Technical / Research - Page 1

Researchers from the University of Maryland have explored the somewhat creative possibility that our reality is only one half of a pair of interacting worlds, drawing inspiration from bi-layer graphene. Their mathematical model may provide a new perspective for looking at fundamental features of reality—including why our universe expands the way it does and how that relates to the most miniscule lengths allowed in quantum mechanics.

The scientists formed this new perspective based on the study of bi-layer graphene. They realized that experiments on the electrical properties of stacked sheets of graphene produced results that looked like little universes and that the underlying phenomenon might generalize to other areas of physics. In stacks of graphene, new electrical behaviors arise from interactions between the individual sheets, so perhaps unique physics could similarly emerge from interacting layers elsewhere—perhaps in cosmological theories about the entire universe.

A joint research team, led by Prof. WU Zhongshuai and Prof. FU Qiang from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), recently proposed a strategy for boosting the capacitance of graphene-based planar micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) using highly concentrated water-in-salt ambipolar redox electrolyte (ZnI₂ + ZnCl₂).

Using redox-active electrolytes to boost graphene electrodes is a highly-efficient strategy to increase the capacitive performance of MSCs. However, previously reported redox mediators could only offer a certain capacitance for a single electrode, leading to limited energy density due to the unmatched capacitances of two electrodes.