By using small networks of Rössler systems, a locomotion controller enables a brain-machine interface for a six-legged antlike robot. Researchers in Japan and Italy are embracing chaos and nonlinear physics to create insectlike gaits for tiny robots — complete with a locomotion controller to provide a brain-machine interface. Biology and physics are permeated by universal phenomena fundamentally grounded in nonlinear physics, and it inspired the researchers’ work. In the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, the group describes using the Rössler…

Rice lab finds van der Waals force can deform nanoscale silver for optics, catalytic use. You have to look closely, but the hills are alive with the force of van der Walls. Rice University scientists found that nature’s ubiquitous “weak” force is sufficient to indent rigid nanosheets, extending their potential for use in nanoscale optics or catalytic systems. Changing the shape of nanoscale particles changes their electromagnetic properties, said Matt Jones, the Norman and Gene Hackerman Assistant Professor of Chemistry…

Chemists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have developed a way to integrate liquids directly into materials during the 3D printing process. This allows, for example, active medical agents to be incorporated into pharmaceutical products or luminous liquids to be integrated into materials, which allow monitoring of damage. The study was published in “Advanced Materials Technologies”. 3D printing is now widely used for a range of applications. Generally, however, the method is limited to materials which are liquefied through heat…

Electronics are increasingly being paired with optical systems, such as when accessing the internet on an electronically run computer through fiber optic cables. But meshing optics — which relies on particles of light called photons–with electronics–relying on electrons — is challenging, due to their disparate scales. Electrons work at a much smaller scale than light does. The mismatch between electronic systems and optical systems means that every time a signal converts from one to the other, inefficiency creeps into the…

Study: Nanotube films come in 466 colours, could be used in electronics, solar panels. Nanomaterials researchers in Finland, the United States and China have created a colour atlas for 466 unique varieties of single-walled carbon nanotubes. The nanotube colour atlas is detailed in a study in Advanced Materials about a new method to predict the specific colors of thin films made by combining any of the 466 varieties. The research was conducted by researchers from Aalto University in Finland, Rice…

Automation solutions from the joint project “Impulse“ funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) – sub-project “Tempo“ Automation is one of the most important strategies for increasing efficiency in production. The positioning and drilling end effector newly developed for a portal system to automate the pre-assembly of stiffening elements (cleats) on CFRP integral frames for the manufacture of aircraft fuselages – made available by project partner Airbus Hamburg – enables production rate increases both with…

In a step toward making more accurate and uniform 3D-printed parts such as personalized prosthetics and dental materials, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a method of measuring the rate at which microscopic regions of a liquid raw material harden into a solid plastic when exposed to light. NIST’s custom atomic force microscope (AFM) with a nanometer-scale, cylinder-shaped tip revealed that the complex process of curing resins, as they react under light to form…

Complete removal of microbial contaminant layer accumulated on the membrane surface by sunlight irradiation. Providing a foundation for the development of new membrane materials on the convergence between water treatment and photocatalyst technologies. Membrane technology is widely used in various water treatment processes such as water desalination, sewage treatment, and advanced water treatment for producing clean tap water. The membrane filtration technology is a method that can significantly improve water quality and has been suggested as an alternative that can…

The SABATLE project coordinated by TU Graz focuses on the sustainability and safety of redox flow technologies, which are of immanent importance for the stabilization of the power grid. The increasing use of battery technologies in the mobility sector and in stationary applications has been leading to increasing efforts in battery research of operational safety and battery recycling. The group led by Stefan Spirk at the Institute of Bioproducts and Paper Technology at TU Graz is now also devoting itself…

They are known as “magic sized nano clusters” because they have special properties: The particles consist of only a few atoms, but since they are arranged in a special crystal structure, they are extremely stable. Unless you expose them to light. Scientists from the Center for Nanointegration (CENIDE) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) have discovered that such materials undergo fundamental changes as soon as they are merely analysed using optical methods. “Nature Communications” reports on the issue. Junior professor…

Scientists reveal ‘flat band’ behavior in 2D ‘bitriangular’ lattice of germanium, confirming earlier theoretical prediction. Scientists have recently revealed, both theoretically and experimentally, that germanium atoms can arrange themselves into a 2D “bitriangular” lattice on zirconium diboride thin films grown on germanium single crystals to form a “flat band material” with an embedded “kagome” lattice. The result provides experimental support to a theoretical prediction of flat bands emerging from trivial atomic geometry and indicates the possibility of their existence in…

UBER driver data helps track and potentially alleviate urban traffic congestion. A new machine learning algorithm is poised to help urban transportation analysts relieve bottlenecks and chokepoints that routinely snarl city traffic. The tool, called TranSEC, was developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to help urban traffic engineers get access to actionable information about traffic patterns in their cities. Currently, publicly available traffic information at the street level is sparse and incomplete. Traffic engineers generally…

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have found that graphene-based heat pipes can help solve the problems of cooling electronics and power systems used in avionics, data centres, and other power electronics. “Heat pipes are one of the most efficient tools for this purpose, because of their high efficiency and unique ability to transfer heat over a large distance,” says Johan Liu, Professor of Electronics Production, at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers. The results, which also…

Device could cut HVAC energy use by nearly 20% in the US. Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a dual-mode heating and cooling device for building climate control that, if widely deployed in the U.S., could cut HVAC energy use by nearly 20 percent. The invention uses a combination of mechanics and materials science to either harness or expel certain wavelengths of light. Depending on conditions, rollers move a sheet back and forth to expose either heat-trapping materials on one…

A new polymer-based, solid-state transistor can more sensitively detect a weed killer in drinking water than existing hydrogel-based fluorescence sensor chips. The details were published in Chemistry-A European Journal. The sensor is a specially designed organic thin-film transistor based on semiconducting molecules of carboxylate-functionalized polythiophene (P3CPT). What’s special about this particular device is that, unlike other conjugated polymer-based sensors, this one is a solid-state device that can conduct an electric current when placed inside a fluid. The device, designed by…

For use as an at-home IoT biosensor. Associate Professor Kazuhiro Takahashi and Assistant Professor Yong-Joon Choi of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology have developed a chip that can sense antigens at one part per quadrillion molar mass. The chip was created using semiconductor micromachining technology. Antigens derived from diseases and present in blood and saliva were adhered onto the surface of a flexibly deformable nanosheet. The amount of force generated during the…