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    Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Quick Meal? 3D printed dinner

    August 1, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    An example of 3D printed food, created by one of Professor Hod Lipson's students. Credit: Timothy Lee Photographers/Columbia Engineering

    An example of 3D printed food, created by one of Professor Hod Lipson’s students. Credit: Timothy Lee Photographers/Columbia Engineering

    Prof. Lipson and his students have been developing a 3D food printer that can fabricate edible items through computer-guided software and the actual cooking of edible pastes, gels, powders, and liquid ingredients – all in a prototype that looks like an elegant coffee machine.”Food printers are not meant to replace conventional cooking – they won’t solve all of our nutritional needs, nor cook everything we should eat,” says Lipson, a pioneering roboticist who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing at Columbia Engineering ...

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    New method for making Green LEDs enhances their Efficiency and Brightness

    July 31, 2016, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    A new method of cubic phase synthesis: Hexagonal-to-cubic phase transformation. The scale bars represent 100 nm in all images. (a) Cross sectional and (b) Top-view SEM images of cubic GaN grown on U-grooved Si(100). (c) Cross sectional and (d) Top-view EBSD images of cubic GaN grown on U-grooved Si(100), showing cubic GaN in blue, and hexagonal GaN in red. Credit: University of Illinois

    A new method of cubic phase synthesis: Hexagonal-to-cubic phase transformation. The scale bars represent 100 nm in all images. (a) Cross sectional and (b) Top-view SEM images of cubic GaN grown on U-grooved Si(100). (c) Cross sectional and (d) Top-view EBSD images of cubic GaN grown on U-grooved Si(100), showing cubic GaN in blue, and hexagonal GaN in red. Credit: University of Illinois

    Researchers have developed a new method for making brighter and more efficient green light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Using an industry-standard semiconductor growth technique, they have created gallium nitride (GaN) cubic crystals grown on a silicon substrate that are capable of producing powerful green light for advanced solid-state lighting.

    “The union of solid-state lighting with sensing (e.g...

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    Hybrid Perovskites: Super-Ion Building Blocks

    July 31, 2016, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Super-ion-Building-Blocks-lrg

    Scientists discovered how to control a material’s properties and stability to develop next-generation solar cells based on newly discovered hybrid perovskites (atomic structure shown above). Simulations revealed that hybrid perovskites could be viewed as super-alkali halides. The schematic illustrates a hybrid perovskite structure where the super halogens are the blue tetrahedrons, the metal atoms are green, and the alkali cation is in the middle (gray structure with pink and black atoms). Journal of Materials Chemistry A

    Lead-free, more efficient solar cells and other optoelectronics devices will likely be based on a family of materials known as hybrid perovskites...

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    Something Deep within: Nanocrystals Grown in Nanowires

    July 30, 2016, Categories  Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Top: High-resolution electron microscopy images of a nickel silicide rhombic nanocrystal embedded in a silicon nanowire prepared with gold silicide used as a catalyst. The images demonstrate the intimate interactions that arise at the interfaces of these nanomaterials. Bottom: The physical properties that arise from such complex nano-systems could be used in next-generation photodetectors, lasers, and transistors.

    Top: High-resolution electron microscopy images of a nickel silicide rhombic nanocrystal embedded in a silicon nanowire prepared with gold silicide used as a catalyst. The images demonstrate the intimate interactions that arise at the interfaces of these nanomaterials. Bottom: The physical properties that arise from such complex nano-systems could be used in next-generation photodetectors, lasers, and transistors.

    Scientists have tailored extremely small wires that carry light and electrons which could open up a potential path to smaller, lighter, or more efficient devices. This development could lead to highly tailored nanowires for new classes of high-performance, energy-efficient computing, communications, and environmental and medical sensing systems...

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