Using green light and a double-layered cell, Riccardo Ollearo of the Eindhoven University of Technology has come up with a photodiode that has sensitivity that many can only dream of. Solar panels with multiple stacked cells are currently breaking records. Remarkably, a team of researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology and TNO at Holst Centre have now managed to make photodiodes – based on a similar technology – with a photoelectron yield of more than 200 percent. You would think…

– just got a lot more efficient. University of Rochester researchers use substrates of metal and dielectrics to boost the light conversion efficiency of perovskites by 250 percent. Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, it is expensive to mine and to purify. Perovskites—a family of materials nicknamed for their crystalline structure—have shown extraordinary promise in recent years as a…

Researchers repurpose 3D printing to discover high-performance material. As the world looks for ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, researchers from Sandia National Laboratories have shown that a new 3D-printed superalloy could help power plants generate more electricity while producing less carbon. Sandia scientists, collaborating with researchers at Ames National Laboratory, Iowa State University and Bruker Corp., used a 3D printer to create a high-performance metal alloy, or superalloy, with an unusual composition that makes it stronger and lighter than…

… could lead to next-generation energy storage devices. Flexible polymers made with a new generation of the Nobel-winning “click chemistry” reaction find use in capacitors and other applications. Society’s growing demand for high-voltage electrical technologies – including pulsed power systems, cars and electrified aircraft, and renewable energy applications – requires a new generation of capacitors that store and deliver large amounts of energy under intense thermal and electrical conditions. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley…

Fraunhofer ISE Hands Over Plant to Local NGO. In the SolCoolDry project, funded by the German Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, together with the company Innotech Ingenieursgesellschaft mbH and Kenyan partners, has developed a system that uses solar thermal and photovoltaic energy to generate drying heat and produce ice. The lack of electricity in rural areas makes it difficult for fishermen and farmers in Africa to preserve or refrigerate their…

MANN+HUMMEL and VERT present AeroSolfd project and three retrofit solutions to reduce traffic-related emissions. AeroSolfd will be present at FILTECH, the largest filtration show worldwide, which will take place in Cologne from 14 to 16 February 2023. Air pollution is a complex problem to be tackled. The co-funded EU-Project AeroSolfd aims to reduce traffic-related emissions through the deployment of three retrofit (filtration) solutions for tailpipes, brakes and (semi-) closed environments. AeroSolfd will be present at FILTECH, the largest filtration show…

… to enable future technology. Researchers create compliant mechanism-enabled, reconfigurable antenna. Reconfigurable antennas — those that can tune properties like frequency or radiation beams in real time, from afar — are integral to future communication network systems, like 6G. But many current reconfigurable antenna designs can fall short: they dysfunction in high or low temperatures, have power limitations or require regular servicing. To address these limitations, electrical engineers in the Penn State College of Engineering combined electromagnets with a compliant…

A newly developed system for gaseous fuels makes it possible to inject hydrogen directly into the combustion chamber. A special control system can increase torque by 20 percent. The system is particularly suitable for large engines such as those of heavy commercial vehicles, construction machinery or locomotives. Zero-emission hydrogen engines, like all internal combustion engines, require a mixture formation system, i.e. a system for metering the fuel, in this case hydrogen gas. The most promising approach is a low-pressure direct…

A new method to grow single crystals and simultaneously control their growth orientation without melt processing has been discovered by Texas A&M University materials science and engineering doctoral graduate Dr. Hande Ozcan and Dr. Ibrahim Karaman, department head and Chevron Professor. The discovery of this new crystal growth and orientation control method in solid-state was recently published in the journal Acta Materialia. The research paper focuses on growing large single crystals and their ability to change their crystallographic orientation. Crystallographic…

Many industrial processes produce waste heat that is often released unused into the environment. With rising energy prices, waste heat recovery and storage are becoming increasingly attractive for companies as a substitute for fossil fuels. In the Fenopthes project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection BMWK, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE worked with industrial partners to develop and optimize low-cost fillers for thermal storage systems. Fillers as additives in storage media…

The system’s simple repeating elements can assemble into swimming forms ranging from eel-like to wing-shaped. Underwater structures that can change their shapes dynamically, the way fish do, push through water much more efficiently than conventional rigid hulls. But constructing deformable devices that can change the curve of their body shapes while maintaining a smooth profile is a long and difficult process. MIT’s RoboTuna, for example, was composed of about 3,000 different parts and took about two years to design and build….

Researchers at Purdue University have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of thermal radiation, uncovering a new method for generating spinning thermal radiation in a controlled and efficient manner using artificially structured surfaces, known as metasurfaces. The team, led by Zubin Jacob, Purdue’s Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has published findings in the journal Science Advances, titled “Observation of non-vanishing optical helicity in thermal radiation from symmetry-broken metasurfaces.” Thermal radiation, which originates from random fluctuations in materials,…

The EU infrastructure project NextGenBat has ambitious goals: to significantly increase the performance of mobile energy storage devices such as batteries by employing new materials and laser-based manufacturing processes. To reach these goals, the partners are using an approach that will run laser machining processes in parallel. With special optics, up to several hundred partial beams can be generated, which can then be used to significantly increase productivity through parallel processing. However, only a handful of specialist companies such as…

New method for temperature determination opens horizon for a multitude of experiments virtually unfeasible up to now. Warm dense matter (WDM) measures thousands of degrees in temperature and is under the pressure of thousands of Earth’s atmospheres. Found in many places throughout the universe, it is expected to have beneficial applications on Earth. However, its investigation is a challenge. Even the temperature of a material under WDM conditions is anything but easy to determine. A team of researchers led by…

… could help buildings react to changing environments, save on energy costs. University of Toronto Engineering researchers create bio-inspired system that can optimize the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light reaching building interiors. University of Toronto Engineering researchers have developed a multilayered fluidic system that can reduce the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings by optimizing the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows. The platform was inspired by the dynamic colour-changing skin of organisms such…

In the “smood® — smart neighborhood” project, sixteen companies, four research institutions and an association have been working together, with the scientific support of Fraunhofer, on the future of energy-related renovation measures over the past few years. Covering everything from digitalized planning processes and innovative district storage systems for electricity and heat to intelligent control and operational management solutions, the project aims to ensure that existing district facilities are ready for the energy transition — and that tenants benefit from…