Any fans of the Great British Bake Off will know the precision needed to succeed in chocolate week and gain a Paul Hollywood handshake for making perfectly tempered chocolate. Tempered chocolate refers to a specific arrangement (known as Form V) of cocoa butter molecules which give it the perfect glossy texture and famous snap. This […]
We have all used some form of battery in our life, for instance in our laptops, handphones or even electric vehicles. The most prominent type of a battery is the Li-ion battery (LIB), which was first proposed in the 1970s and was commercially used in 1991. Why are we still researching on batteries if it […]
Nanostructured materials have dimensions approaching atomic length scales. When these materials are first developed in the lab there is a drive to demonstrate their exceptional (opto)electronic properties by incorporating them into functional devices such as transistors, lasers, solar cells, and photodetectors. This early proof-of-concept stage requires precise and time-consuming manual control of characterization equipment and […]
The need for a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels has never been more pressing. Not only does the burning of fossil fuels emit harmful greenhouse gases that drive global warming, the world is currently facing an energy crisis, with many unable to afford to pay the high price for oil and gas. If we want […]
Over the past decade, perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) have garnered considerable attention in the field of optoelectronics. Merely semiconductor nanocrystals (NC) which exhibit quantum confinement due to their diminishing size (~5 nm), such characteristics give rise to desirable properties which have seen their use extend from photovoltaics (PV) to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Often, such properties […]
In the vast landscape of technological advancements, we have witnessed a remarkable evolution from computers that once occupied entire rooms in the 1960s to today, where more power resides in our back pockets with smartphones than the computers that guided astronauts to the moon. Now, as we stand at the threshold of the quantum computing […]
Defects – are they merely an inconvenience? Not in the quantum universe! Scientists have recently found a promising new class of atomic-scale defects in hexagonal boron nitride [1], a two-dimensional material. The information storage capabilities of these impurities could enable powerful quantum technologies. Take, for example, quantum communication. As more of our personal data is […]
Light. It gives us the ability to see and experience our surroundings, to observe and analyse objects and phenomena, and it is crucial to many forms of life. Microscopes can help us to see things too small for the human eye, however, below a certain size, some objects are so small that they are invisible […]
They walk, they talk; they aren’t growing, but they squawk. They are the senescent cells, the tiny zombies living inside us. We all have senescent cells in our bodies, which are damaged body cells that don’t grow or divide as normal cells do. Before adulthood, senescence plays an important role in encouraging tissue development; as […]
Humanity is rarely satisfied with something that’s ‘good enough’. Some people, at least, always want improvements on the current standard. Electric vehicles are one such example, and rightly so; they are a more environmentally friendly alternative than combustion engines (provided they are made and powered renewably, but that’s a separate issue), but currently they simply […]