The results have important implications for today’s TV and display screens and for future technologies where light takes the place of electrons and fluids. Bright semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots give QLED TV screens their vibrant colors. But attempts to increase the intensity of that light generate heat instead, reducing the dots’ light-producing efficiency. A new study explains why, and the results have broad implications for developing future quantum and photonics technologies where light replaces electrons in computers and…

Researchers from the Institute for Applied Physics (IAP) and the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden developed a general methodology for the reproducible fabrication of high efficiency perovskite solar cells. Their study has been published in the renowned journal Nature Communications. Perovskites, a class of materials first reported in the early 19th century, were “re-discovered” in 2009 as a possible candidate for power generation via their use in solar cells. Since then, they have taken the photovoltaic…

A Purdue University innovator has developed a new approach to creating popular thin films used for devices across a broad range of fields, including optics, acoustics and electronics. Epitaxial lithium niobate (LNO) thin films are an attractive material for electronics and other devices. These films offer flexibility and other properties that are important to manufacturers. The challenge is that these devices demand high-quality thin films that can be difficult to grow and produce. Haiyan Wang, a Purdue materials engineer, developed…

Researchers led by TMDU fabricate a material that will aid bone healing, help medical practitioners clearly assess the full damage to bones after an injury, and clarify probable patient outcomes Bone repair wasn’t generally successful until the late 1800s. Until then, there were few options to repair major bone damage. Most materials don’t have the functionality of bone and don’t support blood vessels growing through them. Repair materials such as clay were commonly used yet often failed. In 1892, medical…

Researchers find new applications for a well-known technology. A material like no other: the special properties of piezoceramics could give rise to many innovations. In the collaborative “Smart Co-Creation” project, researchers and SMEs are developing ideas and concepts for specific industries in which this piezoelectric wonder material can be usefully applied. Be it in quartz watches, as injection systems for motor vehicles or in loudspeakers – piezoceramics have been an integral part of modern technology for years. And with good…

Sulfolane-additive process yields easy fabrication, low cost, top performance, long operating life. A new, simpler solution process for fabricating stable perovskite solar cells overcomes the key bottleneck to large-scale production and commercialization of this promising renewable-energy technology, which has remained tantalizingly out of reach for more than a decade. “Our work paves the way for low-cost, high-throughput commercial-scale production of large-scale solar modules in the near future,” said Wanyi Nie, a research scientist fellow in the Center of Integrated Nanotechnologies…

Columbia Engineers use DNA nanotechnology to create highly resilient synthetic nanoparticle-based materials that can be processed through conventional nanofabrication methods. Columbia Engineering researchers, working with Brookhaven National Laboratory, report today that they have built designed nanoparticle-based 3D materials that can withstand a vacuum, high temperatures, high pressure, and high radiation. This new fabrication process results in robust and fully engineered nanoscale frameworks that not only can accommodate a variety of functional nanoparticle types but also can be quickly processed with…

Only a few atomic layers determine whether a surface is water-repellent, printable, paintable, adhesive or antibacterial. The surface of many products is therefore specifically modified. Thanks to a new X-ray photoelectron spectrometer, the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP can now analyze surfaces even more precisely, which is helpful when developing a process or determing sources of failures. Companies and partners benefit not only from the new analytical capabilities at Fraunhofer IAP, but also from the extensive expertise in…

The demonstration of electroluminescence at terahertz frequencies from a silicon and germanium-based device represents a significant step towards the coveted milestone of a silicon-based laser. An international team comprising scientists from Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP) has demonstrated for the first time THz light emission from n-type quantum structures made of germanium and silicon, the materials that are the basis of most commonly used electronic devices. The result of demonstration was published in the Applied Physics Letters in…

Smart glass can change its color quickly through electricity. A new material developed by chemists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich has now set a speed record for such a change. On the highway at night. It rains, the bright headlights of the car behind you are blinding. How convenient to have an automatically dimming rearview mirror in such a case. Technically, this helpful extra is based on electrochromic materials. When a voltage is applied, their light absorption and color change….

In 2018, physicists showed that something interesting happens when two sheets of the nanomaterial graphene are placed on top of each other. When one layer is rotated to a “magic angle” of around 1.1 degrees with respect to the other, the system becomes a superconductor — meaning it conducts electricity with zero resistance. Even more exciting, there was evidence that it was an unconventional form of superconductivity — a type that can happen at temperatures well above absolute zero, where…

This unusual electronic energy structure could be harnessed for technologies of interest in quantum information science and electronics. Electrons in a solid occupy distinct energy bands separated by gaps. Energy band gaps are an electronic “no man’s land,” an energy range where no electrons are allowed. Now, scientists studying a compound containing iron, tellurium, and selenium have found that an energy band gap opens at a point where two allowed energy bands intersect on the material’s surface. They observed this…

Superconductivity is a complete loss of electrical resistance. Superconductors are not merely very good metals: it is a fundamentally different electronic state. In normal metals, electrons move individually, and they collide with defects and vibrations in the lattice. In superconductors, electrons are bound together by an attractive force, which allows them to move together in a correlated way and avoid defects. In a very small number of known superconductors, the onset of superconductivity causes spontaneous electrical currents to flow. These…

University of Pittsburgh chemical engineers replicate “swarmalator” behavior in chemical sheets. During the swarming of birds or fish, each entity coordinates its location relative to the others, so that the swarm moves as one larger, coherent unit. Fireflies on the other hand coordinate their temporal behavior: within a group, they eventually all flash on and off at the same time and thus act as synchronized oscillators. Few entities, however, coordinate both their spatial movements and inherent time clocks; the limited…

Piezoelectric wood Ingo Burgert and his team at Empa and ETH Zurich has proven it time and again: Wood is so much more than “just” a building material. Their research aims at extending the existing characteristics of wood in such a way that it is suitable for completely new ranges of application. For instance, they have already developed high-strength, water-repellent and magnetizable wood. Now, together with the Empa research group of Francis Schwarze and Javier Ribera, the team has developed…

Just a few hours instead of weeks KI and HSI enable new inspection system to quickly measure foil quality for organic electronics with high spatial resolution All over the world, researchers are focusing on protecting organic light-emitting diodes, solar cells and circuits against humidity and other harmful environmental impacts by using improved foils. The idea is to make organic electronics components more robust and thus more durable. At the “LOPEC” trade fair in March 2021, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material…