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    Category Technology/Electronics

    New Chip could bring highest level of Encryption to any Mobile Device

    September 8, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Using photonic integrated circuit technology, researchers made a tiny, yet fast quantum random number generator. The small chip in the middle of the picture contains two of the random number generators, which together measure 6 by 2 millimeters. For comparison, the coin is 16.25 millimeters in diameter.

    Using photonic integrated circuit technology, researchers made a tiny, yet fast quantum random number generator. The small chip in the middle of the picture contains two of the random number generators, which together measure 6 by 2 millimeters. For comparison, the coin is 16.25 millimeters in diameter. Credit: Daniel Bartolome & Ona Bombí, ICFO

    For the first time, engineers have developed a fast random number generator based on a quantum mechanical process that could deliver the world’s most secure encryption keys in a package tiny enough to use in a mobile device...

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    Breakthrough in Materials Science: Scientists Bond Metals with nearly all Surfaces

    September 8, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Aluminium plates which have only been sandblasted (in the background of the picture) cannot be glued successfully. The two glued plates separate again at the interface between glue and metal – this can be seen by the fact that there is no white glue residue visible on one of the two plates. The aluminium plates in the foreground of the picture were treated with the etching process “nanoscale-sculpturing” before being glued. These plates could also be separated. But the white glue particles left on both plates demonstrate that the bond between metal and glue is not broken, but rather the glue itself. Credit: Photo/Copyright: Julia Siekmann / Kiel University

    Aluminium plates which have only been sandblasted (in the background of the picture) cannot be glued successfully. The two glued plates separate again at the interface between glue and metal – this can be seen by the fact that there is no white glue residue visible on one of the two plates. The aluminium plates in the foreground of the picture were treated with the etching process “nanoscale-sculpturing” before being glued. These plates could also be separated. But the white glue particles left on both plates demonstrate that the bond between metal and glue is not broken, but rather the glue itself. Credit: Photo/Copyright: Julia Siekmann / Kiel University

    Through this “nanoscale-sculpturing” process, metals such as aluminium, titanium, or zinc can permanently be joined with nearly a...

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    Low Cost Solar device Converts Sunlight to Steam in Dusty Environment

    September 7, 2016, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    A bubble-wrapped, sponge-like device that soaks up natural sunlight and heats water to boiling temperatures, generating steam through its pores. Credit: George Ni at MIT

    A bubble-wrapped, sponge-like device that soaks up natural sunlight and heats water to boiling temperatures, generating steam through its pores. Credit: George Ni at MIT

    The solar thermal energy conversion system can easily generate steam from sunlight. It can help make technologies that rely on steam, like seawater desalination, wastewater treatment, residential water heating, medical tool sterilization and power generation, more efficient and affordable. The new device floats on water, converting 20% of incoming solar energy into steam at 100 degrees Celsius without expensive optical concentration devices and is made of cheap, commercially available materials, including bubble wrap and a polystyrene (plastic) foam.

    “The system we have developed enables us to generate steam with solar ene...

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    Fish ‘Biowaste’ converted to Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

    September 6, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Fish 'biowaste' converted to piezoelectric energy harvesters

    Waste fish scales (upper left corner) are used to fabricate flexible nanogenerator (lower left) that power up more than 50 blue LEDs (lower right). An enlarged microscopic view of a fish scale shows the well-aligned collagen fibrils (upper right). The possibility of making a fish scale transparent (middle) and rollable (extreme left lower corner) is also illustrated. Credit: Sujoy Kuman Ghosh and Dipankar Mandal/Jadavpur University

    Large quantities of fish are consumed in India on a daily basis, which generates a huge amount of fish “biowaste” materials. In an attempt to do something positive with this biowaste, a team of researchers at Jadavpur University in Koltata, India explored recycling the fish byproducts into an energy harvester for self-powered electronics...

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