New collaboration between TU Darmstadt and MPIE The Technical University Darmstadt and the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (MPIE) started a new Max Planck Research Group headed by Prof. Oliver Gutfleisch, Professor of Functional Materials at the TU Darmstadt and scientific director at the Fraunhofer IWKS Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies. The group is established at the MPIE and deals with the design of advanced hard and soft magnets, magnetocaloric and related functional materials. “Magnets are key materials for electrification thus providing…
Researchers from Osaka University use non-destructive acoustic monitoring to identify the earliest stages of failure in silicon carbide power electronics, which will help in the design of more-durable power devices. Power electronics regulate and modify electric power. They are in computers, power steering systems, solar cells, and many other technologies. Researchers are seeking to enhance power electronics by using silicon carbide semiconductors. However, wear-out failures such as cracks remain problematic. To help researchers improve future device designs, early damage detection…
Research initiative of the Helmholtz Association presents strategies, technologies, and open-source tools. To contribute to global climate protection, Germany has to rapidly and comprehensively minimize the use of fossil energy sources and to transform the energy system accordingly. The Helmholtz Association’s research initiative “Energy System 2050” has studied how and by which means this can be achieved. One of the partners is Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). At the final conference in Berlin, scientists of the participating research centers presented…
Start of the EU Project MUNDFAB Progressing development of big data and mobility applications as well as of the Internet of Things requires the further miniaturization of electronic circuits. Sophisticated manufacturing techniques for computer chips, such as the sequential 3D integration of devices, are a key to success. In addition to experimental investigations, the use of simulation programs is of particular importance: Simulations allow significant cost and time savings in the development of new technologies and devices. The improvement of…
Field-effect transistors are key components of sensors, electrical circuits, or data storage devices. The transistors used to date have been mainly based on inorganic semiconductors such as silicon. More recently, organic materials have emerged, with semiconducting properties that have allowed the fabrication of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). The use of organic components as the device active layer brings promising features such as easy processing and low cost. In addition to their device functionalities, OFETs have also developed into an important…
If 80,000 of them were piled on top of each other, the stack would only be as high as a flat sheet of paper. Scientists from the Center for Nanointegration (CENIDE) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and cooperation partners have developed a layer of tungsten disulfide that is just as thin as three atomic layers – and it is luminous, flexible and also withstands external influences. Several square centimeters of this layer have already been embedded in structural components,…
4 Million € for European Training Network They can emit, detect, modulate and store light to receive and process high-frequency terahertz radiation – in theory. So far, only individual components of optical chips have been developed; there still remain some challenges before complete circuits based on photons will be available. These challenges are now being met by the European Training Network TERAOPTICS, coordinated by engineers from the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). The EU provides four million euros in funding for…
Although deep learning algorithms are righteously handled as one of the key aspects of modern Artificial Intelligence (AI), the conclusions of the methods do not offer a high degree of security. Many areas with potential for AI application bear too many risks to be controlled by systems that are not verifiable. The two Bremen-based research departments of the DFKI are working on a new method for system control, combining the advantages of fast self-learning and reliable verification via symbolical models….
HKU Engineering team develops novel miniaturised organic semiconductor, an important breakthrough essential for future flexible electronic devices. Field Effect Transistors (FET) are the core building blocks of modern electronics such as integrated circuits, computer CPUs and display backplanes. Organic Field Effect Transistors (OFETs), which use organic semiconductor as a channel for current flows, have the advantage of being flexible when compared with their inorganic counterparts like silicon. OFETs, given their high sensitivity, mechanical flexibility, biocompatibility, property tunability and low-cost fabrication,…
Similar to batteries, supercapacitors are suitable for the repeated storage of electrical energy. TU Graz researchers have presented a particularly safe and sustainable variant of such a supercapacitor in Nature Communications. Limited safety, sustainability and recyclability are key drawbacks of today’s lithium-ion battery technology, along with restricted availability of starting materials (e.g. cobalt). In the search for alternative electrochemical energy storage systems for use in e-mobility and for storing energy from renewable sources, a combination of battery and capacitor is…
Laser pulses enable faster creation of skyrmions in magnets A team of scientists led by the Max Born Institute (MBI), Berlin, Germany, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, has demonstrated how tiny magnetization patterns known as skyrmions can be written into a ferromagnetic material faster than previously thought possible. The researchers have clarified how the topology of the magnetic system changes in this process. As reported in the journal Nature Materials, the findings are relevant for topological…
Semiconductive photocatalysts that efficiently absorb solar energy could help reduce the energy required to drive a bioelectrochemical process that converts CO2 emissions into valuable chemicals, KAUST researchers have shown. Recycling CO2 could simultaneously reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere while generating useful chemicals and fuels, explains Bin Bian, a Ph.D. student in Pascal Saikaly’s lab, who led the research. “Microbial electrosynthesis (MES), coupled with a renewable energy supply, could be one such technology,” Bian says. MES exploits the capacity of…
Digitalization in industrial manufacturing Automated assembly operations are a key to success. They enable stable manufacturing, high precision manufacturing and greater responsiveness to market demands. The Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF’s innovative digital instrumentation and information networks are increasing the transparency of aircraft manufacturer Airbus’s manufacturing operations and optimizing collaboration between humans and machines. Was the cabin door delivered on schedule? Does it have the same temperature as the fuselage? And did its installation go as planned?…
Researchers at TU Graz have found a way to convert the aromatic substance vanillin into a redox-active electrolyte material for liquid batteries. The technology is an important step towards ecologically sustainable energy storage. “It is ground-breaking in the field of sustainable energy storage technology,” says Stefan Spirk from the Institute of Bioproducts and Paper Technology at Graz University of Technology. He and his team have succeeded in making redox-flow batteries more environmentally friendly by replacing their core element, the liquid…
Smart solutions for production facilities The volatile output of electricity from wind farms and photovoltaic plants can pose a real headache for energy companies. This is because of the need to maintain a stable supply of power at all times, even when such facilities are generating little or no electricity. Part of the solution to this problem is to adapt the power consumption of production plants to the fluctuating output from wind and solar generation. Researchers from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have…
Metha-Cycle decouples wind power from electricity demand Chemists at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT) in Rostock are able to produce hydrogen from methanol under mild conditions of less than one hundred degrees Celsius and ambient pressure, with the yield and purity required for fuel cells. To achieve this, they optimized a proprietary process that they had published in NATURE at the time. The catalytic reaction is at the heart of the Metha-Cycle project, a concept for the storage and…
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