Category Technology/Electronics

The thermal metamaterial represented in this graphic could make possible more efficient thermophotovoltaic devices that generate electricity from thermal radiation. Such a technology might be adapted to industrial pipes in factories and power plants, as well as on car engines and automotive exhaust systems, to recapture a portion of the energy wasted as heat. Credit: Purdue University image/Gabriela Sincich and Matthew Bollinger

An international team has used a “thermal metamaterial” to control the emission of radiation at high temperatures, an advance that could bring devices able to efficiently harvest waste heat from power plants and factories. Roughly 50 – 60% of the energy generated in coal and oil-based power plants is wasted as heat...

Regime of a single 1D wire subband filled. Credit: Dr Maria Moreno

Researchers have observed quantum effects in electrons by squeezing them into one-dimensional ‘quantum wires’ and observing the interactions between them. The results could be used to aid in the development of quantum technologies, including quantum computing. Squeezing electrons into a one-dimensional ‘quantum wire’ amplifies their quantum nature to the point that it can be seen, by measuring at what energy and wavelength (or momentum) electrons can be injected into the wire.

“…for electrons in a quantum wire – they repel each other and cannot get past, so if one electron enters or leaves, it excites a compressive wave like the people in the train,” trying to leave a carriage, said Maria Moreno, also from the Cavendish Lab...

Dynamically tunable multispot optofluidic waveguide.

Novel technology combines high-performance microfluidics for sample processing with dynamic optical tuning and switching, all on a low-cost “chip” made of a flexible silicone material. In previous devices from Schmidt’s lab, optical functions were built into silicon chips using the same fabrication technology used to make computer chips. The new device is made entirely of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a soft, flexible material used in microfluidics as well as in products such as contact lenses and medical devices.

“We can use this fabrication method now to build an all-in-one device that allows us to do biological sample processing and optical detection on one chip,” said Schmidt, the Kapany Professor of Optoelectronics and director of th...

The new material comprising tin, iodine and phosphorus possesses a double helix structure which provides the semiconductor with extreme mechanical flexibility. Credit: Prof. Tom Nilges / TUM

New flexible semiconductor for electronics, solar technology and photo catalysis. It is the double helix, with its stable and flexible structure of genetic information, that made life on Earth possible in the first place. Now a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has discovered a double helix structure in an inorganic material. The material called SnIP, comprising tin (Sn), iodine (I) and phosphorus(P) is a semiconductor with extraordinary optical and electronic properties, and extreme mechanical flexibility.The centimeter-long fibers can be arbitrarily bent without breaking.

“This prope...