Category Technology/Electronics

High-voltage cell with Li metal anode and LLZCN electrolyte

A team of researchers at the University of Maryland Energy Research Center and A. James Clark School of Engineering have announced a transformative development in the race to produce batteries that are at once safe, powerful, and affordable. The researchers are developing game-changing solid-state battery technology, and have made a key advance by inserting a layer of ultra-thin aluminum oxide between lithium electrodes and a solid non-flammable ceramic electrolyte known as garnet. Prior to this advance, there had been little success in developing high-performance, garnet-based solid-state batteries, because the high resistance, between the garnet electrolyte and electrode materials limited the flow of energy or current.

The ultra...

Dark brown fallow deer (buck) with big antlers is shown. Credit: Wikipedia commons

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have discovered the secret behind the toughness of deer antlers and how they can resist breaking during fights. The team looked at the antler structure at the nano-level and were able to identify the mechanisms at work, using state-of-the-art computer modelling and xray techniques.

Paolino De Falco from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science said: “The fibrils that make up the antler are staggered rather than in line with each other. This allows them to absorb the energy from the impact of a clash during a fight...

This diagram shows the setup for an imaging method that mapped electrical signals using a sheet of graphene and an infrared laser. The laser was fired through a prism (lower left) onto a sheet of graphene. An electrode was used to send tiny electrical signals into a liquid solution (in cylinder atop the graphene), and a camera (lower right) was used to capture images mapping out these electrical signals. (Credit: Halleh Balch and Jason Horng/Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley)

Team creates a system to visualize faint electric fields. Scientists have enlisted the exotic properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, to function like the film of an incredibly sensitive camera system in visually mapping tiny electric fields in a liquid...

New MIT research could offer a way of making tiny movable parts with no solid connections between the pieces, potentially eliminating a major source of wear and failure in microelectromechanical machines. The new system uses a layer of liquid droplets to support a tiny, movable platform. Credit: Daniel Preston/Device Research Lab

A platform floating on tiny droplets, using hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, could provide precise motion control for optical devices, MEMS and other systems. Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are tiny machines fabricated using equipment and processes developed for the production of electronic chips and devices...