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Materials Science - 31.01.2019

New Materials Exhibit Split Personality
What's the discovery? Julia Greer , professor of materials science, mechanics and medical engineering in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science, creates materials out of microand nano-scale building blocks that are arranged into sophisticated architectures that can be periodic, like a lattice, or arbitrary.

Electroengineering - Materials Science - 28.01.2019

Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials
Device made from flexible, inexpensive materials could power large-area electronics, wearables, medical devices, and more. Imagine a world where smartphones, laptops, wearables, and other electronics are powered without batteries. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have taken a step in that direction, with the first fully flexible device that can convert energy from Wi-Fi signals into electricity that could power electronics.

Materials Science - Transport - 24.01.2019

Nanotechnology enables engineers to weld previously un-weldable aluminum alloy
Super-strong but lightweight, AA 7075 now could be more widely used in automobiles and other manufacturing thanks to UCLA research Matthew Chin An aluminum alloy developed in the 1940s has long held promise for use in automobile manufacturing, except for one key obstacle. Although it's nearly as strong as steel and just one-third the weight, it is almost impossible to weld together using the technique commonly used to assemble body panels or engine parts.

Materials Science - 22.01.2019

Fireproofing made of recycled paper
Scientists at Empa teamed up with isofloc AG to develop an insulating material made of recycled paper. It is ideal for prefabricated wooden elements and even multistory timber houses, and protects the construction against fire. What's more: The additive it contains is harmless to humans, animals and the environment.

Materials Science - Innovation - 17.01.2019

Smart fabrics made possible by new metal deposition technique
Researchers have devised a way to deposit metals onto fabrics and used it to insert sensors and batteries into these materials. A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Imperial College London led by Dr Firat Güder from the Department of Bioengineering have developed an innovative technique to print metals such as silver, gold and platinum onto natural fabrics.

Materials Science - 16.01.2019

Say ’bye bye’ to faulty mobile phones and solar cells
Faulty mobile phones and solar cells could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a ground-breaking invention developed at The Australian National University (ANU). Engineers have developed a powerful new tool to help manufacturers spot defects or unwanted features in everyday technology - such as mobile phones, batteries and solar cells - more easily and much earlier in the fabrication process.

Materials Science - Health - 16.01.2019

Mechanism helps explain the ear’s exquisite sensitivity
A critical gel-like structure in the inner ear moves according to a sound's frequency, researchers find. The human ear, like those of other mammals, is so extraordinarily sensitive that it can detect sound-wave-induced vibrations of the eardrum that move by less than the width of an atom. Now, researchers at MIT have discovered important new details of how the ear achieves this amazing ability to pick up faint sounds.

Materials Science - 08.01.2019

Rare metals from e-waste
This year, beautifully wrapped laptops, mobile phones or even new TV sets lay under numerous Christmas trees. They are enthusiastically put into use - and the old electronic devices are disposed of. The e-waste contains resources such as neodymium, indium and gold. What happens to the valuable materials' And how much rare metal is contained in mobile phones, computers and monitors that are still in use today? Empa researchers have investigated these questions.

Physics - Materials Science - 04.01.2019

Excitons pave the way to more efficient electronics
After developing a method to control exciton flows at room temperature, EPFL scientists have discovered new properties of these quasiparticles that can lead to more energy-efficient electronic devices. They were the first to control exciton flows at room temperature. And now, the team of scientists from EPFL's Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) has taken their technology one step further.

Physics - Materials Science - 31.12.2018

Physicists record "lifetime" of graphene qubits
First measurement of its kind could provide stepping stone to practical quantum computing. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have recorded, for the first time, the "temporal coherence" of a graphene qubit - meaning how long it can maintain a special state that allows it to represent two logical states simultaneously.

Materials Science - Physics - 28.12.2018

Next generation synthetic covalent 2-D materials unveiled
UAntwerp researchers from the CMT group, Dr. Mehmet Yagmurcukardes and Prof. Francois Peeters, in collaboration with a team from Manchester have uncovered novel 2D materials. (Nanowerk News) A team of researchers at the National Graphene Institute at The University of Manchester have developed a new method to synthesize 2D materials that are thought to be impossible or, at least, unobtainable by current technologies.

Physics - Materials Science - 19.12.2018

Hydrogen induces high-temperature superconductivity in a monolayer material
UAntwerp researchers from the CMT group, Dr Jonas Bekaert and Prof Milorad Milosevic, in collaboration with Swedish researchers have predicted that a atomically thin layer of hydrogen will boost the critical temperature of a thin superconductor to above a hundred kelvin. Hydrogen-rich bulk superconducting materials have recently exhibited record-breaking critical temperatures, nearing the ambient temperature and thereby promising a major technological impact on the society.

Innovation - Materials Science - 17.12.2018

Top-notch research is the basis for a successful technology transfer
In such a highly competitive environment as scientific research, it is a good idea to ask yourself on a regular basis just how well you fare by international comparison. With this in mind, Empa conducted a peer review last October: eleven international experts from all of Empa's areas of activity scrutinized the institute's output in research and innovation and compared it with the rest of the world.

Materials Science - Environment - 15.12.2018

The wood magician
The new head of Empa's Cellulose & Wood Materials lab, Gustav Nyström, has taken everyone by surprise by setting unconventional goals. However, paper batteries and nanocellulose sensors have one main objective: to help solve fundamental, socially relevant questions. When Gustav Nyström sees a tree, he sees more than just a biological marvel.

Physics - Materials Science - 13.12.2018

Team invents method to shrink objects to the nanoscale
It's not quite the Ant-Man suit, but the system produces 3-D structures one thousandth the size of the originals. MIT researchers have invented a way to fabricate nanoscale 3-D objects of nearly any shape. They can also pattern the objects with a variety of useful materials, including metals, quantum dots, and DNA.

Materials Science - Chemistry - 13.12.2018

For a longer battery life: Pushing lithium ion batteries to the next performance level
Conventional lithium ion batteries, such as those widely used in smartphones and notebooks, have reached performance limits. Materials chemist Freddy Kleitz from the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna and international scientists have developed a new nanostructured anode material for lithium ion batteries, which extends the capacity and cycle life of the batteries.

Environment - Materials Science - 11.12.2018

Sun-soaking device turns water into superheated steam
High-temperature steam might be used in remote regions to cook, clean, or sterilize medical equipment. MIT engineers have built a device that soaks up enough heat from the sun to boil water and produce "superheated" steam hotter than 100 degrees Celsius, without any expensive optics. On a sunny day, the structure can passively pump out steam hot enough to sterilize medical equipment, as well as to use in cooking and cleaning.

Life Sciences - Materials Science - 11.12.2018

Using water molecules to unlock neurons' secrets
EPFL researchers have developed a method to observe the electrical activity of neurons by analyzing the behavior of surrounding water molecules. This simple and non-invasive method, which could eliminate the need for electrodes and fluorophores, can be used to monitor the activity within a single neuron or potentially on an entire region of the brain.

Physics - Materials Science - 10.12.2018

Answering the mystery of what atoms do when liquids and gases meet
How atoms arrange themselves at the smallest scale was thought to follow a 'drum-skin' rule, but mathematicians have now found a simpler solution. Atomic arrangements in different materials can provide a lot of information about the properties of materials, and what the potential is for altering what they can be used for.

Materials Science - Chemistry - 06.12.2018

Two-dimensional materials skip the energy barrier by growing one row at a time
A new collaborative study led by a research team at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory , University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington could provide engineers new design rules for creating microelectronics, membranes and tissues, and open up better production methods for new materials.