dendrites tagged posts

One of the brain’s most celebrated qualities is its adaptability. Changes to neural circuits, whose connections are continually adjusted as we experience and interact with the world, are key to how we learn. But to keep knowledge and memories intact, some parts of the circuitry must be resistant to this constant change.

“Brains have figured out how to navigate this landscape of balancing between stability and flexibility, so that you can have new learning and you can have lifelon...

Researchers demonstrate a solution to a 40-year problem. A stable, lithium-metal solid state battery has been designed that can be charged and discharged at least 10000X — far more cycles than have been previously demonstrated — at a high current density. The battery technology could increase the lifetime of electric vehicles to that of the gasoline cars — 10 to 15 years — without the need to replace the battery...

New findings may help unleash the potential of high-powered, solid-electrolyte lithium batteries. A new approach could help solve the longstanding problem of dendrite formation, which has hampered the development of new solid-state lithium-ion batteries.

As researchers push the boundaries of battery design, seeking to pack ever greater amounts of power and energy into a given amount of space or weight, one of the more promising technologies being studied is lithium-ion batteries that use a solid electrolyte material between the two electrodes, rather than the typical liquid.

But such batteries have been plagued by a tendency for branch-like projections of metal called dendrites to form on one of the electrodes, eventually bridging the electrolyte and shorting out the battery cel...

Stanford engineers created arrays of silicon nanocones to trap sunlight and improve the performance of solar cells made of bismuth vanadate (1μm=1,000 nanometers). Credit: Wei Chen and Yongcai Qiu, Stanford

A Stanford University lab has developed new technologies to tackle 2 of the world’s large energy challenges: clean fuel for transportation and grid-scale energy storage. Although H-cars are emission-free, making hydrogen fuel, however, is not emission free: today, making most H fuel involves natural gas in a process releasing CO2 into the atmosphere.

To address the problem, Cui and his colleagues have focused on photovoltaic water splitting which consists of a solar-powered electrode immersed in water...