ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024 12 WORLD’S FIRST ELECTRON-ION COLLIDER The world’s first-ever electron-ion collider (EIC) is slated to be built at Brook- haven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., with formal planning beginning in 2025 and facility operations to begin in the early 2030s. According to a newly signed Statement of Interest, the construction will be a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The agencies say that the ultra-powerful collider will afford researchers an unmatched ability to explore the building blocks of matter and the strongest force in nature. “The EIC is the only collider planned to be constructed anywhere in the world in the next decade—and the first to collide a beam of high-energy polarized electrons with a counter- circulating beam of high-energy polarized protons or heavier ions,” a statement from Brookhaven National Laboratory explains. “A sophisticated detector will capture snapshots of these collisions to reveal how the particles and forces at the heart of atomic nuclei build up the structure and properties of everything we see in the universe today—from stars to planets to people.” The DOE notes that along with the pure science such a powerful tool can accomplish, they believe the EIC can also help advance numerous practical technologies. These include things like revealing new medical isotopes and particle beam approaches for diagnosing and treating cancer, aiding artificial intelligence and other computational tools for simulating climate change, tracking global pandemics, and protecting national security. In addition, they believe the EIC can accelerate advances in making and testing computer chips, studying proteins and therapeutic drugs, designing better batteries, developing radiation-resistant materials for energy applications, and creat- ing hundreds of highly skilled jobs and training for a future tech-savvy workforce. energy.gov, www.cea.fr/english. EMERGING TECHNOLOGY Carbon dot solutions emit various luminescence under UV illumination. Courtesy of Jia Wang. A schematic of the how the electron-ion collider (EIC) will add electron accelerator and storage rings to the existing relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC). Courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory. ORGANIC SEMICONDUCTORS Physicists at Sweden’s Umeå University, in collaboration with re- searchers in Denmark and China, discovered a sustainable alternative to petrochemical and rare metal-based semiconductors for optoelectronics from an unlikely source—pressure- cooked birch leaves. “The essence of our research is to harness nearby renewable resources for producing organic semiconductor materials,” researcher Jia Wang explains. By pressure- cooking birch leaves picked on the Umeå University campus, scientists produced a nanosized carbon particle with desired optical properties. Biobased semiconductor materials such as the researchers’ birch leaves could bolster sustainability efforts, as sharply increasing demand for this advanced technology is driving massive production of organic semiconductor materials. Synthesizing the birch leaves with a pressure cooker, the researchers produced carbon dots about two nanometers in size that emit a narrowband, deep red light when dissolved in ethanol. Wang emphasizes the broader potential of carbon dots beyond just light-emitting devices. “Carbon dots are promising across various applications, from bioimaging and sensing to anti-counterfeiting.” www.umu.se/english. Researchers at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, developed a material crisscrossed by a network of micrometer-size channels similar to those found in the microstructure of a bluebird’s feather. The new material shows promise for use in future battery and filtration applications. www.ethz.ch. BRIEF
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