Researchers from Calicut varsity develop cost-effective nanoclusters
Researchers from the Department of Nanoscience and Technology at the University of Calicut have developed a novel device based on gold–copper alloy nanoclusters, a ground-breaking advancement in next-generation light-emitting diode (LED) technology.
E.S. Shibu, Assistant Professor at the Smart Materials Lab attached to the department, and Rival Jose, his PhD student, are behind the initiative. They claim that although invisible to the naked eye, these clusters display exceptional photophysical properties, including strong light emission, excellent photo and thermal stability, and environmental compatibility. These qualities make them ideal for future applications in sustainable lighting, display technologies, and biomedical imaging.
According to Mr. Shibu and Mr. Jose, what sets this innovation apart is its fabrication method—a simple, solution-based, environmentally friendly process that avoids the use of toxic or expensive host materials. This makes the technology both sustainable and cost-effective. The core of the invention lies in atomically precise nanoclusters made of just a few metal atoms, they say.
The newly developed nanocluster-based LED emits pure red light and achieves an external quantum efficiency of 12.6%. Mr. Shibu says that this is among the highest performances recorded in the category of nanocluster-based, solution-processed, non-doped LEDs with saturated red emission.
Their findings were published in Advanced Materials (Wiley), one of the most prestigious journals in the field of materials science, with an impressive impact factor of 27.4. This also marks the first-ever publication from the University of Calicut in such a high-impact journal.
The achievement was made possible through national and international collaborations with institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Tampere University, Finland, and Hokkaido University, Japan. The research was primarily supported by funding from the Department of Science and Technology- Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence, with additional support from Science and Engineering Research Board-Startup Research Grant, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment-Science Research Scheme, and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
4 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
AP PGECET results 2025, rank cards released, direct links to download
Jun 25, 2025 11:07 AM IST AP PGECET Results 2025, Rank Cards: The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) has announced the Post Graduate Engineering Common Entrance Test or AP PGECET results 2025. Candidates can check the AP PGECET results and download their rank cards from the official website, The direct links are given below. AP PGECET results 2025, rank cards announced(Official website, screenshot) AP PGECET results 2025: Direct link AP PGECET rank cards 2025: Direct link Candidates need to use their registration numbers and hall ticket numbers to check the results. To download the rank cards, they need to use their hall ticket numbers, registration numbers and dates of birth. Also read: AP DSC hall tickets 2025 live updates (for postponed exams) How to check AP PGCET results 2025 and rank cards Go to the official website, Open the result and/or rank card download link Enter your login details Submit and download the result/ rank card. Also read: TS LAWCET Result 2025 Date, Time: TG LAWCET, PGLCET results today at 4 pm on The entrance examination was held on June 6, 7 and 8. Papers were held in two shifts. The first shift was from 9 am to 11 am and the second shift was from 2 pm to 4 pm. On the first day, candidates took the Geo Engineering & Geo Informatics (GG) and Pharmacy (PY) papers in the first shift and the Computer Science & Information Technology paper in the second shift. On day two, they wrote Electronics & Communication Engineering (EC), Bio Technology (BT) and Civil Engineering (CE) papers in shift 1 and Mechanical Engineering (ME), Electrical Engineering (EE) and Food Technology (FT) papers in shift 2. On the last day, exams were held for Instrumentation Engineering (EI), Metallurgical Engineering (MT) and Chemical Engineering (CH) papers in the first and the Nano Technology (NT) paper in the second shift.
India Today
a day ago
- India Today
Wildfires contaminate water quality for nearly a decade after the blaze
A new study has revealed that the legacy of wildfires extends far beyond the immediate devastation, with contaminants from burned forests and watersheds continuing to pollute rivers and streams for up to eight years after the flames are research, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality and analyzed over 1,00,000 water samples from more than 500 watersheds across the by scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, the study based on wildfires in the United States, found significant increases in organic carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment in rivers following the blazes. These contaminants can degrade water quality, posing challenges for water treatment facilities and threatening the drinking water supply for millions of people in downstream communities. Researchers have long known that fire ash and soil destruction contribute to degraded water quality. (Photo: AP) 'We were attempting to look at notable trends in post-wildfire water quality across the entire U.S. West, to help inform water management strategies in preparing for wildfire effects,' said Carli Brucker, the study's lead results showed that while the most dramatic spikes in contaminants occur in the first one to five years after a fire, elevated nitrogen and sediment levels can persist for up to eight study also found that the impact of wildfires on water quality is highly variable, depending on factors such as the proximity of the fire to rivers, the type of soil and vegetation, and local weather patterns. In some cases, sediment levels in streams were up to 2,000 times higher than before the fire, severely straining water treatment wildfires increasing in size and frequency due to drought and climate change, the findings underscore the need for long-term planning and resilience in water management.'You can't fund resilience improvements on general concerns alone. Water managers need real numbers for planning, and that's what we're providing,' Brucker the American West faces mounting wildfire risks, researchers hope their data will help communities better prepare for the prolonged environmental impacts that follow in the wake of fire.- EndsMust Watch
NDTV
a day ago
- NDTV
Ancient Humans Nearly Went Extinct With Only 1,280 People Left, Study Finds
Humans have been around on Earth for thousands of years, but there was a period when humanity was almost wiped out of existence. Around 900,000 years ago, the global population reached a precarious low of only 1,280 reproducing individuals and stayed like this for 117,000 years, according to a study. The study published in the journal Science is based on a computer model developed by a group of scientists based in China, Italy and the United States. The findings show that human ancestors in Africa were on the precipice of extinction, well before our species, Homo sapiens, also known as modern humans, emerged. For the study, researchers analysed genetic information from 3,154 present-day human genomes using a statistical method. It showed that 98.7 per cent of human ancestors were lost, with the findings corroborated by the gap in the fossil record, which possibly led to the emergence of a new hominin species that was a common ancestor to modern humans and the Neanderthals. "This bottleneck is congruent with a substantial chronological gap in the available African and Eurasian fossil record," the study highlighted. What led to population collapse? Though the exact cause of the sudden population drop is unknown, scientists posit that Africa's climate is to blame for it. The continent became much colder and drier during what's known as the mid-Pleistocene transition. The glacial periods became longer and more intense, leading to a drop in temperature and very dry climatic conditions. Senior author Yi-Hsuan Pan said their findings about humanity's close shave with extinction "opens a new field in human evolution". "It evokes many questions, such as the places where these individuals lived, how they overcame the catastrophic climate changes, and whether natural selection during the bottleneck has accelerated the evolution of human brain," said Mr Yi-Hsuan Pan, an evolutionary and functional genomicist at East China Normal University. Despite the scary numbers, humanity bounced back and has now crossed the eight billion mark as of 2025.
