Category Physics

Creating smart sensors to embed in our everyday objects and environments for the Internet of Things (IoT) would vastly improve daily life — but requires trillions of such small devices. Simon Fraser University professor Vincenzo Pecunia believes that emerging alternative semiconductors that are printable, low-cost and eco-friendly could lead the way to a cheaper and more sustainable IoT.

Leading a multinational team of top experts in various areas of printable electronics, Pecunia has identified key priorities and promising avenues for printable electronics to enable self-powered, eco-friendly smart sensors. His forward-looking insights are outlined in his paper published on Dec. 28 in Nature Electronics.

“Equipping everyday objects and envir...

Emerging forms of thin-film device technologies that rely on alternative semiconductor materials, such as printable organics, nanocarbon allotropes and metal oxides, could contribute to a more economically and environmentally sustainable IoT, a KAUST-led international team suggests.

Their paper is published in the journal Nature Electronics.

The IoT is set to have a major impact on daily life and many industries...

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics celebrated the fundamental interest of quantum entanglement, and also envisioned the potential applications in “the second quantum revolution”—a new age when we are able to manipulate the weirdness of quantum mechanics, including quantum superposition and entanglement...

In new research published in Nature Communications, University of Sussex scientists demonstrate how a highly conductive paint coating that they have developed mimics the network spread of a virus through a process called ‘explosive percolation’ – a mathematical process which can also be applied to population growth, financial systems and computer networks, but which has not been seen before in materials systems. The finding was a serendipitous development as well as a scientific first for the researchers.

The process of percolation – the statistical connectivity in a system, such as when water flows through soil or through coffee grounds – is an important component in the development of l...