Combating climate change with better semiconductor manufacturing
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 19-Nov-2025 10:11 ET (19-Nov-2025 15:11 GMT/UTC)
The IPCC has developed the Global Warming Potential metric, a unit that compares a specific gas’s contribution to climate change to that of carbon dioxide. Nitrogen trifluoride is particularly bad, with a GWP about 17,000 times higher than carbon dioxide. But NF3 is critical in the semiconductor industry for etching and cleaning, and its use has increased more than twentyfold over the past 30 years. In the JVST:B, researchers develop a machine learning framework to predict the GWP of potential alternative materials.
Physicists from Swansea University have played the leading role in a scientific breakthrough at CERN, developing an innovative technique that increases the antihydrogen trapping rate by a factor of ten.
Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a condition that weakens bones, making them brittle and prone to fracture. Taking the hormone estradiol can reverse these effects, but it may also increase endometrial and uterine cancer risks. Researchers publishing in ACS’ Nano Letters developed a two-layer shell to encapsulate the hormone so it bypasses the uterus and releases only within an osteoporotic bone. Tests of the drug-delivery system showed improved bone density in treated mice without uterine side effects.