Category Technology/Electronics

Today’s food is stamped with inaccurate “best before” dates, which mean that both retailers and consumers throw away perfectly edible food. Credit: GeirMogen/SINTEF

Bioplastic packaging that extends the shelf life of food and tells us when it is no longer fit to eat will result in less waste. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN estimates that a third of all food produced on the planet is wasted. This isn’t simply just an economic or ethical problem, but also causes major environmental damage due to greenhouse gas emissions. In industrial countries, most waste is generated in retail outlets and households eg food is stamped with inaccurate “best before” dates, which mean that both retailers and consumers throw away perfectly edible food.

However, 4 yrs ago an EU project was laun...

The illustration depicts the characteristic spin orientation (arrows) of electrons in a topological insulator (below). Using an initial circular polarised laser pulse, the spins are excited and point up or down. This can be proven by a second linearly polarised laser pulse (above). Credit: HZB

Scientists have shown how spin-polarized currents can be initiated in a controlled manner within samples of topological insulator material. In addition, they were able to manipulate the orientation of the spins of these currents. They thereby demonstrated that this class of materials is suitable for data processing based on spin.

Future information technologies should employ considerably less energy for processing data via topological insulators (with electrons at the surface being extremely mobile, ...

Functionalization mediates heat transport of graphene nanoflakes. Credit: Photo source: Johan Liu, credit: Philip Krantz, Krantz Nanoart

Heat dissipation in electronics and optoelectronics is a severe bottleneck in the further development of systems in these fields. To come to grips with this serious issue, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed an efficient way of cooling electronics by using functionalized graphene nanoflakes.

“Essentially, we have found a golden key with which to achieve efficient heat transport in electronics and other power devices by using graphene nanoflake-based film. This can open up potential uses of this kind of film in broad areas, and we are getting closer to pilot-scale production based on this discovery,” says Johan Liu, Professor.

T...

A 3D terahertz gradient-refractive index lens designed by transformation optics is achieved by fabricating “woodpile” structures with varying dimensions of subwavelength dielectric unit cells using the projection microstereolithography technique. Both simulation and experimental investigations confirm that the lens delivers an imaging resolution very close to the diffraction limit over a frequency range from 0.4 to 0.6 THz.

The new lens could be used for biomedical research and security imaging. “Terahertz is somewhat of a gap between microwaves and infrared,” said NW University’s Cheng Sun. “People are trying to fill in this gap because this spectrum carries a lot of information...