Category Technology/Electronics

Imaging with the multispectral chiral lens forms two images of the beetle, Chrysina gloriosa, on the color camera. The left image was formed by focusing left-circularly polarized light reflected from the beetle and the right image was formed from right-circularly polarized light. The left-handed chirality of the beetle’s shell can clearly be seen. Credit: Image courtesy of the Capasso Lab/Harvard SEAS

Multifunctional lens could replace bulky, expensive machines. Many things in the natural world are geometrically chiral, ie they cannot be superimposed onto their mirror image. Think hands – right and left hands are mirror images but if you transplanted a right hand onto a left, you’d be in trouble. Certain molecules are chiral, including DNA and amino acids.

Image of optical fiber (pumped wi...

Biomimetics: the epidermis of a rose petal is replicated in a transparent layer which is then integrated into the front of a solar cell. Credit: Illustration: Guillaume Gomard, KIT

Scientists increase the efficiency of solar cells by replicating the structure of petals. With a surface resembling that of plants, solar cells improve light-harvesting and thus generate more power. Scientists of KIT reproduced the epidermal cells of rose petals that have particularly good antireflection properties and integrated the transparent replicas into an organic solar cell. This resulted in a relative efficiency gain of 12%.

Photovoltaics works in a similar way as the photosynthesis of plants...

GraphExeter is a material adapted from the ‘wonder material’ graphene.

Exeter researchers have substantially improved the effectiveness of large, flat, flexible lighting via GraphExeter – a material adapted from the ‘wonder material’ graphene. By using GraphExeter, the most transparent, lightweight and flexible material for conducting electricity, instead of pure graphene, the team have increased the brightness of flexible lights by up to almost 50%. The research has also shown GraphExeter makes the lights 30% more efficient than existing examples of flexible lighting, based on state-of-the-art commercial polymers.

The research team believe the breakthrough could help significantly improve the viability of the next generation of flexible screens, which could be used for display screens...

Topology of the zeolite frameworks and Auger spectra of their silver clusters.

Researchers have discovered a new phosphor that could make next-generation fluorescent and LED lighting even cheaper and more efficient. The team used highly luminescent clusters of silver atoms and the porous framework of minerals known as zeolites. Silver clusters consist of just a few silver atoms and have remarkable optical properties. However, current applications are limited, because the clusters tend to aggregate into larger particles, thus losing the interesting optical properties.

Phosphor is the luminescent material critical to many lighting applications, especially LEDs. Most white LEDs are in fact blue LEDs with a phosphor coating.

Prof Hofkens and his team have now found a way to keep the silver clu...