8 ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | MAY/JUNE 2023 of Cincinnati contributed to the international experiment using a strange metal made from an alloy of ytterbium, a rare earth metal. Physicists in the Hyogo lab then fired radioactive gamma rays at the strange metal to observe its bizarre electrical behavior. The experiment revealed unusual fluctuations in the strange metal’s electrical charge. Strange metals are of interest to a wide range of physicists studying everything from particle physics to quantum mechanics. One reason is because of their oddly high conductivity, at least under extremely cold temperatures, which gives them potential as superconductors for quantum computing. “The idea is that in a metal, you have a sea of electrons moving in the background on a lattice of ions,” Komijani TESTING | CHARACTERIZATION MICROSCOPE HELPS IMPROVE BATTERIES For the first time, scientists observed solid electrolyte interphase dynamics (SEI) in real time. Researchers developed a highly sensitive microscope to study the SEI layer and gain a better understanding of how batteries work. The operando reflection interference microscope (RIM) was created by a team of researchers from the University of Houston, in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Md. The researchers say their dynamic, noninvasive imaging tool has significant implications for developing next-gen batteries as it provides key insight into the rational design of interphases, a battery component that has been the least understood and most challenging barrier to developing electrolytes for future batteries. The research team applied the principle of interference reflection microscopy, where the light beam— centering at 600 nm with spectrum width of about 10 nm—was directed toward the electrodes and SEI layers and reflected. The collected optical intensity contains interference signals between different layers, carrying important information about the evolution process of SEI and allowing researchers to observe the entire reaction process. The researchers note that most current battery investigations use cryo-electron microscopes, which only take one picture at a certain time and cannot continuously track the changes at the same location. Their new imaging technique could also be applied to other state-ofthe-art energy storage systems. uh.edu. EXPLORING STRANGE METALS A collaborative team of physicists from the University of Cincinnati and Japan’s RIKEN and University of Hyogo are studying the unusual behavior of strange metals, which operate outside the normal rules of electricity. Theoretical physicist Yashar Komijani Triangular holes make this material more likely to crack from left to right. Courtesy of N.R. Brodnik et al./Phys. Rev. Lett. By warming a crystal of fresnoite, scientists at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tenn., discovered that phasons carry heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material. The results could help improve the accuracy of heat transport simulations of energy materials. ornl.gov. Xiaonan Shan and Guangxia Feng work on the operando reflection interference microscope inside a “glove box” because the lithium-ion battery electrolyte is flammable. BRIEF Yashar Komijani worked with an international team of physicists to explore strange metals. Courtesy of Andrew Higley/U.C.
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