Tiny, easy-to-produce particles, called quantum dots, may soon take the place of more expensive single crystal semiconductors in advanced electronics found in solar panels, camera sensors and medical imaging tools. Although quantum dots have begun to break into the consumer market - in the form of quantum dot TVs - they have been hampered by long-standing uncertainties about their quality. Now, a new measurement technique developed by researchers at Stanford University may finally dissolve those doubts.

Unlike conventional robot arms with their hinged and swivel joints, the flexible arms being developed by Professor Stefan Seelecke and his research group at Saarland University are constructed using muscles made from shape-memory wires that have the ability to bend in almost any direction and to wind themselves around corners. The flexible arms are powered electrically and so can do without the usual pneumatic equipment or other bulky accessories. As the shape-memory alloy itself has sensor properties, the arms can be controlled without the need for additional sensors.

It can be used to cool or heat the air in a room or to cool or heat liquids. And it looks like something that Q – the tech specialist and gadgeteer in the James Bond films – might have come up with. The prototype device, which has been developed by a research team led by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Andreas Schütze at Saarland University, is able to transfer heat using ‘muscles’ made from nickel-titanium. Nickel-titanium or nitinol, as it is often known, is a shape-memory material that releases heat to its surroundings when it is mechanically loaded in its superelastic state and absorbs heat from its surroundings when it is unloaded.

The transportation industry is one of the largest consumers of energy in the U.S. economy with increasing demand to make it cleaner and more efficient. While more people are using electric cars, designing electric-powered planes, ships and submarines is much harder due to power and energy requirements.

The project “GrowBot” is developing plant-inspired robots

A world moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy will rely more and more on energy storage and in particular on batteries. Better batteries can reduce the carbon footprint of the transport sector, stabilise the power grid, and much more. The Battery 2030+ large-scale research initiative will gather leading scientists in Europe, as well as the industry, to achieve a leap forward in battery science and technology. The first Battery 2030+ project kicks off in March 2019 and will lay the basis for this large-scale research initiative on future battery technologies.

Until now, carbon dioxide has been dumped in oceans or buried underground. Industry has been reluctant to implement carbon dioxide scrubbers in facilities due to cost and footprint.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology achieved magnetization reversal in cobalt-substituted bismuth ferrite by applying only an electric field. Such an effect had been sought after for over a decade in order to make new types of low-power-consumption magnetic memory devices.

Nanowires have the potential to revolutionize the technology around us. Measuring just 5-100 nanometers in diameter (a nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter), these tiny, needle-shaped crystalline structures can alter how electricity or light passes through them.

Infradry systems from Heraeus Noblelight make printing and coating applications significantly more efficient, as infrared emitters work in conjunction with a specially developed air management system to reduce drying time.