Electron Microscopes

An illustration depicting a topological insulator in action

Electronics

Strange material demonstrates exotic quantum state at room temperature

Many quantum effects can only be produced at extremely cold temperatures, which limits how useful they would be in real-world tech. Now, Princeton researchers have demonstrated a strange quantum state taking place in a material at room temperature.

An illustration depicting how the new material works – normally, the manganese atomic ions (purple circles) and the disulfur molecular ions (figure-8s) are separated (left of frame). But under pressure, they move closer together (right of frame) changing the conductivity of the material

Materials

Weird compound jumps from conductor to insulator and back under pressure

Researchers have discovered a material that can switch between an insulator and a conductor freely, even at room temperature. The material, a compound of manganese and sulfide (MnS2), starts off as an insulator but becomes conductive under pressure.

Researchers have created graphene electronic devices that are both insulators and superconductors at the same time, in different parts of the material

Electronics

Magic angle makes graphene simultaneously superconducting and insulating

Graphene just keeps getting weirder. Engineers at ETH Zurich have now managed to tweak the overachieving material so that some parts of a flake can be an electrical insulator while other areas act as a superconductor, just nanometers apart.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell pictured walking across the Moon's surface in a spacesuit contaminated by lunar regolith

Space Systems

Future NASA astronauts may rely on electron beams to clean spacesuits

Blasting spacesuits with a beam of electrons could cause jagged, abrasive particles of moon dust to leap right off them. Finding a way to deal with the sharp particles is a priority for NASA as the agency seeks to return to the Moon.

Photography

An electron microscope that won't destroy living cells

MIT researchers have proposed a new quantum electron microscope using a mechanical measurement technique that uses electrons to sense objects without ever hitting them, thus avoiding damaging a living sample.