Liquid crystals are not solid, but some of their physical properties are directional – like in a crystal. This is because their molecules can arrange themselves into certain patterns. The best-known applications include flat screens and digital displays. They are based on pixels of liquid crystals whose optical properties can be switched by electric fields. Some liquid crystals form the so-called cholesteric phases: the molecules self-assemble into helical structures, which are characterised by pitch and rotate either to the right…

Metal halide perovskites have been under intense investigation over the last decade, due to the remarkable rise in their performance in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells or light-emitting diodes. The most efficient devices, fabricated in the so called ‘standard architecture’ commonly include processing steps performed at high temperature, thus increasing their energy payback time and limiting the possibility to integrate them in emerging applications such as flexible and wearable electronics. An alternative device architecture – termed the ‘inverted architecture’…

At the moment, industry is lacking in robust sensors that can withstand extremely high temperatures and pressures. Eight Fraunhofer Institutes have now developed a technology platform for building this type of sensor systems as part of the “eHarsh” lighthouse project. These are even capable of monitoring the insides of turbines and deep boreholes for geothermal systems. They sense disruptive vibrations, issue warnings when a machine is running hot and are able to identify damaged components on a production line. Sensors…

Crucial in the design of any semiconductor device is how to inject and extract an electrical current, and now a KAUST-led team has reviewed ways to do this without damage to the device. A basic metal-semiconductor interface can create a potential energy barrier to the efficient flow of electrons, depending on the electronic properties of the two materials. It is vital to make a careful choice of contact material and the process by which this material is deposited onto the…

Researchers of the Cluster of Excellence 3D Matter Mode to Order show how 3-dimensional nanostructures can be printed using compact desktop devices – publication in Nature Photonics. Lasers in conventional laser printers for paper printouts are very small. 3D laser printers for 3-dimensional microstructures and nanostructures, by contrast, have required big and expensive laser systems so far. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Heidelberg University now use another process for this purpose. Two-step absorption works with inexpensive…

Game-changing technology to design traffic lights that absorb kinetic energy, stopping them from crumpling when hit by a vehicle, will prevent thousands of fatalities and injuries each year and make our roads much safer. That’s the prediction from University of South Australia (UniSA) senior lecturer and research lead Dr Mohammad Uddin, who is partnering with manufacturing company Impact Absorbing Systems (IAS) on a new project to minimise collision-related injuries as well as damage to traffic lights and vehicles. The $640,000…

Trillion percent change of resistance can be achieved in the new material by simply rotating the direction of spin. While electrons are well known to carry both charge and spin, only the electric charge portion is utilized as an information carrier in modern electronic devices. However, the limits of modern electronics and the impending end of Moore’s Law have rekindled the interest in the development of “spintronic” devices, which are capable of harnessing the spin of the electrons. It is…

Novel color photography using a high-efficiency probe can super-focus white light into a 6-nanometer spot for nanoscale color imaging. Scientists have developed new materials for next-generation electronics so tiny that they are not only indistinguishable when closely packed, but they also don’t reflect enough light to show fine details, such as colors, with even the most powerful optical microscopes. Under an optical microscope, carbon nanotubes, for example, look grayish. The inability to distinguish fine details and differences between individual pieces…

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have used a suite of correlative, multimodal microscopy methods to visualise, for the first time, why perovskite materials are seemingly so tolerant of defects in their structure. Their findings were published today in Nature Nanotechnology. The most commonly used material for producing solar panels is crystalline silicon, but to achieve efficient energy conversion requires an energy-intensive and time-consuming production process to create the highly ordered wafer structure required. In the last decade, perovskite materials have…

Rice lab finds 2D perovskite compound has the right stuff to challenge bulkier products. Rice University engineers have achieved a new benchmark in the design of atomically thin solar cells made of semiconducting perovskites, boosting their efficiency while retaining their ability to stand up to the environment. The lab of Aditya Mohite of Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering discovered that sunlight itself contracts the space between atomic layers in 2D perovskites enough to improve the material’s photovoltaic efficiency by up to 18%, an…

A testing facility for optimizing concrete roadways has been inaugurated at the University of Stuttgart. 70 percent of passenger and freight traffic today goes by road. Road surfaces made of concrete are especially well suited for the high stresses this involves, because they are both robust as well as long-lasting and can be recycled in high quality at the end of their lifespan. However, it would be preferable if replacement cycles were even longer, because this would save on resources…

Together with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), X-ray specialists from Empa are now providing their industrial partners with access to state-of-the-art material analysis of 3D-printed work pieces and components. For this purpose, Empa has recently become a member of the technology transfer center ANAXAM in Villigen. The membership in the technology transfer center ANAXAM, initiated in 2019 by PSI, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI) and the Canton of Aargau, fosters…

Small (hybrid) electric planes just like the conceptualized 19-passenger commuter aircraft are about to change regional air travel in the future. The apparent benefits of the commuter aircraft are their fuel efficiency and the fact that they can be employed on routes that are geographically or economically far-fetched, compared to other means of transportation. Moreover, the global scientific and industrial communities are seeing aircraft electrification as one potential solution to reduce gaseous and noise emissions. Researchers at Mälardalen University, Sweden…

Demonstrating that a material thought to be always chemically inert, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), can be turned chemically active holds potential for a new class of catalysts with a wide range of applications, according to an international team of researchers. hBN is a layered material and monolayers can be exfoliated like in graphene, another two-dimensional material. However, there is a key difference between the two. “While hBN shares similar structure as graphene, the strong polar bonds between the boron and…

Two-dimensional MXene has been a rising star in the energy world as they can store energy fast. But their unstable voltage output limits their applications. A collaborative research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently developed battery-like electrochemical Nb2CTx MXene electrodes with stable voltage output and high energy density by using a high-voltage scanning strategy. These latest findings may lead to a breakthrough in inventing the powerful battery of the next generation. The research was…

New technology makes production of complex metallic objects at the nanoscale possible. In recent years 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has established itself as a promising new manufacturing process for a wide variety of components. Dr Dmitry Momotenko, a chemist at the University of Oldenburg, has now succeeded in fabricating ultrasmall metal objects using a new 3D printing technique.  In a paper published together with a team of researchers from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)…