[Image above] Credit: ACerS
ENERGY
Mystery of 60-second fluctuations in power grids solved
TenneT Germany, the largest transmission system operator in Germany, has observed over several years that the frequency in the European power grid dips briefly every 60 seconds. Researchers found the cause appears to be the many large-scale battery storage systems that check their state of charge every minute.
New kind of surfer is riding waves and producing power
Researchers at Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute and the National Laboratory of the Rockies deployed a new wave energy system called the Small Underwater Research Flap Wave Energy Converter for testing just off of Makai Research Pier.
New coating technology could reduce glass usage in PV modules by up to 40%
German startup Exxosqel developed a coating technology that strengthens solar glass by targeting microscopic surface cracks. Developed in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research, the technology could reduce glass weight by up to 40% and overall photovoltaic module weight by approximately 30%.
Gallium-doped zinc oxide enables 24.92%-efficient heterojunction solar cell
Researchers in China used room-temperature reactive plasma deposition to produce indium-free transparent electrodes for silicon heterojunction solar cells. Optimizing the oxygen content during deposition enabled a conversion efficiency of 24.92%.
ENVIRONMENT
Targeted recycling of glass–glass modules trades value for lower impact
Researchers found that targeted recycling of frameless, polyolefin elastomer-encapsulated glass–glass modules lowers energy use and global warming impact compared with treating the whole module but reduces recovered material value.
Launch of Atomic-6 Space Armor takes aim at growing threat of space debris
Atomic-6 announced the first-ever launch of its Space Armor technology into orbit aboard Portal Space Systems’ Starburst-1 spacecraft. The composite shielding technology is designed to help protect critical spacecraft systems against potentially catastrophic impacts from micrometeoroids and orbital debris.
MANUFACTURING
New way of fabricating bismuth ferrite could enable energy-efficient microchips
Brown University researchers developed a technique for making thin films of the multiferroic bismuth ferrite that retain their key properties. They also showed that stacking the films causes the bismuth layer to become an altermagnet.
Armored caterpillars offer robot designers lessons in crossing slippery glass
Researchers at the University of Naples Federico II and the University of Palermo assessed how well caterpillars moved on wood, steel, slate, and glass, observing how they coped with more challenging conditions. Their findings led to the identification of strategies that could allow robots to attach themselves and move on various materials.
OTHER STORIES
Diamond defects confirm 80-year-old theory of crystal stress
National Institute for Materials Science researchers directly mapped several components of the stress field surrounding an atomic-scale flaw in the crystal structure of diamond. These mappings provided the world’s first direct experimental validation of the analytical stress tensor around a single dislocation predicted by elasticity theory.
A path toward larger quantum processors
Using a five-qubit silicon array controlled through a single shared microwave line, researchers led by the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science identified a key source of errors during the simultaneous operation of qubits and developed a way to mitigate its effects.