Study reveals exactly how low-cost fuel cell catalysts work
Ted Holby and Hoon Chung. LANL photo.
In order to reduce the cost of next-generation polymer electrolyte fuel cells for vehicles, researchers have been developing alternatives to the prohibitively expensive platinum and platinum-group metal (PGM) catalysts currently used in fuel cell electrodes. New work at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national laboratories is resolving difficult fuel-cell performance questions, both in determining efficient new materials and understanding how they work at an atomic level. The research is described this week in the journal Science. (Full story)
Single-photon emitter has promise for quantum info-processing
telecommunications wavelengths, LANL illustration.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has produced the first known material capable of single-photon emission at room temperature and at telecommunications wavelengths. These carbon nanotube quantum light emitters may be important for optically-based quantum information processing and information security, while also being of significant interest for ultrasensitive sensing, metrology and imaging needs and as photon sources for fundamental advances in quantum optics studies. The research was reported yesterday in the journal Nature Photonics. (Full story)
Also in PhysOrg
A quantum leap in solar
Hunter McDaniel lights a prototype
window, New Mexican photo.
McDaniel is founder and president of a Los Alamos-based company that is pioneering a material that can be folded into windows to better focus the light into electricity. He sees the company he founded with help from Los Alamos National Laboratory, UbiQD, as the best path to advance the design of solar windows in urban settings as well as remote greenhouses far off the grid.
LANL researchers have been leading the way in quantum dot research as part of its mission to explore solar energy technology. McDaniel was a big part of that research and incorporated some of the patent technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to advance a low-toxic production of quantum dots, in part with grant money from Sharp Electronics. (Full story)
Los Alamos County, LANL and summer interns partner to test cutting edge technology
hololens, Daily Post photo.
Dr. David Mascarenas from the Engineering Institute of LANL has worked with Dr. Moreu and UNM’s students since the fall of 2016 in advancing the application of this technology to real civil engineering applications, such as collecting measurements in the field that informs owners about the condition of their infrastructure.
Hololens, Moreu and Mascarenas explained, is technology that utilizes augmented reality. It creates holograms and allows the user to interact with them. (Full story)
