Lifeboat Foundation

When electricity flows through a battery, the materials inside it gradually wear down. The physical forces of stress and strain also play a role in this process, but their exact effects on the battery’s performance and lifespan are not completely known.

A team led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a framework for designing solid-state batteries, or SSBs, with mechanics in mind. Their paper, published in Science, reviewed how these factors change SSBs during their cycling.

A single strand of fiber developed at Washington State University has the flexibility of cotton and the electric conductivity of a polymer, called polyaniline.

The newly developed material showed good potential for wearable e-textiles. The WSU researchers tested the fibers with a system that powered an LED light and another that sensed ammonia gas, detailing their findings in the journal Carbohydrate Polymers.

“We have one fiber in two sections: one section is the conventional cotton: flexible and strong enough for everyday use, and the other side is the conductive material,” said Hang Liu, WSU textile researcher and the study’s corresponding author. “The cotton can support the conductive material which can provide the needed function.”

“This architecture means Australia could develop its own sovereign chip manufacturing without exclusively relying on international foundries for the value-add process.”

Researchers at the University of Sydney Nano Institute have introduced a compact silicon semiconductor chip that seamlessly integrates electronics with photonic components. The innovation promises to significantly expand radio-frequency (RF) bandwidth and the ability to accurately control information flowing within the chip.

The chip, built using cutting-edge silicon photonics technology, boasts integration capabilities for diverse systems on semiconductors less than 5 millimeters wide. Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Ben Eggleton described the process as akin to assembling Lego building blocks, where new materials are integrated through advanced packaging of electronic ‘chiplets’, in a statement.

Continue reading “Sydney researchers debut new lego-style chip with enhanced bandwidth” »

The tool uses first-principle calculations to arrive at material behavior in a few thousand steps rather than a million possibilities.

How well did the system perform?

The researchers have not yet put the system under extensive analysis but have seen some encouraging results in the limited cases so far.

Continue reading “MIT developed ML-tool for material prediction beats human wisdom” »

The mainstay material of electronics is now yielding better energy storage.

This surprising result is important for understanding unconventional superconductors and other materials where electrons band together to act collectively.

Long before researchers discovered the electron and its role in generating electrical current, they knew about electricity and were exploring its potential. One thing they learned early on was that metals were great conductors of both electricity and heat.

Discovery of the Wiedemann-Franz Law.

AI coding assistants are here to stay—but just how big a difference they make is still unclear.

Two weeks into the coding class he was teaching at Duke University in North Carolina this spring, Noah Gift told his students to throw out the course materials he’d given them.

SUMMARY: A soft robot with octopus-inspired sensory and motion capabilities represents significant progress in robotics, offering nimbleness and adaptability in uncertain environments.

Robotic engineers have made a leap forward with the development of a soft robot that closely resembles the dynamic movements and sensory prowess of an octopus. This groundbreaking innovation from an international collaboration involving Beihang University, Tsinghua University, and the National University of Singapore has the potential to redefine how robots interact with the world around them.

The blueprint for this highly adaptable robot draws upon the intelligent, soft-bodied mechanics of an octopus, enabling smooth movements across a variety of surfaces and environments with precision. The sensorized soft arm, lovingly named the electronics-integrated soft octopus arm mimic (E-SOAM), embodies advancements in soft robotics with its incorporation of elastic materials and sophisticated liquid metal circuits that remain resilient under extreme deformation.

The gel demonstrated an adsorption capacity of about six times its weight in humid conditions and 90 percent of this water could be recovered.

In arid areas, vapor from the air is the only option but needs an inexpensive and scalable technique to produce large amounts of water.