Category Technology/Electronics

Wearable Health Tech gets Efficiency Upgrade

Photo of flexible, wearable device.
NC State’s improved theromoelectric generator demonstrates efficiency and flexibility. Photo courtesy of Mehmet Ozturk, NC State University.

North Carolina State University engineers have demonstrated a flexible device that harvests the heat energy from the human body to monitor health. The device surpasses all other flexible harvesters that use body heat as the sole energy source.

In a paper published in Applied Energy, the NC State researchers report significant enhancements to the flexible body heat harvester they first reported in 2017. The harvesters use heat energy from the human body to power wearable technologies – think of smart watches that measure your heart rate, blood oxygen, glucose and other health parameters – that never need to have their batteries recharged...

Read More

Method Detects Defects in 2D Materials for future Electronics, Sensors

A yellow laser beam shines on a chip and reveals a grain boundary defect
A laser beam (yellow) reflects off a 2D material (orange) highlighting a grain boundary defect in the atomic lattice.
 IMAGE: MRI/PENN STATE

To further shrink electronic devices and to lower energy consumption, the semiconductor industry is interested in using 2D materials, but manufacturers need a quick and accurate method for detecting defects in these materials to determine if the material is suitable for device manufacture. Now a team of researchers has developed a technique to quickly and sensitively characterize defects in 2D materials.

Two-dimensional materials are atomically thin, the most well-known being graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms.

“People have struggled to make these 2D materials without defects,” said Mauricio Terrones, Verne M...

Read More

As seen in Movies, new Meta-Hologram can be used as a Communication Tool

Meta-hologram optical device that operated in forward and backward directions.
CREDIT
Junsuk Rho(POSTECH)

Scientists have developed a multiplexed meta-hologram device operating at visible light. The newly developed technique can transmit information to multiple users from different locations. This can be employed in many hologram applications such as performance, exhibitions, automobiles and more.

Hologram techniques are already used in our everyday life. A hologram sticker to prevent from counterfeiting money, Augmented Reality navigation projected in front mirror of a car to guide directions, and Virtual Reality game that allows a user to play in a virtual world with a feeling of live are just a few examples to mention...

Read More

On the way to Quantum Networks

Picture of the single atom trap. In the ultra-high vacuum glass cell a single Rubidium atom is captured, which later will be entangled with a photon. Photo: C. Olesinski/LMU
Picture of the single atom trap. In the ultra-high vacuum glass cell a single Rubidium atom is captured, which later will be entangled with a photon. Photo: C. Olesinski/LMU

Physicists at LMU, together with colleagues at Saarland University, have successfully demonstrated the transport of an entangled state between an atom and a photon via an optic fiber over a distance of up to 20 km – thus setting a new record.

‘Entanglement’ describes a very particular type of quantum state which is not attributed to a single particle alone, but which is shared between two different particles. It irrevocably links their subsequent fates together – no matter how far apart they are – which famously led Albert Einstein to call the phenomenon as “spooky action at a distance”...

Read More