相关论文: Vacuum balloon -- a 350-year-old dream
Soap bubbles are thin liquid films enclosing a fixed volume of air. Since the surface tension is typically assumed to be the only responsible for conforming the soap bubble shape, the realized bubble surfaces are always minimal area ones.…
Woven shell structures are beneficial for applications requiring lightweight, damage resilience, and design tunability, such as in wearable devices, soft robotics, and aerospace systems. A fundamental component of woven structures is the…
The ball lightning is supposed to be a shock wave of a point explosion frozen with electrostriction forces of the internal strong laser discharge. The life time of the ball with modest parameters is calculated.
The similarity of Venus and Earth in bulk properties make Venus an appealing target for future colonization. Several proposals have been put forward for colonizing and even terraforming Venus despite the extreme conditions on the planet's…
Liquid crystal elastomer films that morph into cones are strikingly capable lifters. Thus motivated, we combine theory, numerics, and experiments to reexamine the load-bearing capacity of conical shells. We show that a cone squashed between…
We simulate the quasi-static motion of a spherical particle through a stable, horizontal soap film. The soap film subtends a fixed contact angle, in the range $10-135^\circ$, where it meets the particle. The tension and pressure forces…
A variety of complex fluids consist in soft, round objects (foams, emulsions, assemblies of copolymer micelles or of multilamellar vesicles -- also known as onions). Their dense packing induces a slight deviation from their prefered…
This paper presents a review and perspective on quantum gases in bubble traps. We emphasize how the idea of realizing shell shaped condensates emerged and was enabled by the invention of the radiofrequency adiabatic potential technique. We…
An aerial vehicle powered by flapping feathered wings was designed, developed and fabricated. Different from legacy flapping-wing aerial vehicles with membrane wings, the new design uses authentic bird feathers to fabricate wings. In field…
This paper presents the design, control, and applications of a multi-segment soft robotic arm. In order to design a soft arm with large load capacity, several design principles are proposed by analyzing two kinds of buckling issues, under…
We have discovered a new family of three-dimensional crystal sphere packings that are strictly jammed (i.e., mechanically stable) and yet possess an anomalously low density. This family constitutes an uncountably infinite number of crystal…
Plasma window is an advanced apparatus which can work as the interface between vacuum and high pressure region. It can be used in many applications which need atmosphere-vacuum interface, such as gas target, electron beam welding,…
Soft Robots distinguish themselves from traditional robots by embracing flexible kinematics. Because of their recent emergence, there exist numerous uncharted territories, including novel actuators, manufacturing processes, and advanced…
After more than 180 years of research, ball lightning is still an unsolved problem in atmospheric physics. Since no progress can be expected without a controlled production of such objects in a laboratory, this report analyses a carefully…
We demonstrate a novel approach to three-dimensional (3D) printing of freeform ice structures by exploiting evaporative cooling. A micrometer-sized water jet is used to 3D print inside a vacuum chamber. The reduced ambient pressure leads to…
Calculations within QCD (lattice and sum rules) find the lightest glueball to be a scalar and with mass in the range of about 1000-1700 MeV. Several phenomenological investigations are discussed which aim at the identification of the scalar…
Compact vacuum systems are key enabling components for cold atom technologies, facilitating extremely accurate sensing applications. There has been important progress towards a truly portable compact vacuum system, however size, weight and…
Multimode nonlinear optics offers to overcome a long-standing limitation of fiber optics, tightly phase locking several spatial modes and enabling the coherent transport of a wavepacket through a multimode fiber. A similar problem is…
Stratospheric balloons offer cost-effective access to space and grant the opportunity for fast scientific innovation cycles and higher-risk explorations. In addition to science pathfinders, they serve as platforms for technology…
Ball lightning is an impressive natural electromagnetic phenomenon occurring in atmosphere under suitable circumstances. Its origin, composition and stability issues are a matter of debate, due to presence of many evidences still…