Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Graphene unlocks new potential for ‘smart textiles.’
Credit: Prof Craciun Lab

An international team of scientists, led by Professor Monica Craciun from the University of Exeter Engineering department, has pioneered a new technique to create fully electronic fibres that can be incorporated into the production of everyday clothing. Currently, wearable electronics are achieved by essentially gluing devices to fabrics, which can mean they are too rigid and susceptible to malfunctioning.

The new research instead integrates the electronic devices into the fabric of the material, by coating electronic fibres with light-weight, durable components that will allow images to be shown directly on the fabric.

The research team believe that the discovery could revolutionise the creation of wearable elect...

Single crystals of the multiferroic material bismuth-iron-oxide. The bismuth atoms (blue) form a cubic lattice with oxygen atoms (yellow) at each face of the cube and an iron atom (gray) near the center. The somewhat off-center iron interacts with the oxygen to form an electric dipole (P), which is coupled to the magnetic spins of the atoms (M) so that flipping the dipole with an electric field (E) also flips the magnetic moment. The collective magnetic spins of the atoms in the material encode the binary bits 0 and 1, and allow for information storage and logic operations.
Credit: Ramamoorthy Ramesh lab, UC Berkeley

Multiferroics are promising candidates for new type of memory and logic circuits. Researchers from Intel Corp...

The new molecule. Credit: Illustration by Nils Rosemann

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating an iron molecule that can function both as a photocatalyst to produce fuel and in solar cells to produce electricity. The results indicate that the iron molecule could replace the more expensive and rarer metals used today.

Some photocatalysts and solar cells are based on a technology that involves molecules containing metals, known as metal complexes. The task of the metal complexes in this context is to absorb solar rays and utilise their energy. The metals in these molecules pose a major problem, however, as they are rare and expensive metals, such as the noble metals ruthenium, osmium and iridium.

“Our results now show that by using advanced molecule design, it is possible...

Chang-Beom Eom, right, and Mark Rzchowski inspect a materials growth chamber. The researchers have made a new material that can be switched from electrical conductor to insulator. Credit: UW-Madison photo by Sam Million-Weaver

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have made a material that can transition from an electricity-transmitting metal to a nonconducting insulating material without changing its atomic structure. “This is quite an exciting discovery,” says Chang-Beom Eom, professor of materials science and engineering. “We’ve found a new method of electronic switching.”

The new material could lay the groundwork for ultrafast electronic devices. Metals like copper or silver conduct electricity, whereas insulators like rubber or glass do not allow current to flow...