Category Technology/Electronics

EC gate control of DNA conductance.

DNA may very well also pack quite the jolt for engineers trying to advance the development of tiny, low-cost electronic devices. Much like flipping your light switch at home – only on a scale 1,000 times smaller than a human hair – an ASU-led team has developed the first controllable DNA switch to regulate the flow of electricity within a single, atomic-sized molecule.

“It has been established that charge transport is possible in DNA, but for a useful device, one wants to be able to turn the charge transport on and off. We achieved this goal by chemically modifying DNA,” said Tao, who directs the Biodesign Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors and is a professor in the Fulton Schools of Engineering...

Predictive materials discovery framework.

A novel workflow combining machine learning and density functional theory calculations has been developed by Northwestern Engineering and Los Alamos National Laboratory to create design guidelines for new materials that exhibit useful electronic properties, such as ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity. Few layered materials have these qualities in certain geometries – crucial for developing solutions to electronics, communication, and energy problems – ie there was very little data from which to formulate the guidelines using traditional research approaches.

“When others look for new materials, typically they look in places where they have a lot of data from similar materials...

1. Simplified electrical grid with energy storage. Inset: Hydronium ion figures

A new type of battery developed by Oregon State University shows promise for sustainable, high-power energy storage. It’s the world’s first battery to use only hydronium ions as the charge carrier. The new battery provides an additional option for researchers, particularly in the area of stationary storage. Stationary storage refers to batteries in a permanent location that store grid power – including power generated from alternative energy sources such as wind turbines or solar cells – for use on a standby or emergency basis.

Hydronium, H3O+, is a positively charged ion produced when a proton is added to a water molecule...

The bipod gait is faster than the tripod gait during ground locomotion in a hexapod robot.

When vertebrates run, their legs exhibit minimal cont

act with the ground. But insects are different. These 6-legged creatures run fastest using a 3-legged, or “tripod” gait where they have 3 legs on the ground at all times – 2 on 1 side of their body and one on the other. The tripod gait has long inspired engineers who design six-legged robots, but is it necessarily the fastest and most efficient way for bio-inspired robots to move on the ground?

Researchers at EPFL and UNIL revealed there is in fact a faster way for robots to locomote on flat ground, provided they don’t have the adhesive pads used by insects to climb walls and ceilings...