New flexible semiconductor for electronics, solar technology and photo catalysis

It is the double helix, with its stable and flexible structure of genetic information, that made life on Earth possible in the first place. Now a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has discovered a double helix structure in an inorganic material. The material comprising tin, iodine and phosphorus is a semiconductor with extraordinary optical and electronic properties, as well as extreme mechanical flexibility.

Flexible yet robust - this is one reason why nature codes genetic information in the form of a double helix. Scientists at TU Munich have now discovered an inorganic substance whose elements are arranged in the form of a double helix.

The substance called SnIP, comprising the elements tin (Sn), iodine (I) and phosphorus (P), is a semiconductor. However, unlike conventional inorganic semiconducting materials, it is highly flexible. The centimeter-long fibers can be arbitrarily bent without breaking.

"This property of SnIP is clearly attributable to the double helix," says Daniela Pfister, who discovered the material and works as a researcher in the work group of Tom Nilges, Professor for Synthesis and Characterization of Innovative Materials at TU Munich. "SnIP can be easily produced on a gram scale and is, unlike gallium arsenide, which has similar electronic characteristics, far less toxic."

The semiconducting properties of SnIP promise a wide range of application opportunities, from energy conversion in solar cells and thermoelectric elements to photocatalysts, sensors and optoelectronic elements. By doping with other elements, the electronic characteristics of the new material can be adapted to a wide range of applications.

Due to the arrangement of atoms in the form of a double helix, the fibers, which are up to a centimeter in length can be easily split into thinner strands. The thinnest fibers to date comprise only five double helix strands and are only a few nanometers thick. That opens the door also to nanoelectronic applications.

"Especially the combination of interesting semiconductor properties and mechanical flexibility gives us great optimism regarding possible applications," says Professor Nilges. "Compared to organic solar cells, we hope to achieve significantly higher stability from the inorganic materials. For example, SnIP remains stable up to around 500°C (930 °F)."

A double helix. Zephyris at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

"Similar to carbon, where we have the three-dimensional (3D) diamond, the two dimensional graphene and the one dimensional nanotubes," explains Professor Nilges, "we here have, alongside the 3D semiconducting material silicon and the 2D material phosphorene, for the first time a one dimensional material - with perspectives that are every bit as exciting as carbon nanotubes."

Just as with carbon nanotubes and polymer-based printing inks, SnIP double helices can be suspended in solvents like toluene. In this way, thin layers can be produced easily and cost-effectively. "But we are only at the very beginning of the materials development stage," says Daniela Pfister. "Every single process step still needs to be worked out."

Since the double helix strands of SnIP come in left and right-handed variants, materials that comprise only one of the two should display special optical characteristics. This makes them highly interesting for optoelectronics applications. But, so far there is no technology available for separating the two variants.

Theoretical calculations by the researchers have shown that a whole range of further elements should form these kinds of inorganic double helices. Extensive patent protection is pending. The researchers are now working intensively on finding suitable production processes for further materials.

An extensive interdisciplinary alliance is working on the characterization of the new material: Photoluminescence and conductivity measurements have been carried out at the Walter Schottky Institute of the TU Munich. Theoretical chemists from the University of Augsburg collaborated on the theoretical calculations. Researchers from the University of Kiel and the Max Planck Institute of Solid State Research in Stuttgart performed transmission electron microscope investigations. Mössbauer spectra and magnetic properties were measured at the University of Augsburg, while researchers of TU Cottbus contributed thermodynamics measurements.

For more information, visit: 

http://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=lugols-iodine-solution&Id=59785

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160912122632.htm

Ultra-thin slices of diamonds reveal geological processes

Diamonds are not only beautiful and valuable gems, they also contain information of the geological history. By using ultra-thin slices of diamonds, Dorrit E. Jacob and her colleagues from the Macquarie University in Australia and the University of Sydney found the first direct evidence for the formation of diamonds by a process known as redox freezing. In this process, carbonate melts crystallize to form diamond. The slices were prepared by Anja Schreiber of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. The work is published in Nature Communications. The study shows that the reduction of carbonate to diamond is balanced by the oxidation of iron sulphide to iron oxides.

Siberia's Udachnaya diamond mine, by Stepanovas (Stapanov Alexander). (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

The researchers used the new nano-scale technique of Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction to discover rims of the iron oxide mineral magnetite just a few ten thousandths of a millimetre thick around sulphide minerals inside the diamonds. The GFZ's Anja Schreiber prepared these slices using a focussed beam of charged atoms (ions) to ablate the surface. The already ultra-thin slices were re-thinned after being mounted on a carbon-coated copper grid. This process was carried out for the first time successfully on a grid and yielded the data set used for the study.

The results also solve a puzzle that has occupied diamond researchers for decades, namely the over-abundance of sulphide occurring as inclusions in diamond. Iron sulphides are the most common inclusions in diamond even though there is only about 0.02% of sulphur in the mantle: it now appears that the oxidation of the iron sulphides directly causes the formation of the diamonds that include them.

For more information visit:-

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160621115443.htm

http://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=dimethyl-sulphide-for-synthesis&Id=36347

Star Wars-style lava planet discovered close to Earth

First they thought it was a water world, a planet larger than Earth covered in nothing but ocean. Then they thought it might be a diamond world, covered in mountains of graphite and diamond. Now, researchers think that near-by 55 Cancri e has an entire hemisphere engulfed in lava.

The planet orbits a sun-like star located just 40 light years away. It orbits its parent star about 100 times closer than Earth to the sun, completing a circuit in just 17.68 hours.

So close to its parent star, the planet is locked by gravity to show only one face to the star rather like the moon shows only one face to Earth. This means that one hemisphere of the planet is permanently sunlit, while the other is in perpetual darkness.

The planet has attracted a lot of interest since 2011, when it was discovered to cross the face of its star and block out some of its light. This allowed the planet’s atmosphere to be analysed. No water vapour was found, putting paid to the idea of it being a water world.

An analysis of the parent star, however, showed a higher than usual concentration of carbon-bearing elements. This led researchers to suggest next that 55 Cancri e could be a diamond planet with a landscape composed of graphite and diamond mountains.

The latest work involves observations of the planet with the Spitzer space telescope, Nasa’s orbiting infrared observatory. It shows that the temperature of the sunward facing hemisphere soars to 2500°C, while the permanently dark hemisphere reaches around 1100°C.

At these temperatures the hot side must be completely molten. At the terminator, the name for the boundary between the light and dark side (sorry, another Star Wars reference), their must be some form of lava shoreline as the molten rock solidify into landforms. In the twilight of the terminator region, the lava will be glowing red hot casting a hellish appearance across the alien landscape.

Lava flow. By Brocken Inaglory (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Dr Brice-Olivier Demory of the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory is the lead author of the paper announcing the new results. Although the work answers some questions about the nature of the planet, it raises others.

For example, despite the proximity of 55 Cancri e to its star and the tremendous amount of blinding sunlight it receives as a result, the temperature calculated from the infrared observations is higher than expected. So there must be another source of heat in the planet.

At eight times the mass of the Earth, it seems certain that the planet will contain a lot more radioactive elements than our world. As these decay, they would heat the interior, perhaps providing the extra heating.

One thing is certain, 55 Cancri e must now be a top target for the James Webb Space Telescope. This Nasa-built spacecraft is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and will be launched in 2018 by the European Space Agency. Its mirror will be more than seven times larger than the Spitzer’s. Although it works at somewhat different infrared wavelengths it will be able to study nearby planets such as 55 Cancri e in unprecedented detail.

But perhaps the best thing about the announcement of this discovery is that none of the astronomers felt duty bound to reference Mustafar, the lava planet on which Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker fought their climatic light sabre battle in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

For more information, visit:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2016/mar/31/star-wars-style-lava-planet-discovered-close-to-earth

http://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=carbon-capsule&Id=44459

Diamonds may not be so rare as once thought

Diamonds may not be as rare as once believed, but this finding in a new Johns Hopkins University research report won't mean deep discounts at local jewellery stores.

"Diamond formation in the deep Earth, the very deep Earth, may be a more common process than we thought," said Johns Hopkins geochemist Dimitri A. Sverjensky, whose article co-written with doctoral student Fang Huang appears today in the online journal Nature Communications. The report says the results 'constitute a new quantitative theory of diamond formation,' but that does not mean it will be easier to find gem-quality diamonds and bring them to market.

"Rough diamond" by Unknown USGS employee - Original source: USGS "Minerals in Your World" website. 

For one thing, the prevalence of diamonds near the Earth's surface - where they can be mined - still depends on relatively rare volcanic magma eruptions that raise them from the depths where they form. For another, the diamonds being considered in these studies are not necessarily the stuff of engagement rings, unless the recipient is equipped with a microscope. Most are only a few microns across and are not visible to the unaided eye.

Using a chemical model, Sverjensky and Huang found that these precious stones could be born in a natural chemical reaction that is simpler than the two main processes that up to now have been understood to produce diamonds. Specifically, their model - yet to be tested with actual materials - shows that diamonds can form with an increase in acidity during interaction between water and rock.

The common understanding up to now has been that diamonds are formed in the movement of fluid by the oxidation of methane or the chemical reduction of carbon dioxide. Oxidation results in a higher oxidation state, or a gain of electrons. Reduction means a lower oxidation state, and collectively the two are known as 'redox' reactions.

"It was always hard to explain why the redox reactions took place," said Sverjensky, a professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. The reactions require different types of fluids to be moving through the rocks encountering environments with different oxidation states.

The new research showed that water could produce diamonds as its pH falls naturally - that is, as it becomes more acidic - while moving from one type of rock to another, Sverjensky said.

The finding is one of many in about the last 25 years that expands scientists' understanding of how pervasive diamonds may be, Sverjensky said.

"The more people look, the more they're finding diamonds in different rock types now," Sverjensky said. "I think everybody would agree there's more and more environments of diamond formation being discovered."

Nobody has yet put a number on the greater abundance of diamonds, but Sverjensky said scientists are working on that with chemical models. It's impossible to physically explore the great depths at which diamonds are created: roughly 90 to 120 miles below the Earth's surface at intense pressure and at temperatures about 1,650 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The deepest drilling exploration ever made was about 8 or 9 miles below the surface, he said.

If the study doesn't shake the diamond markets, it promises to help shed light on fluid movement in the deep Earth, which helps account for the carbon cycle on which all life on the planet depends.

"Fluids are the key link between the shallow and the deep Earth," Sverjensky said. "That's why it's important."

This research was supported by grants from the Sloan Foundation through the Deep Carbon Observatory (Reservoirs and Fluxes and Extreme Physics and Chemistry programs) and by a U.S. Energy Department grant, DE-FG-02-96ER-14616.

For more information visit:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151103140444.htm

https://www.prlabs.co.uk/lab-supplies.php?N=bisdiphenylphosphino-methane-for-sy&Id=38134