Researchers at Tohoku University have gained insight into the electronic processes that guide the transformation of liquids into a solid crystalline or glassy state. The ability of some liquids to transition into glass has been exploited since ancient times. But many fundamental aspects of this transition phase are far from understood. Better understanding could spur the development of products such as DVDs or Blu-Ray discs that store data b...

Researchers from Tohoku University have been trying to find out how the plasma flow is influenced by its environment via laboratory experiments. And in doing so, have made headway on research towards creating an electrodeless plasma thruster used to propel spacecraft. The universe is made up of plasma - a gas so hot that its particles are electrically charged. This makes it easily influenced by magnetic fields and forces, which can lead to c...

The research group of Professor Akio Ishiguro and Assistant Professor Dai Owaki of Tohoku University have, for the first time, successfully demonstrated that by changing only its parameter related to speed, a quadruped robot can spontaneously change its steps between energy-efficient patterns (gait transition phenomena). Until now, the manner in which changing speeds cause quadrupeds to change their gaits - walking, trotting and ga...

Scientists in Japan have revealed that if a glassy solid possesses a planar (sheet-like) structure, it can exhibit enhanced thermal vibration motion due to the same mechanism known for the planar crystals (two-dimensional crystals), by using large-scale simulations on supercomputers. "Imagine if we could make a sheet of glass, which has a two-dimensional (2D) planate shape," says Dr. Hayato Shiba, of Tohoku University's Institute for Materia...

Researchers at Tohoku University have developed a super flexible liquid crystal (LC) device, in which two ultra-thin plastic substrates are firmly bonded by polymer wall spacers. The team, led by Professor Hideo Fujikake and Associate Professor Takahiro Ishinabe of the School of Engineering, hopes the organic materials will help make electronic displays and devices more flexible, increasing their portability and all round versatility.

An international team of researchers has revealed the intricate relation between how the systems remember their past and their complex energy landscapes. Understanding how memory emerges from a complex network of neurons in our brain remains a challenging task in cognitive science. Memory also arises in physical systems with complex energy landscapes such as glasses, disordered magnets, and social networks.

A team of researchers at Tohoku University has discovered that the Mg-Sc alloy shows shape memory properties. This finding raises the potential for development and application of lightweight SMAs across a number of industries, including the aerospace industry. Shape memory alloys (SMAs) show distinctive behaviours such as shape recovery upon heating and have a superelastic effect.

  The research group of Professor Hideo Ohno and Associate Professor Shunsuke Fukami of Tohoku University has demonstrated the sub-nanosecond operation of a nonvolatile magnetic memory device. Recently, the concept of IoT - a giant network of connected devices, people and things - has been attracting a great deal of attention.

Mathematics has been very successful throughout history in translating complex scientific concepts. Einstein's famous equation E=mc2, for example, describes how mass and energy are interchangeable. But as scientific fields become increasingly complex and specialised, the "language" of mathematics needs to keep pace to develop the mathematical vocabulary necessary to describe both the knowledge and cumulative experience gained by scientists workin...

Researchers at Tohoku University have discovered a new plasma wave phenomenon, leading to the development of a negative ion source for fusion plasma heating. Led by Associate Prof K. Takahashi and Prof A. Ando, the team demonstrated adjoining generations of high and low electron temperature plasmas, based on the presently discovered plasma wave physics.

The research group of Professor Hideo Ohno and Associate Professor Shunsuke Fukami of Tohoku University has developed a new-structure magnetic memory device utilising spin-orbit- torque-induced magnetisation switching. For these two decades, much effort has been devoted to the development of magnetic random access memories (MRAMs), which store information as the magnetisation direction of a magnet.

A pressure sensor used to measure and predict tsunamis was released from its moorings miles deep on the seafloor bottom after the mega-earthquake in Japan on March 11th, 2011. Almost four years later, it washed up on-shore in Willapa Bay, Long Beach, Washington.

A group of researchers, led by Prof. Yuji Matsuura of Tohoku University's Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, has developed a method of measuring blood glucose using far infrared light, which is both harmless and non-invasive. Diabetes patients traditionally monitor their daily blood glucose levels by using a conventional meter which requires blood sampling from the finger tips.