Technology News

Rice scientists build battery in a nanowire
Friday, July 29, 2011 - 13:38

The Rice lab of Professor Pulickel Ajayan has packed an entire lithium ion energy storage device into a single nanowire, as reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The researchers believe their creation is as small as such devices can possibly get, and could be valuable as a rechargeable power source for new generations of nanoelectronics.

Read more
'Wonder material' graphene tapped for electronic memory devices
Friday, July 29, 2011 - 10:00

Hailed as the new "wonder material," graphene is being tapped by an international research team to help overcome issues associated with increasing the storage density and speed of electronic memory devices.

Read more
Solar cells get a boost from bouncing light
Friday, July 29, 2011 - 09:56

A new twist on an old solar cell design sends light ricocheting through layers of microscopic spheres, increasing its electricity-generating potential by 26 percent.

Read more
Southampton engineers fly the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft
Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 09:59

Engineers at the University of Southampton have designed and flown the world’s first ‘printed’ aircraft, which could revolutionise the economics of aircraft design.  The SULSA (Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft) plane is an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) whose entire structure has been printed, including wings, integral control surfaces and access hatches. It was printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine, which fabricates plastic or metal objects, building up the item layer by layer.
 

Read more
OSU pigment discovery expanding to new colors – including orange
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 16:16

Chemists at Oregon State University have discovered that the same crystal structure they identified two years ago to create what may be the world’s best blue pigment can also be used with different elements to create other colors, with significant potential in the paint and pigment industries.

Read more
Devices Based on Piezoelectric Nanowires Create New Form of Memory
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 09:00

Taking advantage of the unique properties of zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have demonstrated a new type of piezoelectric resistive switching device in which the write-read access of memory cells is controlled by electromechanical modulation. Operating on flexible substrates, arrays of these devices could provide a new way to interface the mechanical actions of the biological world to conventional electronic circuitry.

Read more