Category Technology/Electronics

Researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan have blended together various polymer and molecular semiconductors as photo-absorbers to create a solar cell with increased power efficiencies and electricity generation. These types of solar cells, known as organic photovoltaics (OPV), are devices that generate electricity when light is incident upon their photo-absorbers. The efficiency of a solar cell is determined by comparing how much electricity is generated to how much light is incident upon the cell...

Over the past decade or so, roboticists and computer scientists have tried to use reinforcement learning (RL) approaches to train robots to efficiently navigate their environment and complete a variety of basic tasks. Building affordable robots that can support and manage the exploratory controls associated with RL algorithms, however, has so far proved to be fairly challenging.

Researchers at Aalto University and Ote Robotics have recently created RealAnt, a low-cost, four-legged robot that can effectively be used to test and implement RL algorithms...

Heralding the end of a decade-long quest, in a promising new class of extremely thin, two-dimensional semiconductors, scientists have for the first time directly visualized and measured elusive particles, called dark excitons, that cannot be seen by light.

The powerful technique, described in leading journal Science, could revolutionize research into two-dimensional semiconductors and excitons, with pro...

By embedding titanium-based sheets in water, a group led by scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science has created a material using inorganic materials that can be converted from a hard gel to soft matter using temperature changes.

Science fiction often features inorganic life forms, but in reality, organisms and devices that respond to stimuli such as temperature changes are nearly always based on organic materials, and hence, research in the area of “adaptive materials” has almost exclusively focused on organic substances. However, there are advantages to using inorganic materials such as metals, including potentially better mechanical properties.

Considering this, the RIKEN-led group decided to attempt to recreate the behavi...