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Simulation depicting the decay of a Higgs particle following a collision of two protons. Image: CERN

Issue no. 7, 2009 Published: Feb 20, 2009
Race for 'God particle' heats up
Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel
Europa wins next big planetary mission
Gas tank of the future takes a step closer
Scientists make advances on 'nano' electronics
Detecting colour on the nanoscale

Race for 'God particle' heats up
Europe's particle physics lab, CERN, is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, or 'God particle', its US rival claims. The particle, whose existence has been predicted by theoreticians, would help to explain why matter has mass. Finding the Higgs is a major goal of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But the US Fermilab says the odds of its Tevatron accelerator detecting the famed particle first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best. Both machines hope to see evidence of the Higgs by colliding sub-atomic matter at very high speeds. If it exists, the Higgs should emerge from the debris. The LHC has been out of action since last September when an accident damaged some of the magnets that make up its giant colliding ring. Fermilab has taken advantage, cranking up the intensity of research at their Tevatron accelerator in Illinois. Fermilab estimates that the Tevatron has already picked out about eight collision events which may be hints of the Higgs. But until the number crunching is done, it is not possible to distinguish these from 'background noise'.
BBC News Feb 17, 2009	back to top

Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel
Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of CO2 and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates. Such devices offer a new way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate, according to researchers at Pennsylvania State University who came up with the device. Although other research groups have developed methods for converting CO2 into organic compounds like methane they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions. The researchers' breakthrough has been to develop a method that works with the wider range of visible frequencies within sunlight. The team found it could enhance the catalytic abilities of titanium dioxide by forming it into nanotubes each around 135 nanometres wide and 40 microns long to increase surface area. Coating the nanotubes with catalytic copper and platinum particles also boosted their activity. The researchers housed a 2-centimetre-square section of material bristling with the tubes inside a metal chamber with a quartz window. They then pumped in a mixture of CO2 and water vapour and placed it in sunlight for three hours. The energy provided by the sunlight transformed the CO2 and water vapour into methane and related organic compounds, such as ethane and propane, at rates as high as 160 microlitres an hour per gram of nanotubes. This is 20 times higher than published results achieved using any previous method.
New Scientist / Nano Letters Feb 18, 2009	back to top

Europa wins next big planetary mission
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have chosen Jupiter's moons as the destination for their upcoming joint outer planet flagship mission. A trip to Saturn's moon Titan needs further study, the agencies decided. The Europa Jupiter System Mission will launch two orbiters, one built by NASA and the other by the ESA, in 2020, with a scheduled arrival time in the Jupiter system of 2026. The NASA orbiter will study the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa, which may harbour an ocean capable of supporting life. The ESA orbiter will investigate Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, which has a unique magnetic field. Although the Europa mission was deemed more technically ready, NASA and the ESA did not close the door on a Titan mission. A Titan mission would have sent a lander and a balloon to explore the moon's organic chemistry, which may be similar to that of the early Earth.
Nature Feb 18, 2009	back to top

Gas tank of the future takes a step closer
Researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK and General Motors in the US have taken us a little further along the road to a hydrogen economy. They have come up with a sponge-like material that can hold 10% of its own weight in hydrogen gas. The need for effective hydrogen fuel tanks is a major stumbling block for the dream of a hydrogen economy. A litre of liquid hydrogen contains just a quarter of the energy of a litre of petrol, and so treating it like a standard fuel is not an option. But the energy density can be increased if hydrogen gas is squeezed into a porous material able to hold hydrogen like a sponge does water. So far, though, such materials have not been able to store enough energy to provide a realistic alternative to a car's petrol tank - the previous best attempts, using a carbon structure, can hold around 6 to 7.5% of their weight in hydrogen. The latest candidate material is a combination of copper atoms and organic molecules called a 'metal-organic framework' by chemists. With this setup, each copper atom is surrounded by a polyhedral 'cage' of the organic molecules. These cages slot, or tessellate, together to form a highly porous material with exceptional hydrogen storage capacity.
New Scientists / Chemical Communications Feb 19, 2009	back to top

Scientists make advances on 'nano' electronics
Two US teams have developed new materials that may pave the way for ever smaller, faster and more powerful electronics as current semiconductor technology begins to reach the limits of miniaturization. One team has made tiny transistors a fraction of the size of those used on advanced silicon chips. Another has made a film material capable of storing data from 250 DVDs onto a surface the size of a coin. A University of Pittsburgh team created its nanotech transistors using two ceramic crystal materials known as lanthanum aluminate and strontium titanate. When sandwiched together, these natural insulators conduct electricity as a positive charge is passed across them. Using the tip of an atomic force microscope, the team applied voltage to etch a tiny conducting wire between the two materials, which can later be erased by reversing the charge, much like a child's Etch A Sketch drawing toy. Meanwhile, a team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of California Berkeley said they had found a faster, more efficient way of making a thin semiconductor film that they think could dramatically improve data storage. The team heated sapphire crystals to create a specific pattern of ridges on the surface. This served as a guide for the semiconductor film. The technology could make nearly perfect arrays of semiconductor material that are about 15 times denser than anything achieved previously, according to the researchers.
Reuters / Science Feb 19, 2009	back to top

Detecting colour on the nanoscale
Scientists in the US have copied the way the retina sends electrical signals to the brain in order to construct nanoscale colour detectors. The devices, composed of carbon nanotubes decorated with photosensitive molecules, can detect very weak sources of visible light at specific wavelengths and could have applications in astronomy and biology. The ability to detect photons over just a few square nanometres is useful in studying light sources that are either very weak or very small. To date, researchers have attempted this largely through the construction of solid-state devices, which produce electron-hole pairs when illuminated. However, building such devices with nanoscale precision is extremely difficult. Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratories in California are taking an alternative approach, which is similar to the way that retinal molecules absorb light and then convert the light into electrical signals. This involves coupling light-sensitive molecules to transistors made from single-walled carbon nanotubes, rolled up sheets of graphite with a diameter of around 1 nm, and measuring the change in conductance of the nanotubes when the molecules absorb photons and change shape. The work could among others provide important insights into basic science, by using nanotubes to study how individual molecules respond to light and change shape, according to the researchers.
PhysicsWorld Feb 19, 2009	back to top