Category Physics

A novel tiny, soft robot with soft caterpillar-like legs which is adaptable to adverse environment and can carry heavy load was developed. Credit: City University of Hong Kong

A novel tiny, soft robot with caterpillar-like legs capable of carrying heavy loads and adaptable to adverse environment was developed from a research led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU). This mini delivery-robot could pave way for medical technology advancement such as drugs delivery in human body.

Around the world, there has been research about developing soft milli-robots. But the CityU’s new design with multi-legs helps reduce friction significantly, so that the robot can move efficiently inside surfaces within the body lined with, or entirely immersed in, body fluids such as blood or mucus.

What makes th...

The new tiny modulator drives data at higher speeds and lower costs.
Credit: Second Bay Studios/Harvard SEAS

A research team comprising members from City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Harvard University and renowned information technologies laboratory has successfully fabricated a tiny on-chip lithium niobate modulator, an essential component for the optoelectronic industry. The modulator is smaller, more efficient with faster data transmission and costs less. The technology is set to revolutionise the industry.

The electro-optic modulator produced in this breakthrough research is only 1 to 2 cm long and its surface area is about 100 times smaller than traditional ones...

A laser pulse hits a tungsten surface on which iodine atoms have been depositied. Both the tungsten atoms and the iodine atoms lose electrons, which can then be measured.
Credit: TU Wien

Quantum jumps are usually regarded to be instantaneous. However, new measurement methods are so precise that it has now become possible to observe such a process and to measure its duration precisely – for example the famous ‘photoelectric effect’, first described by Albert Einstein.

It was one of the crucial experiments in quantum physics: when light falls on certain materials, electrons are released from the surface. Albert Einstein was the first to explain this phenomenon in 1905, when he spoke of “light quanta” – the smallest units of light that we call photons today.

In tiny fractions of a second, an e...

New ‘Robotic Skins’ technology developed by Yale researchers allows users to turn everyday objects into robots.
Credit: Yale University

When you think of robotics, you likely think of something rigid, heavy, and built for a specific purpose. New “Robotic Skins” technology developed by Yale researchers flips that notion on its head, allowing users to animate the inanimate and turn everyday objects into robots.

Developed in the lab of Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, assistant professor of mechanical engineering & materials science, robotic skins enable users to design their own robotic systems. Although the skins are designed with no specific task in mind, Kramer-Bottiglio said, they could be used for everything from search-and-rescue robots to wearable technologies...