Category Physics

A sample of heat – conducting polymer is tested for thickness in U-M’s Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Image credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering

Advanced plastics could usher in lighter, cheaper, more energy-efficient product components, including those used in vehicles, LEDs and computers – if only they were better at dissipating heat. A new technique that can change plastic’s molecular structure to help it cast off heat is a promising step in that direction. Developed by a team of University of Michigan researchers in materials science and mechanical engineering and detailed in a new study published in Science Advances, the process is inexpensive and scalable.

The concept can likely be adapted to a variety of other plastics...

Tracking particle spins reveals that the quark-gluon plasma created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is more swirly than the cores of super-cell tornadoes, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, or any other fluid! Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Swirling soup of matter’s fundamental building blocks spins 10 billion trillion times faster than the most powerful tornado, setting new record for ‘vorticity’. Particle collisions recreating the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) that filled the early universe reveal that droplets of this primordial soup swirl far faster than any other fluid...

The wings of Megatibicen dorsatus, a prairie-dwelling cicada, are helping engineers design water-repellent surfaces. Credit: Photo courtesy Catherine Dana

Researchers are looking to insects – specifically cicadas – for insight into the design of artificial surfaces with de-icing, self-cleaning and anti-fogging abilities.Their wings allow cicadas to fly, of course, but they also are good at repelling water – a condition that humans can appreciate, too. “Our work with cicadas is letting us explore a field called bioinspiration,” said Nenad Miljkovic, a University of Illinois mechanical science and engineering professor who co-led a new study of cicada wings.

“We are learning as much as we can from the natural design of cicada wings to engineer artificial objects that are useful to humans...

These Solar Glasses with lens-fitted semitransparent organic solar cells supply two sensors and electronics in the temples with electric power. Credit: KIT

Semitransparent organic solar cells in eyeglasses to power microprocessor, example of future solar-powered mobile applications. Organic solar cells are flexible, transparent, and light-weight – and can be manufactured in arbitrary shapes or colors. Thus, they are suitable for a variety of applications that cannot be realized with conventional silicon solar cells. In the Energy Technology journal, researchers from KIT now present sunglasses with colored, semitransparent solar cells applied onto lenses that supply a microprocessor and two displays with electric power...