Industry News

May 2018
Los Angeles, CA – Symmetry Electronics was named North American Regional Distributor of the Year at Digi’s Global IoT Conference on May 22, 2018. As an authorized distributor of Digi products, Symmetry Electronics provides a focused and curated line card with ready-to-ship inventory for its global customer
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Date:
05/31/2018
Less is More When it Comes to Predicting Molecules' Conductivity

UChicago grad student Manas Sajjan, left, and prof. David Mazziotti, hold a model depicting a molecule on which they tested a better approach for predicting conductivity.

The smaller and smarter that phones and devices become, the greater the need to build smaller circuits. Forward-thinking scientists in the 1970s suggested that circuits could be built using molecules instead of wires, and over the past decades that technology has become reality. The trouble is, some molecules
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Date:
05/31/2018
Paving The Way For Safer, Smaller Batteries And Fuel Cells

The researchers' new structure self-assembles into hairpin shapes, resulting in acid-lined channels that allow for efficient transport of protons across the electrolyte.

Fuel cells and batteries provide electricity by generating and coaxing positively charged ions from a positive to a negative terminal which frees negatively charged electrons to power cellphones, cars, satellites, or whatever else they are connected to. A critical part of these devices is the barrier between th
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Date:
05/31/2018
Building Nanomaterials For Next-Generation Computing

Nanoscientists at Northwestern University have developed a blueprint to fabricate new heterostructures from different types of 2-D materials. The researchers describe their blueprint in the Journal of Applied Physics. In this image: Top: Vertical MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructure, radial MoS2-WS2 heterostructure, hybrid MoS2-WS2 heterostructure and Mose2-WSe2 alloy building block representations and crystal structure models Bottom: Vertical MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructure crystal structure model

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 30, 2018 -- Nanoscientists at Northwestern University have developed a blueprint to fabricate new heterostructures from different types of 2-D materials. 2-D materials are single atom layers that can be stacked together like "nano-interlocking building blocks." Materials scientists an
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Date:
05/30/2018
Better, Faster, Stronger: Building Batteries That Don't Go Boom

The diamond-tipped probe Herbert and Hackney use for their research is incredibly sensitive and must be housed in a compartment that muffles any sort of vibrations.

There's an old saying: "You must learn to walk before you learn to run." Despite such wisdom, numerous industries skip the basics and sign up for marathons instead, including the battery industry. Lithium ion batteries hold incredible promise for improved storage capacity, but they are volatile. We've all h
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Date:
05/29/2018
Graphene Layered With Magnetic Materials Could Drive Ultrathin Spintronics

Andreas Schmid, left, and Gong Chen are pictured here with the spin-polarized low-energy electron microscopy (SPLEEM) instrument at Berkeley Lab. The instrument was integral to measurements of ultrathin samples that included graphene and magnetic materials.

Researchers working at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) coupled graphene, a monolayer form of carbon, with thin layers of magnetic materials like cobalt and nickel to produce exotic behavior in electrons that could be useful for next-generation computing applications. The work was p
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Date:
05/29/2018
It's a whole new way of thinking about sensors. The tiny fibers developed at EPFL are made of elastomer and can incorporate materials like electrodes and nanocomposite polymers. The fibers can detect even the slightest pressure and strain and can withstand deformation of close to 500% before recovering their ini
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Date:
05/25/2018
Indigenous Communities Moving Away From Government Utilities
Indigenous communities are rejecting non-indigenous energy projects in favour of community-led sustainable energy infrastructure. The switch has led to some improvements in economic and social development as well as capacity-building for self-governance, according to a study from the University of Waterloo.
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Date:
05/25/2018
DALLAS, TX -- Orion Fans honored Digi-Key Electronics, a global electronic components distributor, with a 2017 Top Distributor of the Year award at EDS 2018 in Las Vegas, NV for largest volume increase. The Golden Fan Awards are presented annually to the distributors with the best sales growth. John Knight, Presid
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Date:
05/24/2018
Could a Particle Accelerator Using Laser-Driven Implosion Become a Reality?

This is a schematic view of a bubble implosion, which is an envisioned picture showing the whole main events integrated, i.e., laser illumination, hot electron spread, implosion, and proton flash.

Laser pulse compression technology invented in the late 1980s developed high-power short-pulse laser techniques, enhancing laser intensity 10-million-fold in a quarter of a century. Scientists at Osaka University discovered a novel particle acceleration mechanism called 'Micro-bubble implosion,' in which super
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Date:
05/24/2018
Silicon Breakthrough Could Make Key Microwave Technology Much Cheaper And Better
Researchers using powerful supercomputers have found a way to generate microwaves with inexpensive silicon, a breakthrough that could dramatically cut costs and improve devices such as sensors in self-driving vehicles. "Until now, this was considered impossible," said C.R. Selvakumar, an engineeri
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Date:
05/24/2018
Atomic-Scale Manufacturing Now a Reality
Scientists at the University of Alberta have applied a machine learning technique using artificial intelligence to perfect and automate atomic-scale manufacturing, something which has never been done before. The vastly greener, faster, smaller technology enabled by this development greatly reduces impact on th
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Date:
05/23/2018
Beyond the Limits of Conventional Electronics: Stable Organic Molecular Nanowires

(a) Molecular structure of the COPV6(SH)2 molecule. (b) Top and cross-sectional views of an ELGP nanogap electrode. (c) Different ways in which the molecule binds with the nanogap. The thermally stable device is obtained when the first type of binding (SAuSH) occurs.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology created the first thermally stable organic molecular nanowire devices using a single 4.5-nm-long molecule placed inside electroless gold-plated nanogap electrodes. The traditional methods and materials used for the fabrication of modern integrated circuits are close
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Date:
05/23/2018
Columbia Researchers Squeeze Light Into Nanoscale Devices and Circuits

The best pictorial representation of a surface plasmon polariton is in terms of a 'ripple' of electron density on the surface of graphene sample.

New York, NY--As electronic devices and circuits shrink into the nanoscale, the ability to transfer data on a chip, at low power with little energy loss, is becoming a critical challenge. Over the past decade, squeezing light into tiny devices and circuits has been a major goal of nanophotonics researchers. El
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Date:
05/23/2018
Appending Triphenyltriazine to 1,10-Phenanthroline

The green phosphorescent OLED that contained the doped electron-transport layer TRZ-m-Phen:Liq showed high efficiency and operational stability.

There has been an increasing demand for high-performant and cost-effective organic electron-transport materials for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The design of a desirable electron-transport material may present a demanding challenge since many factors and the complex trade-offs therein have to be taken in
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Date:
05/23/2018
Non-Plasma High-Speed Anisotropic Diamond Etching With Nickel in 1000°C Water Vapor

Left: A single crystal diamond with a hole that is perforated by the high-rate etching technique. Center: Single crystal diamond wafer with regular trench structures produced by the anisotropic etching technique. Right: Top view of such a trench structure and a schematic image of its cross-section.

World energy consumption has been increasing year by year, and a global-scale energy shortage is of great concern. Because of this reason, it is important to use the energy (electricity) produced by power generation even more efficiently, the key to which is the development of power devices*1) that control the el
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Date:
05/22/2018
Power to the People

University of Utah electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Masood Parvania has received a $2 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to build a new laboratory and develop technology that would help communities get their power back online faster in the wake of a natural disaster or cyberattack.

Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico last September, which left nearly all the island's 3.4 million residents without power, is one of the most frightening scenarios for a metropolis: A natural disaster or cyberattack wipes out a city's power grid. But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering
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Date:
05/22/2018
Advanced Biofuels can be Produced Extremely Efficiently, Confirms Industrial Demonstration

The combustion boiler in the Chalmers Power Central was converted to a gasifier in 2007. Since then, more than 200 man-years of research have been devoted to gasification technology. The power central produces district heating and cooling that covers Chalmers University of Technologys' entire needs. The first boilers in the power central were built in 1947.

A chance to switch to renewable sources for heating, electricity and fuel, while also providing new opportunities for several industries to produce large numbers of renewable products. This is the verdict of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, who now, after ten years of energy research in
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Date:
05/21/2018
Leading-Edge Energy Storage Technology Concept

The FLASC prototype deployed in Dockyard Creek in Malta's Grand Barbour.

Project FLASC (Floating Liquid-piston Accumulator using Seawater under Compression) is a novel and leading edge energy storage technology concept. The FLASC prototype consists of a dual-vessel compressed air energy storage system. One pressure vessel mounted on a concrete gravity anchor is placed on the se
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Date:
05/21/2018
Hotstick USA Licenses ORNL Direct-Current Detector for Emergency Responder Safety

ORNL inventors Bruce Warmack, left, and Nance Ericson display an early prototype of the DC hotstick.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - North Carolina-based Hotstick USA has exclusively licensed a direct-current detector technology developed by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help emergency responders safely detect high voltages. In emergency situations, first response teams often rely on voltage
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Date:
05/21/2018
Flexible, Highly Efficient Multimodal Energy Harvesting

A 10-fold increase in the ability to harvest mechanical and thermal energy over standard piezoelectric composites may be possible using a piezoelectric ceramic foam supported by a flexible polymer support, according to Penn State researchers.

A 10-fold increase in the ability to harvest mechanical and thermal energy over standard piezoelectric composites may be possible using a piezoelectric ceramic foam supported by a flexible polymer support, according to Penn State researchers. In the search for ways to harvest small amounts of energy to run mo
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Date:
05/21/2018
Porous Materials Make it Possible to Have Nanotechnology Under Control

This is an image of the porous material studied in this paper.

Half metal, half organic structure, like Robocop himself, is the material known as MOF, short for Metal Organic Framework. MOF has been developed by scientists and applied to a myriad of products from sorbents to batteries for electronic devices. This material emerged from the nanotechnology revolution that tu
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Date:
05/17/2018
Bitcoin's burgeoning electricity demands have attracted almost as much attention as the cryptocurrency's wildly fluctuating value. But estimating exactly how much electricity the Bitcoin network uses, necessary for understanding its impact and implementing policy, remains a challenge. In the first rigorously peer
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Date:
05/17/2018
LaFox, IL – Richardson Electronics, Ltd. announced a new distribution agreement with Fuji Electric Corp of America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. The agreement aligns with both companies’ commitment to providing unsurpassed value to customers. Richardson Electronics is a global ch
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Date:
05/17/2018
Main Regularities of Thermal Expansion and Thermal Stability of Layered Ferroelectrics Established

During the transition to the paraelectric state, the compounds' linear parameters increase more evenly throughout the bulk of the material. This information is important for predicting the behavior of the material under specified operating conditions.

The scientists of the Lobachevsky University and the Institute of Low Temperatures and Structural Research in Wroclaw (Poland) conducted unique studies of oscillation properties using modern methods of optical spectroscopy. Bismuth-containing layered perovskites, first described by Aurivillius, have recently
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Date:
05/16/2018
A New Method For Studying Semiconductor Nanoparticles Has Been Tested
A team from Siberian Federal University and Kirensky Institute of Physics (Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences) applied a new method to study nanoparticles made of cadmium telluride (CdTe). They used a peculiar feature of this compound: its interaction with light differs depending on the magnetic fi
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Date:
05/15/2018
Vladimir Mostepanenko, Chief Research Associate of KFU Cosmology Lab and Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, explains, "Despite graphene layers' extremely small width, it has proven to be a firm material which conducts electricity even under zero temperatures when density of charge carriers also equals zero. But
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Date:
05/15/2018
European Cities Soon to be Ready for Autonomous Vehicles

This is the autonomous vehicle Navya Arma (model DL4) acquired by the Transports publics genevois (tpg) in August 2017.

Autonomous vehicles promise to be the next revolution in public transport. They should find their first users in suburban areas, which are less well served by traditional transportation networks. But for these new services to develop, we must first identify the needs and motivations of their future users and be
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Date:
05/14/2018
Frequency-Stable Laser Systems for Space

Used to demonstrate the first optical frequency standard based on molecular iodine in space.

For the first time a frequency reference based on molecular iodine was successfully demonstrated in space! What sounds a bit like science fiction is an important step towards laser interferometric distance measurements between satellites as well as for future global navigation satellite systems based on optical te
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Date:
05/14/2018
Lignin -- A Supergreen Fuel for Fuel Cells

Researchers from the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University have developed a fuel cell that uses lignin, a cheap by-product from paper manufacture and one of the most common biopolymers.

Researchers from the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University have developed a fuel cell that uses lignin, a cheap by-product from paper manufacture and one of the most common biopolymers. Approximately 25% of a tree is lignin - a biopolymer that glues the cellulose fibres together to form s
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Date:
05/14/2018
Scientists Discover how a Pinch of Salt can Improve Battery Performance

When the MOF is carbonised it transforms into a nano-diatom, much like a dragon egg turns into a fire-born dragon after fire treatment in Game of Thrones.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London, University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research have discovered how a pinch of salt can be used to drastically improve the performance of batteries. They found that adding salt to the inside of a supermolecular sponge and then baking it
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Date:
05/14/2018
Waterloo Chemists Create Faster and More Efficient Way to Process Information

This is professor Pavle Radovanovic in front of the magnetic circular dichroism system used in this study.

University of Waterloo chemists have found a much faster and more efficient way to store and process information by expanding the limitations of how the flow of electricity can be used and managed. In a recently released study, the chemists discovered that light can induce magnetization in certain semicondu
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Date:
05/11/2018
Bubbly Graphene: How Cool or Hot Are You?

Bubbles form when molecules are trapped between the graphene sheet and the silica (SiO2/Si) substrate. The image shows also the hottest spot in red, which corresponds to the highest part of the bubble.

A team of researchers at the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have measured and controlled the temperature of individual graphene bubbles with a single laser beam for the first time. The study is now available from Physical Review Letters. The highly elastic and
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Date:
05/10/2018
TDK Corporation announced that TDK acquired Faraday Semi LLC, a U.S.-based venture-backed company engaged in the design of advanced power semiconductor ICs. Faraday Semi is now a wholly owned subsidiary of TDK. Faraday Semi, based in California, USA, is a fast-growing semiconductor company with innovations in system
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Date:
05/09/2018
Hawthorne, CA – Symmetry Electronics has moved its inventory warehouse from Los Angeles, CA to Fort Worth, TX. to consolidate distribution operations with the TTI family of companies. The move allows Symmetry to better accommodate customers with expanded inventory and improved warehouse capacity. Symmetry is excited to share TTI’
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Date:
05/08/2018
Europe Aims to Become a World-Class Commercializer of Fuel Cell Technology
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is coordinating a five-year European consortium worth more than EUR 10 million, which is developing commercial applications from SOFC fuel cell technology. The aim is to implement the reliable production of low-emission electricity and heat, which will lead to significant ef
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Date:
05/07/2018
Chemists Develop MRI-Like Technique to Detect What Ails Batteries

A team of chemists has developed an MRI-based technique that can quickly diagnose what ails certain types of batteries -- from determining how much charge remains to detecting internal defects -- without opening them up. Above is an illustration of measurement setup showing the cell and the holder with the detection medium (water in this case), and (d) showing both inserted within the magnet bore of an NMR magnet.

A team of chemists has developed an MRI-based technique that can quickly diagnose what ails certain types of batteries--from determining how much charge remains to detecting internal defects--without opening them up. "The use of alternative energy and electrically powered vehicles will further increase
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Date:
05/03/2018
Morphing Twisted Nanoscale Objects to Tailor Applications in Future Technologies

An impression of a chiral molecule moving through various configurations as it transitions from one handedness to another.

For the first time scientists have created a way to model the interaction between light and twisted molecules, as these molecules transition from left- to right-handed versions, or vice versa. The transitional forms offer a deeper insight into material symmetries and their unexpected behaviour could lead to im
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Date:
05/03/2018
NUS Engineers Invent Smart Microchip That Can Self-Start And Operate When Battery Runs Out

BATLESS, a smart microchip developed by a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Massimo Alioto (center) from National University of Singapore's Faculty of Engineering, can self-start and continue to operate even when the battery runs out of energy. This novel technology could enable smaller and cheaper Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The Internet of Things (IoT), while still in its infancy, is shaping the future of many industries and will also impact our daily lives in significant ways. One of the key challenges of moving IoT devices from concept to reality is to have long-lasting operation under tightly constrained energy sources, thus de
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Date:
05/03/2018
Energy Recovery of Urban Waste
According to data from the European agency EUROSTAT, 13 of the 28 countries in the EU are still dumping more than 50% of their solid urban waste. These are mainly the member states situated in the south and east of the continent. Spain is seventh last in this list, with a dumping level of 251kg per person per ye
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Date:
05/02/2018
A Novel Voltage Peak in the Metal Nanowire-Superconductor Hybrid Structure

Non-local transport measurements reveal a novel voltage peak at superconducting transition temperature in gold nanowire with superconducting W electrodes. The voltage peak appears when cooling the sample across Tc, while the peak turns into dip in the warming process. Upper inset, a scanning electron microscope image of Au nanowire contacted by two superconducting W compound electrodes in the middle and two normal Pt electrodes at the ends. Lower inset, configuration of electrodes. In fact, the detected peak is irrelevant to the current, and similar phenomena can be observed even in the absence of current.

Superconductivity, known as a quantum state with zero resistance and perfect diamagnetism, has attracted great attention in physical science. Due to the quantum size effect, low dimensional superconducting systems can exhibit novel behaviors different from bulk situation. Particularly, the investigations on st
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Date:
05/02/2018
Nanodiamond Turns Into Controllable Light Source

The scheme of obtained active nanodiamond antenna.

A research group from ITMO University developed a controlled light source based on nanodiamond for the first time in the world. Experiments have shown that diamond shell doubles the emission speed light sources and helps to control them without any additional nano- and microstructures. This was achieved due to
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Date:
05/02/2018
New Solar PV Tool Accurately Calculates Degradation Rates, Saving Money and Guiding Business
How long a product can be expected to perform at a high level is a fundamental indication of quality and durability. In the solar industry, accurately predicting the longevity of photovoltaic (PV) panels is essential to increase energy production, lower costs, and raise investor and consumer confidence. A new so
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Date:
05/01/2018
A Surprising New Superconductor
Last September, CIRES chemist and instrument designer Don David and colleagues Dave Pappas and Xian Wu at the National Institute of Standards and Technology discovered a powerful new plated metal combination that superconducts at easily attained temperatures--paving the road for the next critical steps in the de
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Date:
05/01/2018
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