ​“Our program stops it for them.”

As the ones spearheading the procedure, the team had no blueprint for how to proceed. They quickly realized they’d have to draw heavily on their computer science knowledge, hunt for relevant documentation and even pick up the phone to call the device’s manufacturer for minutiae not captured in the literature.

“We had to reach out to the company. It was a little frustrating, because how were we going to do the rest of the work if we’re having trouble communicating with the devices?” said Claudia Jimenez, a computer science junior. ​“But once we got that part, we had the persistence and resilience to keep going, and made a lot of progress in two or three weeks. We kept going and looked for different resources to accomplish something that none of us had ever done before.”

In fact, it was something no one had done before. Currently, only a select few groups in the world are creating diamond-membrane qubit platforms.

“I love being in a space where everyone is excited about it,” Villalpando said. ​“I’ve been in rooms where people do the work that they do all the time. It’s not new, and there’s only one way to do it. But we get to be creative and think, ​‘How can we solve this?’”

For Q-NEXT, the group’s development of a technical procedure from scratch was a crucial contribution to quantum materials fabrication. For the students, it was part of the real-world work of experimenting in a laboratory.

The Chicago Quantum Exchange honored the group’s work with the Best Undergraduate Student Poster Award at the Chicago Quantum Summit in October.

The UIC team was also excited to be part of game-changing research that could have impacts across so many areas of everyday life.

“Quantum applies to so many different applications and fields and industries. I would possibly like to be a part of that. It was nice to hear from actual professionals in the field giving an explanation about what quantum is, how it can be applied and how we’re actually going to do it,” Jimenez said.

For more information: Q-NEXT

Image: UIC students work at the Argonne Quantum Foundry through the Break Through Tech Chicago program, helping automate an important step in the production of diamond membranes for qubits. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Invisible touch: Stevens is giving AI the ability to feel and measure surfaces

AI technologies have advanced in seeing, conversing, calculating, and creating, but they have struggled to measure or “feel” surfaces. According to Stevens physics professor Yong Meng Sua, while AI has developed a sense of sight, it hasn’t yet achieved a human-like sense of touch to distinguish textures. However, researchers at Stevens’ Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (CQSE) have now demonstrated a method to give AI the ability to feel.

Sua, working with CQSE Director Yuping Huang and doctoral candidates Daniel Tafone and Luke McEvoy ’22 M.S. ‘23, devised a quantum-lab setup that combines a photon-firing scanning laser with new algorithmic AI models trained to tell the differences among various surfaces as they are imaged with those lasers.

In their system, a specially created beam of light is pulsed in short blasts at a surface to “feel” it. Reflected, back-scattered photons return from the target object carrying speckle noise, a random type of flaw that occurs in imagery.

Speckle noise is normally considered detrimental to clear, accurate imaging. However, the Stevens group’s system takes a different approach: it detects and processes these noise artifacts using an AI that has been carefully trained to interpret their characteristics as valuable data. This allows the system to accurately discern the topography of the object.

“We use the variation in photon counts over different illumination points across the surface,” says Tafone.

The team used 31 industrial sandpapers with surfaces of varying roughness, ranging from 1 to 100 microns thick, as experimental targets. (For comparison, an average human hair is about 100 microns thick.) Mode-locked lasers generated light pulses aimed at the samples.

Those pulses passed through transceivers, encountered the sandpapers, and then rebounded back through the system for analysis by the team’s learning model.

During early tests, the group’s method averaged a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of about 8 microns; after working with multiple samples and averaging results across them, its accuracy improved significantly to within 4 microns, comparable to the best industrial profilometer devices currently used.

“Interestingly, our system worked best for the finest-grained surfaces, such as diamond lapping film and aluminum oxide,” notes Tafone.

The new method could be useful for various applications, he adds.

For example, human examiners often make mistakes when attempting to detect skin cancers, confusing very similar-looking but harmless conditions with potentially fatal melanomas.

“Tiny differences in mole roughness, too small to see with the human eye but measurable with our proposed quantum system, could differentiate between those conditions,” explains Huang. “Quantum interactions provide a wealth of information, using AI to quickly understand and process it is the next logical step.”

Manufacturing quality control of components, as well, often hinges on extremely small distances that can mean the difference between a perfect part and a tiny defect that could eventually cause a dangerous mechanical failure.

“Since LiDAR technology is already implemented widely in devices such as autonomous cars, smartphones and robots,” Huang concludes, “our method enriches their capabilities with surface property measurement at very small scales.”

For more information: Applied Optics

Deep learning streamlines identification of 2D materials

Researchers have developed a deep learning-based method that enhances the speed and accuracy of identifying and classifying two-dimensional (2D) materials using Raman spectroscopy. Traditional Raman analysis is slow and requires manual interpretation, but this new approach accelerates the development and analysis of 2D materials, which are crucial for electronics and medical technologies. Lead researcher Yaping Qi from Tohoku University explains that their generative model improves limited and unevenly distributed spectral data, effectively filling in the gaps.

The learning model used spectral data from seven different 2D materials and three distinct stacked combinations. The researchers introduced an innovative data augmentation framework using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPM) to generate additional synthetic data and address these challenges. For this type of model, noise is added to the original data to enhance the dataset, and then the model learns to work backward and remove this noise to generate a novel output that is consistent with the original data distribution.
By pairing this augmented dataset with a four-layer Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), the research team achieved a classification accuracy of 98.8% on the original dataset and, notably, 100% accuracy with the augmented data. This automated approach not only enhances classification performance but also reduces the need for manual intervention, improving the efficiency and scalability of Raman spectroscopy for 2D material identification.

“This method provides a robust and automated solution for high-precision analysis of 2D materials,” summarizes Qi, “The integration of deep learning techniques holds significant promise for materials science research and industrial quality control, where reliable and rapid identification is critical.”

The study presents the first application of DDPM in Raman spectral data generation, paving the way for more efficient, automated spectroscopy analysis. This approach enables precise material characterization even when experimental data is scarce or difficult to obtain. Ultimately, this can allow for research done in the lab to transform into a real product that consumers can buy in stores into a much smoother process.

For more information: Tohoku University

NIST Seeks Critical and Emerging Technology Information

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is requesting information related to the Implementation Roadmap for the U.S. Government National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology.

In this Request for Information (RFI), NIST is seeking information about the following topics:

  • Existing awards and recognition programs that the U.S. government and U.S. standards community can use to encourage and support participation and leadership in standards development for critical and emerging technologies.
  • Ways the U.S. government and the U.S. standards community can educate and empower the standards workforce and business and technology decision-makers.
  • Feedback on how NIST can best maintain an open dialogue and sustained communication with the U.S. critical and emerging technologies and standards communities regarding the ongoing implementation of the roadmap.

The U.S. Government National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology promotes technologically sound standards that help American industry compete internationally on a level playing field. It is intended to support and complement existing private sector-led standards activities.

For more information: Federal Register

New Automatic and Manual High Pressure Ceramic Shell Removal Center

Franklin Precision Castings announced the acquisition of a state-of-the-art 20,000 PSI water blasting system, combining both automatic and manual operations for ceramic shell removal. This cutting-edge technology from Triplex Systems, Inc. of Minnesota, marks a continued advancement in its commitment to quality, efficiency, and workplace safety.

“The Triplex water blasting system has reduced our cycle times by 50 to 75%, a remarkable improvement,” said Mark Johnson, Cleaning Room Supervisor at Franklin Precision Castings.

The new high-pressure water jet blasting machine allows for safer and more efficient ceramic shell removal, improved consistency in part processing, and shorter cycle time, allowing our customers to get parts even faster. In addition to boosting efficiency, the system reduces water consumption by 50%. The built-in drag conveyor unloads broken ceramic shell into a hopper, mitigating the risk of back injuries and enhancing overall safety in our operations.

The Model TRX-1250CAM combines the power of automatic and manual cleaning cycles within a single cabinet. This innovative technology allows operators to seamlessly switch between modes via a user-friendly touch-screen interface, all powered by a single high-pressure pump unit.

This investment reinforces Franklin Precision Castings’ ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.

For more information: Franklin Castings

New Machine Learning Model Predicts Dielectric Function of Materials

Cutting-edge researchers Tomohito Amano and Shinji Tsuneyuki at the University of Tokyo, alongside Tamio Yamazaki from CURIE, have unveiled a machine learning model that revolutionizes our approach to predicting the dielectric function of materials – moving beyond traditional first-principles calculations.

This critical function gauges the polarization of negative and positive charges within materials, forming the core concept behind dielectric materials.

With this innovative model, scientists can achieve rapid and precise predictions of dielectric functions, paving the way for the creation of next-generation dielectric materials essential for transformative technologies, including the anticipated advancements in 6G network.

While not as widely recognized as semiconductors, dielectric materials hold immense promise for enhancing modern electronic systems. These materials offer a unique characteristic: they do not conduct electricity well but are not insulators either. When subjected to an electric field, positive charges within the material are drawn toward the field, while negative charges shift in the opposite direction, leading to dielectric polarization.

This polarization is quantified by the dielectric function, a critical measure of its strength. Despite its significance, calculating the dielectric function generally requires complex first-principles approaches rooted in quantum mechanics, making it a time-consuming and resource-intensive endeavor.

Researchers have successfully developed an innovative machine-learning model designed to tackle significant challenges in materials science. They’ve taken a groundbreaking approach by generating training data through first-principle calculations of the electronic states of various materials.

Instead of relying on conventional calculations focused on individual molecules, this model emphasizes the chemical bonds between atoms. Its accuracy was rigorously tested against empirical data from simple molecules like methanol and ethanol.

This model not only describes the electronic states of a variety of materials with nearly the same accuracy as traditional methods but also does so while dramatically reducing computational demands. Its capability for large-scale and long-term simulations opens new doors, enabling researchers to investigate the macroscopic origins of dielectric properties in complex molecular systems—a feat previously hindered by computational costs.

Despite these impressive achievements, scientists are already envisioning future possibilities.

For more information: Physical Review B

Developing New High-Performance and Recyclable Materials

Professor Chiyoung Park of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST has developed a groundbreaking new material poised to advance high-sensitivity recyclable sensor technology. Working in collaboration with Professor U-hyeok Choi of Inha University, Park’s team created a recyclable high-sensitivity sensor based on the dynamic polymer network. This next-generation material is garnering attention for its ability to combine environmental sustainability with high performance.

Existing high-sensitivity sensors have been limited by performance degradation due to fatigue and repeated use.

However, the dynamic polymer network developed by the research team maintains excellent sensitivity and durability by using vinylogous urethane bonding.

This bonding structure self-heals in response to external stimuli such as temperature, light, and pressure, preventing performance degradation even after repeated use.

The dynamic polymer network is also sensitive to various mechanical movements, heat, and light, and sensors based on the network excel at detecting human body movements.

Researchers have demonstrated that the sensors can accurately detect finger bends, changes in facial expressions, and even swallowing movements in the throat.

One of the biggest strengths of the technology is that it can maintain the same sensitivity after recycling without any degradation.

Addressing the growing issue of e-waste, the team designed the technology to combine recyclability with high performance.

They believe the dynamic polymer network’s versatility supports repeated use and recycling, potentially leading to significant reductions in e-waste.

Their work promises to have far-reaching implications not only in sensor technology but also in next-generation electronics, wearable devices, and medical equipment.

The team continues to work on commercializing the technology for widespread industrial applications.

“Our material offers excellent processability and can be recycled mechanically or chemically,” said DGIST Professor Chiyoung Park.

“The polymer network undergoes a simple recycling process, which we expect will extend the lifespan of electronic devices and wearable sensors, significantly reducing electronic waste.”

For more information: Chemical Engineering Journal

Engineering perovskite materials at the atomic level paves way for new lasers, LEDs

Researchers have developed a technique to engineer layered hybrid perovskites (LHPs) down to the atomic level, precisely controlling how these materials convert electrical charge into light. This advancement paves the way for creating materials tailored for next-generation printed LEDs and lasers, and holds promise for engineering other materials for photovoltaic devices.

Perovskites, known for their crystalline structure, possess desirable optical, electronic, and quantum properties. LHPs are composed of thin sheets of perovskite semiconductor material separated by organic spacer layers, which can be laid down as thin films. These materials are highly efficient at converting electrical charge into light, making them ideal for use in next-generation LEDs, lasers, and photonic integrated circuits. Despite their potential, understanding how to engineer LHPs to control their performance characteristics has been a challenge for researchers until now.

To understand what the researchers discovered, you have to start with quantum wells, which are sheets of semiconductor material sandwiched between spacer layers.

“We knew quantum wells were forming in LHPs – they’re the layers,” says Aram Amassian, corresponding author of a paper on the work and a professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University.

And understanding the size distribution of quantum wells is important because energy flows from high-energy structures to low-energy structures at the molecular level.

“A quantum well that is two atoms thick has higher energy than a quantum well that is five atoms thick,” says Kenan Gundogdu, co-author of the paper and a professor of physics at NC State. “And in order to get energy to flow efficiently, you want to have quantum wells that are three and four atoms thick between the quantum wells that are two and five atoms thick. You basically want to have a gradual slope that the energy can cascade down.”

“But people studying LHPs kept running into an anomaly: the size distribution of quantum wells in an LHP sample that could be detected via X-ray diffraction would be different than the size distribution of quantum wells that could be detected using optical spectroscopy,” Amassian says.

“For example, diffraction might tell you that your quantum wells are two atoms thick, as well as there being a three-dimensional bulk crystal,” Amassian says. “But spectroscopy might tell you that you have quantum wells that are two atoms, three atoms, and four atoms thick, as well as the 3D bulk phase.

“So, the first question we had was: why are we seeing this fundamental disconnect between X-ray diffraction and optical spectroscopy? And our second question was: how can we control the size and distribution of quantum wells in LHPs?”

Through a series of experiments the researchers discovered that there was a key player involved in answering both questions: nanoplatelets.

“Nanoplatelets are individual sheets of the perovskite material that form on the surface of the solution we use to create LHPs,” Amassian says. “We found that these nanoplatelets essentially serve as templates for layered materials that form under them. So, if the nanoplatelet is two atoms thick, the LHP beneath it forms as a series of two-atom-thick quantum wells.

“However, the nanoplatelets themselves aren’t stable, like the rest of the LHP material. Instead, the thickness of nanoplatelets keeps growing, adding new layers of atoms over time. So, when the nanoplatelet is three atoms thick, it forms three-atom quantum wells, and so on. And, eventually, the nanoplatelet grows so thick that it becomes a three-dimensional crystal.”

This finding also resolved the longstanding anomaly about why X-ray diffraction and optical spectroscopy were providing different results. Diffraction detects the stacking of sheets and therefore does not detect nanoplatelets, whereas optical spectroscopy detects isolated sheets.

“What’s exciting is that we found we can essentially stop the growth of nanoplatelets in a controlled way, essentially tuning the size and distribution of quantum wells in LHP films,” Amassian says. “And by controlling the size and arrangement of the quantum wells, we can achieve excellent energy cascades – which means the material is highly efficient and fast at funneling charges and energy for the purposes of laser and LED applications.”

When the researchers found that nanoplatelets played such a critical role in the formation of perovskite layers in LHPs, they decided to see if nanoplatelets could be used to engineer the structure and properties of other perovskite materials – such as the perovskites used to convert light into electricity in solar cells and other photovoltaic technologies.

“We found that the nanoplatelets play a similar role in other perovskite materials and can be used to engineer those materials to enhance the desired structure, improving their photovoltaic performance and stability,” says Milad Abolhasani, co-author of the paper and ALCOA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State.

For more information: Matter

New technology improves structural strength

Researchers from Texas A&M University and Sandia National Laboratories have significantly enhanced interlocking metasurfaces (ILMs) using shape memory alloys (SMAs), offering a stronger and more stable alternative to traditional joining techniques like bolts and adhesives, with potential applications in aerospace, robotics, and biomedical devices.

“ILMs are poised to redefine joining technologies across a range of applications, much like Velcro did decades ago,” said Dr. Ibrahim Karaman, professor and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering Department at Texas A&M. “In collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories, the original developers of ILMs, we have engineered and fabricated ILMs from shape memory alloys. Our research demonstrates that these ILMs can be selectively disengaged and re-engaged on demand while maintaining consistent joint strength and structural integrity.”

Similar to Legos or Velcro, ILMs enable the joining of two bodies by transmitting force and constraining movement. Until now, this joining method has been passive, requiring force for engagement.

Control of joining technology through temperature changes opens new possibilities for smart, adaptive structures without loss in strength or stability and with increased options for flexibility and functionality.

“Active ILMs have the potential to revolutionize mechanical joint design in industries requiring precise, repeatable assembly and disassembly,” said Abdelrahman Elsayed, graduate research assistant in the materials science and engineering department at Texas A&M.

Practical applications include designing reconfigurable aerospace engineering components where parts must be assembled and disassembled multiple times. Active ILMs could also provide flexible and adaptable joints for robotics-enhancing functionality. In biomedical devices, the ability to adjust implants and prosthetics to body movements and temperatures could offer a better option for patients.

The current findings utilized the shape memory effect of SMAs to recover the ILMs’ shape by adding heat. The researchers hope to build on these findings by using the superelasticity effect of SMAs to create ILMs that can withstand large deformation and instantaneously recover under very high-stress levels.

“We anticipate that incorporating SMAs into ILMs will unlock numerous future applications, though several challenges remain,” said Karaman. “Achieving superelasticity in complex 3D-printed ILMs will enable localized control of structural stiffness and facilitate reattachment with high locking forces. Additionally, we expect this technology to address longstanding challenges associated with joining techniques in extreme environments. We are highly enthusiastic about the transformative potential of ILM technology.”

For more information: Materials & Design

Image: Two proposed versions of ILMs in their different engagement states.

New soft material charges like batteries, can be woven into fabrics, make devices

Scientists from Northwestern University have developed highly energy-efficient, biocompatible materials made of tiny, flexible nano-sized ribbons that can be charged like a battery to store energy or record digital information. These sustainable materials could lead to new types of ultralight electronic devices, reducing the environmental impact of electronic manufacturing and disposal. The study highlights potential applications for these soft materials in low-power, energy-efficient microscopic memory chips, sensors, and energy storage units

Researchers maintain that these materials could also be integrated into woven fibers to create smart fabrics or sticker-like medical implants. In today’s wearable devices, electronics are clunkily strapped to the body with a wristband. But, with the new materials, the wristband itself could have electronic activity.

Northwestern’s Samuel I. Stupp, who led the study, stated that this is a wholly new concept in materials science and soft materials research.
Stupp maintained that researchers imagine a future where you could wear a shirt with air conditioning built into it or rely on soft bioactive implants that feel like tissues and are activated wirelessly to improve heart or brain function.

“Those uses require electrical and biological signals, but we cannot build those applications with classic electroactive materials. It’s not practical to put hard materials into our organs or in shirts that people can wear. We need to bring electrical signals into the world of soft materials. That is exactly what we have done in this study,” added Stupp.

Researchers maintained that the secret behind the new material is peptide amphiphiles, a versatile platform of molecules previously developed in Stupp’s laboratory. These self-assembling structures form filaments in water and have already demonstrated promise in regenerative medicine. The molecules contain peptides and a lipid segment, which drives the molecular self-assembly when placed in water.

In the study, the team replaced the lipid tail with a miniature molecular segment of a plastic called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). But they kept the peptide segment, which contains sequences of amino acids. Commonly used in audio and sonar technologies, PVDF is a plastic with unusual electrical properties.

It can generate electrical signals when pressed or squeezed — a property known as piezoelectricity. It also is a ferroelectric material, which means it has a polar structure that can switch orientation by 180 degrees using an external voltage. The dominant ferroelectrics in technology are hard materials and often include rare or toxic metals, such as lead and niobium.

Stupp stated that PVDF was discovered in the late 1960s and is the first known plastic with ferroelectric properties.

“It has all the robustness of plastic while being useful for electrical devices. That makes it a very high-value material for advanced technologies. However, in pure form, its ferroelectric character is not stable, and, if heated above the so-called Curie temperature, it loses its polarity irreversibly,” said Stupp.

All plastics, including PVDF, contain polymers, which are giant molecules typically composed of thousands of chemical structural units. In the new study, the Stupp laboratory precisely synthesized miniature polymers with only 3 to 7 vinylidene fluoride units. Interestingly, the miniature segments with 4, 5 or 6 units are programmed by nature’s beta-sheet structures, which are present in proteins, to organize into a stable ferroelectric phase, according to the study.

For more information: Nature

Image: This illustration shows a future vision of assemblies of molecules formed by peptides and miniature molecular segments from a plastic material to create ferroelectric structures that switch polarity to store digital information or signal neurons.

Faraday enhances 3D-IC design service with Ansys multiphysics analysis

Faraday Technology Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa., a leading application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) design service and IP provider, is expanding its use of Ansys technology to enhance its capabilities in developing advanced designs for multi-die 2.5D/3D-ICs — critical for artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, and 5G applications. With support from Ansys, Faraday will empower its customers to explore more robust design options for more innovative products.

Faraday recently announced a 2.5D/3D-IC advanced package service to address exploding demand for multi-die designs that target products with better performance and lower power consumption. To meet this demand, engineers need the right multiphysics analysis tools to verify that chip designs include reliable signal and structural integrity and reliable power distribution before it goes to fabrication. This challenge is compounded by the trend toward developing denser chips that are more vulnerable to EM issues.

Adding RaptorX into the design flow will enable Faraday to increase precision and efficiency in its development process. Moreover, it enables predictively accurate EM modeling and analysis for advanced 3D-IC products, ensuring data transfer meets stringent modern standards. This will improve the design’s fidelity, enhance performance and reliability, and accelerate time-to-market.

“Our extensive silicon IP allows our customers to start designing from a solid foundation, enabling them to focus solely on innovation and differentiating themselves in the market,” said C.H. Chien, vice president of R&D at Faraday. “Fabrication is exceptionally expensive and there is no room for error. So, keeping the overall project cost low is paramount, and it starts with the initial design. With the addition of RaptorX in this phase, we can offer customers an efficient workflow that includes design verification and signoff as well as access to top-tier test and fabrication services, removing doubts about the chip’s performance and longevity.”

“Ansys’ focus on multiphysics platforms enables innovators like Faraday to address key challenges for 3D-IC and accelerate their time-to-market,” said John Lee, vice president and general manager of the semiconductor, electronics, and optics business unit at Ansys. “Our industry-leading tools facilitate meticulous modeling and analysis of electromagnetic phenomena, helping our customers remain at the forefront of technological advancements in 5G, AI, and IoT.”

 

Image – EMag extraction of an interposer lane, including 48 signals in the presence of their respective VDD/VSS network and indicative simulation results, and S-Parameter analysis and transient (eye diagram) analysis of a signal line.

 

For more information:

Ansys

https://www.ansys.com

Faraday Technology Corporation

http://www.faraday-tech.com/

 

 

Wisconsin Oven ships composite curing oven to Defense Industry

Wisconsin Oven, East Troy, WI, has announced the shipment of a gas-fired walk-in batch oven to a prominent manufacturer in the defense industry. The oven is designed for curing filament wound composite materials and is capable of processing a 78,000-pound load on a 40-foot long mandrel carried by a load car.

The work chamber measures 10 feet wide, 42 feet long, and 9 feet high, with a qualified work zone of 8 feet by 40 feet by 8 feet. The oven includes a rotation system to prevent drooping of uncured composites during the heating process, offering speed control flexibility through a variable frequency drive.

This oven operates at a maximum temperature of 500°F, with temperature uniformity of ±10°F at multiple setpoints. Equipped with a PLC-based Wisconsin Oven Premium Control System and an IoT system, it allows for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and remote fault diagnosis.

Additional features include split-line construction for easier shipping, two powerful recirculation blowers, interior lighting, and safety-compliant railings and ladder access.

Read further here.

Nitrex celebrates 40 Years of innovation in heat treatment solutions

Nitrex, Quebec, announced that it is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, marking four decades of growth and innovation in the heat treatment industry. Founded in 1984, Nitrex has evolved from a pioneer in controlled nitriding to a global leader offering end-to-end heat treatment solutions. The company’s technological advancements have expanded its capabilities to encompass metallurgy, engineering, process optimization, and automation.

Since 2019, under the current leadership, Nitrex has broadened its portfolio to include advanced vacuum furnaces and introduced technology for improved brake rotor performance. The company has also launched digital platforms such as QMULUS, aimed at optimizing customer processes and boosting operational efficiency.

In addition to its own milestone, Nitrex is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its UPC-Marathon office in Germany, recognizing the long-standing contributions and achievements of its global team. These anniversaries reflect Nitrex’s ongoing commitment to innovation and excellence.

Read further here.