Category Technology/Electronics

This is a diagram of the dielectric capacitor research developed by a University of Delaware-led research team. Credit: Kathy F. Atkinson/University of Delaware

Nanotechnology offers new approach to increasing storage ability of dielectric capacitors. In the movie ‘Back to the Future,’ Doc Brown and Marty McFly landed in the future in their DeLorean, with time travel made possible by a ‘flux capacitor.’ Today, capacitors are key components of portable electronics to electric cars, providing fast delivery of energy but poor storage capacity. Researchers now report a new approach to increasing storage ability.

In contrast to batteries, which offer high storage capacity but slow delivery of energy, capacitors provide fast delivery but poor storage capacity...

Phosphors are efficient light emitters but they’re not optimal for high-speed communications because they turn on and off slowly. Researchers from Brown and Harvard have now found a way to modulate light from phosphor emitters three orders of magnitude faster using phase-change materials (VO2, in this case), which could make phosphors useful in a range of new optoelectronic applications. Credit: Zia Lab / Brown University

The technique provides a new approach to modulation useful in silicon-based nanoscale devices, including computer chips and other optoelectronic components.

Phosphors are efficient light emitters (eg light bulbs, LEDs) but they’re not optimal for high-speed communications because they turn on and off slowly...

The Jena research team and its innovative battery (from left to right) are: Prof. Dr. Ulrich S. Schubert, Tobias Janoschka und Dr. Martin Hager. Credit: Anne Guenther/FSU

It is simple to handle, safe and economical at the same time. The new redox-flow battery can withstand up to 10,000 charging cycles without losing a crucial amount of capacity. Jena (Germany) Sun and wind are important sources of renewable energy, but they suffer from natural fluctuations: In stormy weather or bright sunshine electricity produced exceeds demand, whereas clouds or a lull in the wind inevitably cause a power shortage. For continuity in electricity supply and stable power grids, energy storage devices will become essential...

Artistic Impression of the Entanglement of electrons

>> Refutes Einstein’s ‘God does not play dice’ with quantum ‘dice’ ie it gives the strongest refutation to date of his principle of ‘local realism,’ which says that the universe obeys laws, not chance, and that there is no communication faster than light. As described in Hanson’s group web the Delft experiment first “entangled” 2 electrons trapped inside 2 different diamond crystals, and then measured the electrons’ orientations. In quantum theory entanglement is powerful and mysterious: mathematically the 2 electrons are described by a single “wave-function” that only specifies whether they agree or disagree, not which direction either spin points. In a mathematical sense, they lose their identities...