The idea of harvesting solar energy in outer space and beaming it back to Earth is a science-fiction concept that in recent decades gained real-world legs. Now, the California Institute of Technology announced that an experiment through its ongoing Space Solar Power Project beamed solar energy collected in space back to Earth for the first time.
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First X-ray of a single atom, protein for sorting rare earth elements, and other materials stories that may be of interest for June 7, 2023.
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With the rapid growth of the global mining sector, it is crucial that miners adopt improved regulations and lower-impact methods to reduce the sector’s environmental and social footprint. Ceramics play an important role in environmental remediation, and today’s CTT highlights two studies that use ceramics to treat acid mine drainage.
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Significant progress in creating optics with nonuniform (gradient) refractive indices has been made over the past two decades. In 2020, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign proposed a unique way to use direct laser writing to achieve even greater control over the refractive index. A new open-access paper details refinements to their so-called SCRIBE method.
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The International Seabed Authority is running up against a July 9 deadline to finish developing a code for deep-sea mining. The possibility of mineral exploitation taking place without regulations has marine scientists concerned because so much is still unknown about the environmental effects of this practice.
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Stretching metals at the atomic level, fastest industry standard optical fiber, and other materials stories that may be of interest for May 31, 2023.
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Verifying the purity of ultrahigh-purity materials can be a challenge. Researchers in Italy and Norway developed a new analytical protocol based on laser ablation paired with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to determine the purity of silicon carbide.
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Group-III-nitride semiconductors have considerable potential for electronic and optoelectronic applications, but unintended defects tend to form in their structure during fabrication, which may affect the electrical properties. Two researchers at the University of British Columbia detailed the striking contrast between the effects of threading dislocation lines in gallium nitride versus indium nitride.
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After a series of delays, the United Kingdom finally announced its strategy, as well as a new Japanese partnership, for supporting the semiconductor industry. Details of these plans—as well as industry response so far—are given in today’s CTT.
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Cleaner hydrogen energy, lithography-free photonic chips, and other materials stories that may be of interest for May 24, 2023.
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