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Trapping light on thermal photodetectors shatters speed records

Mar 06, 2026 Metasurfaces featuring tailored silver nanocubes could allow thermal photodetectors to approach speeds akin to traditional digital cameras. (Nanowerk News) Electrical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated the fastest pyroelectric photodetector to date that works by absorbing heat generated by incoming light. Capable of capturing light from the...

Metal alloy that shrinks when heated could advance precision nanotechnology

Mar 07, 2026 A hydrogen-treated metal alloy shrinks instead of expanding when heated, driven by magnetism, offering customizable materials for nanotechnology. (Nanowerk News) Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism driving negative thermal expansion in hydrogenated cobalt zirconide, a finding that could open new routes to...

Smart ceramics reveal a new way to control heat transfer, boosting thermal conductivity nearly threefold

Mar 07, 2026 Scientists used electric fields to extend heat-carrying vibrations in ceramics, revealing a promising path toward solid-state devices that actively manage thermal energy flow. (Nanowerk News) New research from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with The Ohio State University and Amphenol Corporation, challenges...

A molecule with half-Moebius topology

Mar 06, 2026 Twisted electronic states in a molecule realized experimentally and modeled on quantum hardware. (Nanowerk News) Researchers at IBM Research, the University of Manchester, Oxford University, ETH Zürich, EPFL Lausanne and the University of Regensburg (Cluster of Excellence CCE) collaborated to realize an unprecedented molecular topology: the so-called...

Accelerating catalyst materials discovery with large artificial intelligence models

Mar 06, 2026 AI models are transforming catalyst discovery by combining databases with machine learning and language models, enabling faster design of materials for clean energy. (Nanowerk News) Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way scientists discover and design new materials. In a specially invited review published in Angewandte Chemie...