Artificial leaf' makes real fuel

Artificial Leaf Makes Real Fuel ? What? Is it Possible? Yes!  "if nature Can do , So we Can".

A Research Team From Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) led by Dr. Daniel Nocera, Ph.D., claims to have made a Notable discovery in the world of sustainable energy by developing the first “practical” artificial leaf Which May Show A Solution to Increasing Energy needs.

These leaves are actually advanced solar cells that mimic photosynthesis, the process by which their real-life counterparts convert sunlight and water into energy,the Principal Source of Food.

 Like Ordinary Leaves , the device can turn the energy of sunlight directly into a chemical fuel that can be stored and used later as an energy source. 

The leaf is a silicon solar cell coated with catalytic materials on its side that, when placed in a container of water and exposed to sunlight, splits the H2O into bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen Bubbles can be stored in A Container and used as an energy source, for example to power a fuel cell. 

"The device both captures the solar energy and stores it in the chemical bonds of the hydrogen and oxygen that are produced from the water," Steven Reece, a research scientist with Sun Catalytix and lead author of a paper describing the breakthrough!

This Whilst Research Was Publishied in the journal Science.

The artificial leaf is made entirely with earth-abundant, inexpensive materials — mostly silicon, cobalt, and nickel — and it works in ordinary water. Other attempts have required more expensive catalysts such as platinum and/or extremely caustic water, noted Reece.

At Present The Main Thing Or Obstacle is The Collection And Storage of Energy In a Hydrogen Fuel Cells,which is a Bit Difficult And Expensive.Further These are Less Efficient than Traditional Solar Cells ( Artificial Leaf  is 4.7 % Efficient While Solar Cells Today Have 10 Percent Efficiency).Scientists Should Answer These Problem And Find A Possible configuration  to make it Cost Effective And More efficient.

Hope In future Scientists May improve This Technique And Make it available Commercially , to Solve The Energy needs of World. As The Non Renewable Sources Are Limited ,Solutions Like "Artificial Leaf" Are vital for Sustainable Life !

Checkout the Video Demonstrating the Device :

Photonic Chips – replacing Electronic Chips

An Another Major Break Through In the Field of Computing,Scientists Have Developed A Chip That Could Change The Face of Computing Paving The Way For a New Generation of powerful Qunatum Computers.


A Team of International Researchers Has Developed A Revolutionary Optical Chip ,That Operates on The Principles of Light Rather Than Electricity.With integrated circuits that use light instead of electricity, photonic chips will allow for faster computers and less data loss when connected to the global fiber-optic network.


This Major Innovation Could Lead To "Quantum Computers"  Capable of Complex Processing And Stimulations That Are impossible For Today's Computers.


 “We want to take everything on an electronic chip and reproduce it on a photonic chip,” says Liang Feng, a postdoctoral scholar in electrical engineering and the lead author on a paper to be published in the August 5 issue of the journal Science. Feng is part of Caltech’s nanofabrication group, led by Axel Scherer, Bernard A. Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Physics, and co-director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.



In that paper, the researchers describe a new technique to isolate light signals on a silicon chip, solving a longstanding problem in engineering photonic chips.
An isolated light signal can only travel in one direction. If light weren’t isolated, signals sent and received between different components on a photonic circuit could interfere with one another, causing the chip to become unstable. In an electrical circuit, a device called a diode isolates electrical signals by allowing current to travel in one direction but not the other. The goal, then, is to create the photonic analog of a diode, a device called an optical isolator. “This is something scientists have been pursuing for 20 years,” Feng says.
Normally, a light beam has exactly the same properties when it moves forward as when it’s reflected backward. “If you can see me, then I can see you,” he says. In order to isolate light, its properties need to somehow change when going in the opposite direction. An optical isolator can then block light that has these changed properties, which allows light signals to travel only in one direction between devices on a chip.





We want to build something where you can see me, but I can’t see you,” Feng explains. “That means there’s no signal from your side to me. The device on my side is isolated; it won’t be affected by my surroundings, so the functionality of my device will be stable.”
To isolate light, Feng and his colleagues designed a new type of optical waveguide, a 0.8-micron-wide silicon device that channels light. The waveguide allows light to go in one direction but changes the mode of the light when it travels in the opposite direction.
A light wave’s mode corresponds to the pattern of the electromagnetic field lines that make up the wave. In the researchers’ new waveguide, the light travels in a symmetric mode in one direction, but changes to an asymmetric mode in the other. Because different light modes can’t interact with one another, the two beams of light thus pass through each other.

Previously, there were two main ways to achieve this kind of optical isolation. The first way — developed almost a century ago — is to use a magnetic field. The magnetic field changes the polarization of light — the orientation of the light’s electric-field lines — when it travels in the opposite direction, so that the light going one way can’t interfere with the light going the other way. “The problem is, you can’t put a large magnetic field next to a computer,” Feng says. “It’s not healthy.

The second conventional method requires so-called nonlinear optical materials, which change light’s frequency rather than its polarization. This technique was developed about 50 years ago, but is problematic because silicon, the material that’s the basis for the integrated circuit, is a linear material. If computers were to use optical isolators made out of nonlinear materials, silicon would have to be replaced, which would require revamping all of computer technology. But with their new silicon waveguides, the researchers have become the first to isolate light with a linear material.


Although this work is just a proof-of-principle experiment, the researchers are already building an optical isolator that can be integrated onto a silicon chip. An optical isolator is essential for building the integrated, nanoscale photonic devices and components that will enable future integrated information systems on a chip. Current, state-of-the-art photonic chips operate at 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) — hundreds of times the data-transfer rates of today’s personal computers — with the next generation expected to soon hit 40 Gbps. But without built-in optical isolators, those chips are much simpler than their electronic counterparts and are not yet ready for the market. Optical isolators like those based on the researchers’ designs will therefore be crucial for commercially viable photonic chips.




courtesy:sciencedaily.com

Tevatron accelerator yields hints of new particle

Physicts Working At A Major US Atomic Smasher ,A Gigantic Particle Accelerator Have Announced That They Made A Significant Discovery Which Could Possible Results Out Into The Discovery Of New Elementary Particle Or Possible Existence Of Potentially New Force of Nature .An Unknown Force That Could Change The Particle Physics Taking Into New Dimensions.

Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).A Team Of Scientists Working At the Fermi Lab Made Out The Discovery Using This Powerful Particle Accelerator Or Atom Slasher Tevatron While Carrying Out the Experiments to Know The Origins And Working Of Universe By Mechanism Of Colliding Proton And Anti proton !! Informative Data Is obtained By This Part of Experimenting !!

 If proved, it will be a completely new, unanticipated particle or a new fundamental force of nature!!
But Experts Have Cautioned That more Analysis Was Needed To Uncover The True Nature of Discovery!! 
The Physicists  Believed That New Discovery Could Riddle out Some Of the Answered Questions In Physics From Ages ,About The Mass,How Objects Acquire Mass ???
Now When We Think Of Mass The Thing That Strikes Into our mind Is Hypothetical Higgs Boson !! 
Scientists Have clearly made out that This is Not The "God's Particle" Or The Higgs Boson .
Higgs Boson The Assumptive Elementary Particle Which Was Often Treated Responsible For Origins of Mass.

Data obtained must be more fully confirmed, but researchers at the Tevatron are racing to work through existing data.
Scientists Are Now Analysing The data If New Particle Or New Force Of Nature Which may be Held Responsible For Mass And Atomic Actions that would be the most significant discovery in physics in This Early Half Of Century!!


Read Story!! 
Standard Model : Higgs Boson 

Arctic’s ozone thinner by 40%

The Ozone Layer that keeps out the sun's Harmful ultra violet Radiation Reaching Earth's Surface is found to be getting Thinner about record 40% percent drop in Winter season of Arctic Region, announced world weather organisation.
This Sudden loss In Ozone is so threating That has never been Recorded in Past 15 which exceeded the Previous loss amounts of 30 percent in various seasons, said an official of Un's Meteorological organisation.

Formation and Importance Of  Ozone
Ozone is formed when oxygen molecules absorb ultraviolet photons and undergo a chemical reaction known as photo dissociation or photolysis, where a single molecule of oxygen breaks down to two oxygen atoms. The free oxygen atom (O), then combines with an oxygen molecule (O2) and forms a molecule of ozone (O3)

Ozone one plays a vital Role in protecting the Humans from ultraviolet Radiations,By Absorbing Them  without which Serious Health Hazards Could happen like cancer, cataract and It Also effects Immune System. Not Just Humans uv Rays can destroy Certain Crops and Makes life difficult to Sea Animals.

 Ozone depletion :
Ozone Depletion is One Of The Serious Enivronmental Concerns which is Often Discussed And Worried About!! The Ozone layer depletion first captured the attention of the whole world in the later half of 1970 and since then, many discussions and researches have been carried out to find out the possible effects and the causes of ozone depletion. Many studies have also been directed to find out a possible solution.
The increasing concern for the causes and effects of ozone depletion led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol, in the year 1987, in order to reduce and control the industrial emission of chlorofluorocarbons and Its usage In Refrirators.
Despite Of this Treaty the Loss In Ozone Has'nt Stoppped Yet.!!
That's So Disturbing we need To Protect Our Environment if It Continues like this The Life Beocomes Critical!!usage of CFC's Should be Reduced !!
WMO noted that even though this Arctic winter was warmer than average at ground level, it was colder in the stratosphere than for a normal Arctic winter.

The agency also pointed out that although the degree of Arctic ozone destruction in 2011 is unprecedented, it is not unexpected. Ozone scientists have foreseen that significant Arctic ozone loss is possible in the case of a cold and stable Arctic stratospheric winter.
Read More: Ozone Centre

Speed Of Light

 The speed of light, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics.It Is Maximum Speed At Which Energy ,Matter Can Travel .Its the Fundamental Constant In Physics.
As We All Know That Light travels At a Speed Of 3*10⁸ meters Per second .Which Would Be Precisely Around 299,792.46 In a Second Or 1,079252956 Km Per Hour .
So Far We Didn't Even Made Any Significant Close To The Speed Of Light.Nothing can go faster than the speed of light. As for matter, it can never reach the speed of light,To Reach The Speed Of Light a Space Craft Should Have Infinite Supply Of Energy Or Zero Mass .

Einstein theory of relativity address that question quite well. Mass will increase exponentially so that the velocity will reduce, until mass becomes an infinite value when the velocity reach light speed.
Both Are Impossible In reality.Photos And Electrons which Have Infinitely Small Mass Move At Fraction Of Light Speed.And even if the physicists tell you it can't be done.

Space Travel Always Been a Dream Of Astronomers How Ever It would Take A Life Long to Travel To Pluto And Even More With Present Fastest moving Space Crafts.Travelling at light Speed Or Even Close To Or At least the Fraction of Light Speed is Fictitious Thing.
Hope That a Day May Come In Future Time Travel is Possible Just like In Star Trek.
As Einstein famously told people that it was impossible to split the atom and that you would always need to put more energy in than you would get out of it. Well now look where we are in the nuclear age! Nothing is impossible In This World If We Give A Try !!