Researchers from Skoltech, MIPT, the RAS Institute of Solid State Physics, Aalto University, and elsewhere have proposed the first graphene synthesis technique that utilizes carbon monoxide as the carbon source. It is a fast and cheap way to produce high-quality graphene with relatively simple equipment for use in electronic circuits, gas sensors, optics, and beyond. The study came out in the prestigious journal Advanced Science. Chemical vapor deposition is the standard technology for synthesizing graphene, the one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms in…

Heat storage: A new heat storage material could help to significantly improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Developed by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Leipzig, it can be used to store surplus heat and release it back into the environment when needed. Unlike existing materials, the new one can absorb significantly more heat, is more stable, and is made of harmless substances. In the “Journal of Energy Storage” the team describes the formation mechanism…

Glass objects which glow in the dark, glass containers that heat up and cool down, or glass control knobs and switches that eliminate viruses and bacteria by themselves – all this seems to completely contradict our everyday experience of what glass can do. And yet, it is now within reach. To create such functionalized and precision-molded glasses, research teams at Fraunhofer IKTS in Dresden have transferred their experience with ceramic processes to glass manufacturing. Thanks to the new shaping possibilities,…

… at the LZH can precisely coat complex-shaped optics. With a new Spatial ALD system, the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) can now also uniformly coat complex-shaped optics. The innovative system achieves higher deposition rates than previously possible – and is of interest, among others, for applications in the automotive lighting or VR/AR sectors. ALD (atomic layer deposition) technology can produce very thin, high-quality coatings. So far, the ALD process has been used primarily to produce thin functional layers in…

… to improve their electronic properties. Breakthrough by UChicago chemists could yield future devices such as next-gen displays and solar cells. You can carry an entire computer in your pocket today because the technological building blocks have been getting smaller and smaller since the 1950s. But in order to create future generations of electronics—such as more powerful phones, more efficient solar cells, or even quantum computers—scientists will need to come up with entirely new technology at the tiniest scales. One…

Realization of stretchable, adhesive, and mechanically deformable batteries that effectively transfer ions. Every component was designed to be stretchable to enable printing on clothing and use in wearable devices. A Korean research team has developed a soft, mechanically deformable, and stretchable lithium battery which can be used in the development of wearable devices, and examined the battery’s feasibility by printing them on clothing surfaces. The research team, led by Dr. Jeong Gon Son from the Soft Hybrid Materials Research Center…

Russian scientists have found out why, instead of simply burning down at high temperatures, graphene oxide opens the door to a promising and inexpensive graphene production method. The research was published in the journal Carbon. It has been over a decade since the Nobel Prize was awarded for graphene experimental research, but scientists still have not found a way to obtain high-quality large-area graphene, which would be cheap, efficient and scalable for industrial needs. Graphene reduction from graphene oxide by…

Rice theorists show unique electronics made possible by wavy patterns that channel electrons. Lay some graphene down on a wavy surface, and you’ll get a guide to one possible future of two-dimensional electronics. Rice University scientists put forth the idea that growing atom-thick graphene on a gently textured surface creates peaks and valleys in the sheets that turn them into “pseudo-electromagnetic” devices. The channels create their own minute but detectable magnetic fields. According to a study by materials theorist Boris Yakobson,…

System testing underway to resume normal operations. Workers at Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor have completed an 11-month outage for a core overhaul that occurs about every 10 years to maintain peak performance. During the overhaul, operators and maintenance teams replaced components that wear out over time — akin to rebuilding the engine of a high-performance car. ATR is the world’s largest, most powerful and flexible materials test reactor. Its distinctive cloverleaf core design provides a range of capabilities…

No one would ever imagine crumpling up their smartphone, television or another electronic device. Today’s displays – which are flat, rigid and fragile – lack the ability to reshape to interactively respond to users. As part of an overarching quest to build “skin-inspired” electronics that are soft and stretchy, Stanford University chemical engineer Zhenan Bao and her research team have been developing a display to change that. Now, after more than three years of work, they show the proof of principle toward…

A challenge in materials design is that in both natural and manmade materials, volume sometimes decreases, or increases, with increasing temperature. While there are mechanical explanations for this phenomenon for some specific materials, a general understanding of why this sometimes happens remains lacking. However, a team of Penn State researchers has come up with a theory to explain and then predict it: Zentropy. Zentropy is a play on entropy, a concept central to the second law of thermodynamics that expresses…

Currently, flatbed screen printing is the standard process used for the metallization of silicon solar cells and many other electronic components. Using a new production machine developed jointly with ASYS Automatisierungssysteme GmbH, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have now managed to increase the print throughput by a factor of 1.5. In order to achieve this, rotation screen printing and flexographic printing were used for the first time. With the new machine, the research team achieved…

Quantum charging will cut the charging time of electric vehicles from ten hours to three minutes. Whether it’s photovoltaics or fusion, sooner or later, human civilization must turn to renewable energies. This is deemed inevitable considering the ever-growing energy demands of humanity and the finite nature of fossil fuels. As such, much research has been pursued in order to develop alternative sources of energy, most of which utilize electricity as the main energy carrier. The extensive R&D in renewables has…

Quantum computers are getting bigger, but there are still few practical ways to take advantage of their extra computing power. To get over this hurdle, researchers are designing algorithms to ease the transition from classical to quantum computers. In a new study in Nature, researchers unveil an algorithm that reduces the statistical errors, or noise, produced by quantum bits, or qubits, in crunching chemistry equations. Developed by Columbia chemistry professor David Reichman and postdoc Joonho Lee with researchers at Google…

Electronic structure parameter database can be useful in developing higher performance materials. The National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) has succeeded in developing a new approach to the design of thermoelectric materials by constructing a database of electronic structure parameters correlated with materials’ thermoelectric conversion properties and by a comprehensive analysis of the database. This approach can be used to develop higher performance thermoelectric materials. Thermoelectric conversion is a viable means of harvesting energy to help achieve a low carbon…

When we currently see spectacular accidents in alpine competitions, we primarily think of leg and ligament injuries, but there seems also to be an increasing risk of cut injuries from the razor-sharp ski edges. Cut injuries are often severe and can in worst cases even be life threatening. The German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) carry out cutting tests on materials for the textile manufacturers and FIS, the International Ski Federation. Cut-resistant protection undergarment is awarded with…