A UNIGE team has developed a new material that improves the performance of solid-state sodium batteries, a less dangerous and more durable alternative to lithium. The future of battery technologies lies in sodium. More sustainable than lithium – which currently powers most of our devices and vehicles – sodium is also abundant on the earth’s surface. The only problem is that its ions do not move easily in the liquid electrolyte of conventional batteries, making it less efficient than lithium….

Researchers at Leipzig University have succeeded in moving tiny amounts of liquid at will by remotely heating water over a metal film with a laser. The currents generated in this way can be used to manipulate and even capture tiny objects. This will unlock groundbreaking new solutions for nanotechnology, the manipulation of liquids in systems in tiny spaces, or in the field of diagnostics, by making it possible to detect the smallest concentrations of substances with new types of sensor…

PhD thesis investigated application of a special white-light laser for semiconductor industry and microbiology. A new high-performance white-light laser is expected to speed up quality control in the semiconductor industry and provide closer monitoring of toxicity tests in microbiology. In one step, this laser enables the two-sided characterization of surfaces and can be integrated into production chains. The technology has been developed at the Fraunhofer Application Center for Optical Metrology and Surface Technologies (AZOM) and Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau (WHZ) as…

Researchers from Japan design a transducer powered by electrochemical reactions for operating fluid pumps without cumbersome parts in soft robots. The word “robot” would probably conjure up images of hard metallic bodies that are invulnerable to attacks. In modern day-to-day life, however, robots are hardly needed for defending against enemy attacks. Instead, they are required to perform more mundane tasks such as handling delicate objects and interacting with humans. Unfortunately, conventional robots perform poorly at such seemingly simple tasks. Moreover,…

A research team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces reports to have found the key to controlled fabrication of cerium oxide mesocrystals. The research is a step forward in tuning nanomaterials that can serve a wide range of uses —including solar cells, fuel catalysts and even medicine. Mesocrystals are nanoparticles with identical size, shape and crystallographic orientation, and they can be used as building blocks to create artificial nanostructures with customized optical,…

Photogrammetry and skeleton extraction as design tools for living architecture. More urban green helps to cool down cities. Baubotanik (bau = construction + botanik = botany) is a construction method that incorporates living trees into architectural structures. Specialists in this field at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) envision the use of trees to enhance the functions of the built environment. They use trees for structural purposes as supports for pavilions or balconies or in green facades to benefit the…

Around ten thousand tons of silicon in discarded photovoltaic modules end up on the recycling market annually in Germany. This figure will rise to several hundred thousand tons per year by 2029. Currently, the aluminum, glass and copper of the discarded modules are reprocessed, however, the silicon solar cells are not. In order to be able to reuse the silicon, researchers from the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE together with…

From 2023, rail vehicle manufacturers will be able to have their braking systems tested and certified on the TU Graz campus. In addition, the new test rig will allow for the first time investigations of brake loads and their effects on the complete chassis. “With this test rig, we are opening up a new area of research and entering uncharted territory,” says a delighted Martin Leitner. The term “uncharted territory” was deliberately chosen by the head of the Institute of…

It’s easier with a new targeted particle bonding strategy. The Science Colloids are microparticles in a solution, meaning the particles are evenly distributed. Crystals made from colloids are valuable in a wide range of applications such as batteries, fuel cells, sensors, solar cells, and catalysts. Scientists have sought ways to assemble these crystals into larger structures using bonding methods that operate in targeted directions. However, this approach is quite challenging. A new strategy exploits the ability to create precise regions with specific…

A mechanically reconfigurable intelligent surface operates at microwave frequencies and uses a robust control method to determine the rotation angle of each meta-atom. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are a type of programmable structure that can be used to control the propagation of electromagnetic waves, by changing the electric and magnetic properties of the surface. They provide a new approach to improving the performance of wireless communications systems: change the propagation environment rather than adapting to it. The integration of metallic…

Study finds atomic-scale ordering of elements in a metallic alloy that is responsible for alloy’s increased strength. The Science Metal alloys are materials that contain two or more atomic metal elements. They often have one primary element and smaller amounts of other elements. Scientists recently discovered a new class of alloys that have several elements combined in equal amounts. Researchers call these materials “medium entropy alloys.” These alloys are very strong, but researchers did not fully understand the reasons for…

Metamaterials, made up of small, repeated structures, engineered to produce desired interactions with light or sound waves, can improve optical devices used in telecommunications, imaging and more. But the functionality of the devices can be limited by the corresponding design space, according to Lei Kang, assistant research professor of electrical engineering at Penn State. Kang and interdisciplinary collaborators from Penn State and Sandia National Laboratories leveraged three dimensions of design space to create and test a metamaterial with robust optical…

IOW supports successful deployment of new Argo Float sensors. As part of the DArgo2025 project, Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) coordinated the successful validation and deployment of new sensors on automated drifting buoys, so-called Argo floats. These sensors can now be deployed worldwide and thus provide information about current environmental changes in the oceans, such as increasing eutrophication, oxygen depletion, and acidification. In this context, the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) evaluated novel nutrient sensors…

Researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University have fabricated a material for computer components that enable the commercial viability of computers that mimic the human brain. Electrochemical random access (ECRAM) memory components made with 2D titanium carbide showed outstanding potential for complementing classical transistor technology, and contributing toward commercialization of powerful computers that are modeled after the brain’s neural network. Such neuromorphic computers can be thousands times more energy efficient than today’s computers. These advances in computing…

Mass-producing nanoribbons for cutting-edge electronics and catalysts. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have succeeded in using nanowires of a transition-metal chalcogenide to make atomically thin “nanoribbons”. Bundles of nanowires were exposed to a gas of chalcogen atoms and heat which helped merge the threads into narrow strips. Nanoribbons are highly sought after for sophisticated electronic devices; given the scalability of the method, the team hopes it will see widespread use in the industrial production of cutting-edge materials. Materials science in the…

Two-dimensional materials are incredibly thin. Typically only an atom thick, 2D materials exhibit highly desirable properties for advanced technologies, such as flexibility, superconductivity and more. Made from carefully transitioning individual components from gas or vapor to crystalline solids, such materials and the mechanisms by which they become imbued with such characteristics are still shrouded in mystery. Now, through a novel monitoring and analysis method, researchers led by Toshiaki Kato at Tohoku University have revealed a critical mechanism in the development…