Collecting energy from environmental waste heat such as that lost from the human body is an attractive prospect to power small electronics sustainably. A thermocell is a type of energy-harvesting device that converts environmental heat into electricity through the thermal charging effect.
Lire la suiteEvery age in the history of human civilisation has a signature material, from the Stone Age, to the Bronze and Iron Ages. We might even call today’s information-driven society the Silicon Age.
Since the 1960s, silicon nanostructures, the building-blocks of microchips, have supercharged the development of electronics, communications, manufacturing, medicine, and more.
Biosensors integrated into smartphones, smart watches, and other gadgets are about to become a reality. In a paper featured on the cover of the January issue of Sensors (« Vertically Coupled Plasmonic Racetrack Ring Resonator for Biosensor Applications »), researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology describe a way to increase the sensitivity of biological detectors to the point where they can be used in mobile and wearable devices. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation.
Lire la suiteToday, nanoparticles are not only in cosmetic products, but everywhere, in the air, in water, in the soil and in food. Because they are so tiny, they easily enter into the cells in our body. This is also of interest for medical applications: Nanoparticles coated with active ingredients could be specifically introduced into cells, for example to destroy cancer cells.
Lire la suiteResearchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and the University of Duisburg-Essen have developed a new method of depositing catalyst particles to tiny electrodes. It is inexpensive, simple and quick to perform.
Lire la suiteComputers process information based on arrays of so-called bits. Each bit can take the values of one or zero. This is typically realized with integrated electronic circuits permanently written onto a semiconductor chip.
Lire la suiteCopper has been essential to human technology since its early days–it was even used to make tools and weapons in ancient times. It is widely used even today, especially in electronic devices that require wiring.
Lire la suiteResearchers have reported a black phosphorus transistor that can be used as an alternative ultra-low power switch. A research team led by Professor Sungjae Cho in the KAIST Department of Physics developed a thickness-controlled black phosphorous tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) that shows 10-times lower switching power consumption as well as 10,000-times lower standby power consumption than conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors.
Lire la suiteDrs. Chaun Jang, Jun Woo Choi, and Hyejin Ryu of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Lee Byung Gwon) have announced that their team at KIST’s Center for Spintronics successfully controlled the magnetic properties of FGT (Fe3GeTe2).
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