Category Technology/Electronics

Flexible OLED light sources on transparent electrodes developed within TREASORES. These OLEDs were made by Fraunhofer FEP using a roll-to-roll process. Credit: Fraunhofer FEP

In >3yrs of work, European scientists have finally made future lighting technology ready to market. They developed flexible lighting foils that can be produced roll-to-roll. These devices pave the path towards cheaper solar cells and LED lighting panels. Project TREASORES was lead by Empa scientist Frank Nüesch and combined knowhow from 9 companies and 6 research institutes in 5 european countries.

In Nov 2012, the TREASORES project (Transparent Electrodes for Large Area Large Scale Production of Organic Optoelectronic Devices) started with the aim of developing technologies to dramatically reduce the production cost...

Dr Shakil Awan, Lecturer in the School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics at Plymouth University, said:
Our results for the first time not only confirm the theoretical properties of graphene but also open up many new applications of the material in high-speed electronics and bio-sensing
Dr Awan (pictured right) uses a Cascade probe station and Keysight Parameter Analyser in the Wolfson Nanomaterials and Devices Laboratory in Plymouth

Now research has shown graphene out-performs any other known material, including superconductors, when carrying high-frequency electrical signals compared to direct current, essentially transmitting signals without any additional energy loss...

Rotor mechanism assembled from 3-D DNA components. Dietz Lab/TUM

In the 1st machine, a rotor mechanism was formed from interlocking 3D DNA components. Another has a hinged molecular manipulator, also made from DNA. These are just the latest steps in a campaign to transform so-called “DNA origami” into an industrially useful, commercially viable technology.

Inspired by nature’s nanomachines – such as the enzyme ATP synthase and the motor-driven flagella of bacteria – physicists in Prof. Hendrik Dietz’s lab at TUM keep expanding their own design and construction repertoire. They have systematically developed rules and procedures for creating self-assembled DNA origami structures with ever greater flexibility and control...

This close-up picture shows a ceramic-like refractory inclusion (pink inclusion) still embedded into the meteorite in which it was found. Refractory inclusions are the oldest-known rocks in the solar system (4.5 billion years old). Analysis of the uranium isotope ratios of such inclusions demonstrates that a long-lived isotope of the radioactive element curium was present in the solar system when this inclusion was formed. The inclusion measures 1.5 centimers (.59 inches) in length. Credit: Origins Lab, University of Chicago

Uni of Chicago scientists have discovered evidence in a meteorite that a rare element, curium, was present during the formation of the solar system...