Category Technology/Electronics

The fiber sensor. Credit: ETRI

The researchers, from Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and Konkuk University in the Republic of Korea, coated cotton and polyester yarn with a nanoglue called bovine serum albumin (BSA). The yarns were then wrapped in graphene oxide sheets.

The graphene sheets stuck very well to the nanoglue – so much so that further testing showed the fabrics retained their electrical conducting properties after 1,000 consecutive cycles of bending and straightening and 10 washing tests with various chemical detergents. Finally, the graphene oxide yarns were exposed to a chemical reduction process, which involves the gaining of electrons.

The reduced-graphene-oxide-coated materials were found to be particularly sensitive to detecting NO2, a pollutant gas ...

Conceptual representations of magnetic phases in MnSi and the experimental set-up.

RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science may be about to wind back time. Skyrmions have been widely touted as providing the basis for new high-density memory devices because of their small size and relative stability. However, it has proven difficult to create, delete, and move them, and skyrmion-based devices are not yet competitive with other high-tech devices based on spin.

The group set out to work using a specially designed stress probe that could apply mechanical stress to the surface of manganese-silicide, a “chiral magnetic” that is known to host skyrmions, cooled to very low temperature...

Researchers are using traditional kitting and braiding fabrication techniques to produce electrically conducting, wearable fabrics capable of sensing a wide range of human movement. The ability to arrange different types of fibres with predetermined spatial organisation gives us the colour, vibrancy and comfort we encounter in traditional textiles.

A knitted textile based on the polymeric composite fibres, produced at the Australian National Fabrication Facility, is highly sensitive, stable and able to detect a wide range of human movement. The team demonstrated a working device with remote sensing capabilities using a knee sleeve prototype of the fabric that ‘talks’ to a commercial wireless receiver. These fibres are not only stretchable but also conduct electricity...

Illustration of a cycloparaphenylene, or nanohoop, that has been doped with nitrogen atoms. Research in the University of Oregon lab of Ramesh Jasti has shown the combination of nitrogen and carbon atoms extends the potential efficiency and capabilities of such structures. Credit: Courtesy of Ramesh Jasti

While application is down the road, these tiny organic circular structures could be used in solar cells, light-emitting diodes and medical diagnostics. When scientists began making tiny organic circular structures using carbon atoms, the idea was to improve carbon nanotubes for use in electronics or optical devices. Now they believe this technique might roll solo. Researchers now show that these cycloparaphenylenes can be made using a variety of atoms, not just those from carbon.

These ba...