Category Technology/Electronics

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

What would you say to a cell phone that works without a battery? A barest-bone keypad and LD light as quite unsnazzy components? If you cannot live without showy capabilities of smartphones then you might have a good laugh—or consider this a step in a direction of further research you don’t want to miss. Researchers from the University of Washington showed one can work a phone without batteries in their device minus any bells or whistles. Their feat: “the team was able to successfully demonstrate a voice call from a battery-less phone to an Android smartphone,” said IFLScience.

Their success was explained by Mark Harris, writing in Wired. “‘HELLO, HELLO. I am calling from a battery-free phone...

Graduate student Nicholas Davy holds a sample of the special window glass. (Photos by David Kelly Crow)

Smart windows equipped with controllable glazing can augment lighting, cooling and heating systems by varying their tint, saving up to 40% in an average building’s energy costs. These smart windows require power for operation, so they are relatively complicated to install in existing buildings. But by applying a new solar cell technology, researchers at Princeton University have developed a different type of smart window: a self-powered version that promises to be inexpensive and easy to apply to existing windows. This system features solar cells that selectively absorb near-UVz light, so the new windows are completely self-powered.

“Sunlight is a mixture of electromagnetic radiation mad...

Spin injection and helicity control of surface spin photocurrent in a three dimensional topological insulator. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 15401 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15401

A discovery of how to control and transfer spinning electrons paves the way for novel hybrid devices that could outperform existing semiconductor electronics. In a study researchers at Linkoping University in Sweden demonstrate how to combine a commonly used semiconductor with a topological insulator. Just as the Earth spins around its own axis, so does an electron, in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction. “Spintronics” is the name used to describe technologies that exploit both the spin and the charge of the electron. Current applications are limited, and the technology is mainly used in computer hard drives...

This is a timelapse image of the walking device. Credit: Bart van Overbeeke

Scientists at Eindhoven University of Technology and Kent State University have developed a new material that can undulate and therefore propel itself forward under the influence of light. To this end, they clamp a strip of this polymer material in a rectangular frame. When illuminated it goes for a walk all on its own. This small device, the size of a paperclip, is the world’s first machine to convert light directly into walking, simply using one fixed light source.

The maximum speed is equivalent to that of a caterpillar, about 0.5cm/s. They think it can be used to transport small items in hard-to-reach places or to keep the surface of solar cells clean...