Global renewable-electricity capacity passed 5149 GW in 2025, with solar alone accounting for three-quarters of that year’s additions, yet renewable heat – which underpins solar-thermal collectors – still lags far behind electricity in the same transition. Closing that gap calls for solar-thermal receivers that do more than passively absorb radiation. This paper proposes and characterises one route to that: an electrically conducting Cu–TiO2/water hybrid nanofluid in a parabolic-collector receiver tube, whose own induced magnetic field, rather than being ignored as negligible, is solved for directly and exposed as a genuine design lever. Unlike the authors’ earlier reports on this same receiver-tube geometry, in which the magnetic field is prescribed externally and the Lorentz force enters the momentum equation as a source term, the present study retains and solves the full magnetic induction equation simultaneously with the momentum, energy and species-concentration equations, reduced by similarity transformation and integrated with the collocation method (MATLAB bvp4c); the reduction from the governing cylindrical partial differential equations to the solved ordinary differential system, omitted in the authors’ companion studies, is given here in full (Appendix A), together with a nomenclature table, an explicit listing of modelling assumptions, and a grid-independence and Rm→0 limiting-case validation of the induction solution. Over the parameter ranges examined, the Reynolds number, magnetic Reynolds number, mass Grashof number, Schmidt number, Soret number and Joule heating parameter all strengthen the induced magnetic field – most sharply for the magnetic Reynolds number, which triples the peak induced field across the swept range – while the Brownian diffusion parameter is the sole lever that damps it, albeit only mildly (a few percent drop in peak field between Nb=20 and Nb=30). This asymmetry – most levers reinforce the induced field, one damps it, and each acts with different relative strength – means the electromagnetic response of the receiver can, in principle, be adjusted with a different weighting of parameters than the one that governs its thermal performance, though the two are not fully decoupled. We present this as a step towards field-responsive, actively tunable solar-thermal receivers, a control concept not previously explored for hybrid-nanofluid parabolic collectors.
Quantum entanglement is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics whose underlying physical interpretation remains an active topic of research. In this work, we develop a geometric framework in which physical states are defined on a higher-dimensional manifold, while observable states arise from a coherent projection onto spacetime. We show that this projection acts as a non-injective mapping on the underlying state space, generically transforming separable higher-dimensional states into non-factorizable states in the observable domain. Within this construction, quantum correlations emerge as a consequence of interference along a compact dimension. Under conditions of phase coherence, the standard quantum predictions are recovered. More generally, incomplete phase cancellation leads to a well-defined deviation from the usual correlation structure, introducing an additional angular dependence beyond the relative measurement settings. The framework is fully compatible with the standard quantum formalism at the effective level, while extending it through experimentally testable predictions. Moreover, the presence of such additional angular contributions provides a potential signature of projection-induced effects. These results suggest that quantum entanglement may be interpreted as an emergent phenomenon associated with geometric projection, in which effective nonlocal behavior arises from dimensional reduction.
The neutron shielding performance of a 10 × 10 × 10 cm concrete block (density 2.41 g/cm3) was evaluated experimentally and computationally in the mixed-energy neutron field of a 16 Ci 241Am-Be source. Spectrum-integrated neutron capture reaction rates were measured at the incident and transmitted faces of the block using 197Au (n, γ)198Au gold-foil activation and high-purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometry. The measured reaction rates at the front and rear foil positions were 9.25(33) × 10−19 and 5.42(21) × 10−19 atom−1 s−1, respectively. Corresponding Monte Carlo simulations using the OpenMC code with the ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear data library yielded. 9.88477×10-19 and 5.7117×10-19 atom−1s−1, representing percentage differences of 6.85% and 5.39%. The ratio of the transmitted-to-incident reaction rate agreed to within 1.37% between experiment and simulation, confirming the validity of the transport model for the spectrum-weighted quantity. The neutron transmission factor through the concrete block was determined to be 0.594, corresponding to a ∼ 41% flux reduction relative to the open-beam configuration. Gamma-ray spectrometry of the irradiated concrete identified activation products qualitatively, including 56Mn (846.3 keV, 1809.2 keV), 24Na (1367.2 keV), and naturally occurring 40K (1459.3 keV). Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) confirmed the presence of the principal heavy elements (Ca, Si, Fe, Al, K, Mg) in the concrete sample, consistent with the reference composition used in the transport model. The results confirm the reliability of the OpenMC with ENDF/B-VII.1 framework for predicting neutron transport and activation in standard concrete shielding and provide an initial experimental benchmark dataset for future radiation-shielding-related studies at this facility.
Carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFETs) have emerged as a compelling alternative to overcome the limitations of standard Si-based complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. As conventional CMOS devices are approaching their theoretical boundaries in scaling, the semiconductor industry is now focusing on exploring novel materials that can support further improvements in performance. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess a variety of beneficial characteristics, including reduced short-channel effects, high carrier mobility, and high normalized drive currents. The characteristics of CNTFETs make them a highly viable option for substituting Si transistors in next-generation electronic devices. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the latest advancements in CNTFET technology, emphasizing their potential applications and the progress made in incorporating CNTs into advanced electronic systems. Furthermore, it explores the future outlook for CNTFETs, considering the challenges and prospects that contribute to their adoption in increasingly miniaturized and high-performance transistor technologies.
