Archive for the ‘materials’ category: Page 207
Oct 18, 2016
Graphene and Quantum Dots Come Together to Create “Hybrid” Tech
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: materials, quantum physics
In Brief:
This new development in photoelectronics makes the technology more cost (and quantum) efficient. This opens ways for graphene to be further integrated in the field of photoelectronics.
EICREA professors Frank Koppens and Gerasimos Konstantatos led researchers in the ICFO in developing a hybrid photodetector that is better-performing in terms of speed, accuracy and range, and operates in the visible spectrum, near infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR), with wavelengths ranging from 400 to 3000 nm.
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Interesting!
An antimatter probe to a nearby star? The idea holds enormous appeal, given the colossal energies obtained when normal matter annihilates in contact with its antimatter equivalent. But as we’ve seen through the years on Centauri Dreams, such energies are all but impossible to engineer. Antimatter production is infinitesimal, the by-product of accelerators designed with a much different agenda. Moreover, antimatter storage is hellishly difficult, so that maintaining large quantities in a stable condition requires multiple breakthroughs.
All of which is why I became interested in the work Gerald Jackson and Steve Howe were doing at Hbar Technologies. Howe, in fact, became a key source when I put together the original book from which this site grew. This was back in 2002–2003, and I was captivated with the idea of what could be called an ‘antimatter sail.’ The idea, now part of a new Kickstarter campaign being launched by Jackson and Howe, is to work with mere milligrams of antimatter, allowing antiprotons to be released from the spacecraft into a uranium-enriched, five-meter sail.
Oct 8, 2016
Print-on-demand bone could quickly mend major injuries
Posted by Steve Hill in category: materials
Oct 7, 2016
Glow-in-the-dark bike path lights the way in Poland
Posted by Shane Hinshaw in categories: innovation, materials
Two years ago, Studio Roosegaarde created a glow-in-the-dark bike path in Eindhoven, Netherlands, helping to light the route in a exciting way. Inspired by that, a materials technology center in Lidzbark Warminski, Poland, has followed suit, with equally dazzling results.
The materials tech center, TPA Gesellschaft für Qualitätssicherung und Innovation (TPAQI), tells New Atlas that it first drew attention to the Eindhoven bike path at a local road forum event. The underlying concept was floated as a potential option for creating something that would reflect the beauty of the surrounding landscape.
Work began about a year ago, with lab tests into how the glowing effect would be created. A variety of different materials and colors were tested, with the aim of creating something that would both look great and that would increase safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
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Oct 5, 2016
New Shock-Absorbing Material Could Help Robots Take a Real Beating
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: materials, robotics/AI
The technique involves embedding different levels of solid and liquid in order to customize the elasticity. Adding more liquid makes the material softer and more elastic. This technique allows the printer to exactly customize the elasticity of the print, and even of different areas within the print.
These programmable materials can help reduce wear and tear on moving parts by damping shocks and reducing vibrations. They can also help make robots easier to control by making movements more precise. This method could even have other applications such as in shock-absorbing running shoes and headgear.
Source: MIT News
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Oct 5, 2016
A nerve agent antidote that could be taken before an attack
Posted by Karen Hurst in category: materials
Nerve agents are molecular weapons that invade the body and sabotage part of the nervous system, causing horrific symptoms and sometimes death within minutes. Few antidotes exist, and those that do must be administered soon after an attack. But now scientists report in the journal ACS Nano an early-stage development of a potential treatment that soldiers or others could take before such agents are unleashed.
One particular antidote, an enzyme called organophosphorus acid anhydrolase (OPAA), has attracted attention recently for its ability to break down nerve agents. But the body’s immune system gets rid of it quickly. Packaging the enzyme in liposome nanocarriers gives the antidote greater staying power, but handling and storing the liposomes is complicated. So Omar K. Farha and colleagues wanted to make a potentially simpler carrier.
For a material, the researchers turned to porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of hybrid materials made of metallic ions and organic ligands that are easy to store and handle at room temperature. They used a zirconium-based MOF and loaded it with the antidote. Testing showed the MOF-encapsulated enzyme was even more effective at breaking down the nerve agent simulant diisopropyl fluorophosphate and the nerve agent soman than the antidote by itself.
Oct 2, 2016
Split-Ring Resonators Add to SIW Bandpass Filter
Posted by Karen Hurst in category: materials
Nice read.
When square CSRR cells were cascaded (Fig. 12), a compact SIW circuit was achieved with bandpass response, with low return and insertion losses from 7.2 to 10.0 GHz. This compact bandpass filter has dimensions of 34 × 18 mm2 and is formed from three cascaded CSRR cells. It was simulated from 4 to 10 GHz with simulated results of −33.1-dB minimum return loss and 0.3-DB insertion loss at 8.8 GHz (Fig. 13).
The miniature CSRR-loaded SIW bandpass filter shows reasonable insertion and return losses from 7.2 to 9.8 GHz. This technology, of fabricating CSRR cells with SIW transmission lines on low-loss microwave substrate materials, shows great promise for the creation of compact bandpass filters at microwave frequencies.
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Sep 26, 2016
Plans for Belarusian-Russian laser technology R&D center
Posted by Karen Hurst in categories: food, materials
The new Belarusian-Russian R&D center for laser technologies is supposed to open in Minsk. The center will take care of the most important and new practical applications of laser technologies, said Sergei Bagayev. The scope of research will vary from agricultural applications to using lasers for the advanced processing of oil products to get modern materials.