Structural color printing of 3D microscale objects by shrinking photonic crystals

Researchers have developed a 'coloring-by-shrinking' method to print arbitrary 3D microscopic objects exhibiting structural colors. The design consisted of woodpile photonic crystals with varying lattice constants as the 3D building blocks. These structures remain colorless until they are heat treated, causing them to shrink and manifest color, a result of their lattice constants shrinking down below the wavelength of visible light. The team printed a colorful microscopic Eiffel Tower with structural colors, demonstrating feature sizes smaller than 100 nm.

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New liquid crystals allowing directed transmission of electricity synthesized

Liquid and solid – most people are unaware that there can be states in between. Liquid crystals are representative of one such state. While the molecules in liquids swim around at random, neighboring molecules in liquid crystals are aligned as in regular crystal grids, but the material is still liquid.

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Beyond Einstein: Mystery surrounding photon momentum solved

According to Einstein, light consists of particles (photons) that transfer only quantized energy to the electron of the atom. If the photon's energy is sufficient, it knocks the electrons out of the atom. But what happens to the photon's momentum in this process? Physicists are now able to answer this question. To do so, they developed and constructed and new spectrometer with previously unattainable resolution.

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Using high energy density material in electrode design enhances lithium sulfur batteries

To develop higher capacity batteries, researchers have looked to lithium sulfur batteries because of sulfur's high theoretical capacity and energy density. But there are still several problems to solve before they can be put into practical applications. The biggest is the shuttling effect that occurs during cycling. To solve this problem and improve lithium sulfur battery performance, the researchers created a sandwich-structured electrode using a novel material that traps polysulfides and increases the reaction kinetics.

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