Category Technology/Electronics

Rensselaer team finds solution to persistent problem facing potassium-metal batteries. Researchers demonstrate how they can overcome dendrites to create a metal battery that performs nearly as well as a lithium-ion battery, but relies on potassium – a much more abundant and less expensive element.

If you were to look inside a lithium-ion battery you’d typically find a cathode made of lithium cobalt oxide and an anode made of graphite. During charging and discharging, lithium ions flow back and forth between these two electrodes.

In this setup, if researchers were to simply replace lithium cobalt oxide with potassium cobalt oxide, performance would drop...

If new and promising semiconductor materials are to make it into our phones, computers, and other increasingly capable electronics, researchers must obtain greater control over how those materials function.

In an article published today in Science Advances, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers detailed how they designed and synthesized a unique material with controllable capabilities that make it very promising for future electronics.

The researchers synthesized the material an organic-inorganic hybrid crystal made up of carbon, iodine, and lead and then demonstrated that it was capable of two material properties previously unseen in a single material...

Researchers have developed an octopus-inspired soft robotic arm that can grip, move, and manipulate a wide range of objects. Its flexible, tapered design, complete with suction cups, gives the gripper a firm grasp on objects of all shapes, sizes and textures – from eggs to iPhones to large exercise balls.

Of all the cool things about octopuses (and there’s a lot), their arms may rank among the coolest...

A team of researchers at Stanford University has developed a theoretical way to cool down heated objects. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes their study of heat radiation and how it might be boosted to cool down a desired object.

Objects in the environment both radiate heat and receive it from the environment. Prior research has shown that heat radiated from an object does so in a spectrum, and that it peaks at a certain frequency determined by the temperature of the object. And when the number of incoming photons is greater than the number of outgoing photons, the object will grow warmer...