Latest News Releases 13 May

Mercury pollution is a global problem in water, air and soil near goldmines, cement and other heavy industries burning fossil fuels – with removal too expensive or difficult in some of the poorest countries in the world. Now Flinders University experts in Australia have expanded testing of a sustainable extraction material capable of absorbing almost all mercury in polluted water in minutes – itself made entirely from low-cost waste from the petroleum, citrus and agricultural production.

A research group in the doctoral program of Toyohashi University of Technology's Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering that includes a doctoral student Hirotada Gamo and specially appointed assistant professor Jin Nishida, specially appointed associate professor Atsushi Nagai, assistant professor Kazuhiro Hikima, professor Atsunori Matsuda and others, developed a large-scale manufacturing technology of Li7P3S11 solid electrolytes for all-solid-state lithium-ion secondary batteries. This method involves the addition of an excessive amount of sulfur (S) along with Li2S and P2S5, the starting materials of Li7P3S11, to a solvent containing a mixture of acetonitrile (ACN), tetrahydrofuran (THF) and a slight amount of ethanol (EtOH). This helped to shorten the reaction time from 24 hours or longer to only two minutes. The final product obtained using this method is highly pure Li7P3S11 without an impurity phase that showed high ionic conductivity of 1.2 mS cm-1 at 25 °C. These results enable us to produce a large quantity of sulfide solid electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries at low cost. The results of the research were published online by Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research on April 28, 2022.

Optical-based thermal sensing tools have received extensive attention, particularly in biomedical fields. We present an optoelectronic thermometer via infrared-to-visible upconversion, accomplished by integrated light receiving and emission devices. The microscale optoelectronic upconversion devices present temperature-dependent light emission with an intensity change of 1.5% °C⁻¹ and a spectral shift of 0.18 nm °C⁻¹. These proposed materials and device concepts establish a power tool set with vast applications in the environment and healthcare.

Existing infrared photodetector faces tremendous challenge in wavelength extension up to the sub-millimeter regime due to lack of suitable principle for converting electromagnetic energy into electrical signal. For achieving this goal, Scientist in China proposed a Dirac semimetal-based low-energy photodetection of portable and highly sensitive ability, by integrating plasmonic antenna for shrinking and harvesting the electromagnetic-power down to the nanometer regime, leading to noninvasive imaging ability of macroscopic objects.

On-chip photonic integrated circuits (PICs) could provide a versatile platform to revolutionize optical computing, communications, chemical-/bio-sensing, LiDARs, etc. Researcher in China reported that integrating van der Waals PN heterojunctions of two-dimensional (2D) materials on optical waveguides can provide a promising strategy to realize chip-integrated photodetectors with low dark current, high responsivity and fast speed. This has great potentials to develop high-performance on-chip photodetectors for various photonic integrated circuits based on silicon, lithium niobate, polymer, etc.

The new multi-tasking weather sensor simultaneously measures rain volume and wind speed. Incorporating machine learning to analyze the output data, a single sensor can provide localized weather data in a timely manner, improving disaster preparedness.

Developed a single atomic cobalt-based catalyst with approximately 40% improved performance and stability compared to contemporary cobalt nanoparticle catalysts.

Nonlinear optical microscope can provide abundant structural and functional information despite inherent tradeoffs between imaging speed, field of view, and spatial resolution. To resolve this incompatibility, Scientist in China proposed a deep learning label-free autofluorescence-harmonic microscope, which enables visualization of clinicopathological tissues with large view, enhanced spatial resolution and high speed. The technique can break the physical limit of nonlinear microscopy and meet the growing demands of life sciences for fast and high-quality evaluation.