Notable & Newsworthy

December 2016

Xenon ions impacting a highly-charged graphene film caused electrons to be stripped from the spot

Graphene handles more current than expected

An international research team headed by Professor Fritz Aumayr from the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien has demonstrated that the electrons in graphene are very mobile and react very rapidly. Impacting xenon ions with a particularly high electric charge on a graphene film causes a huge quantity of electr

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Date:

12/28/2016

Fully-functioning in-lab “Beta Core” energy storage system

Ambri achieves milestone in liquid-metal batteries for grid-level storage

Ambri, a developer of novel Liquid Metal Battery grid-scale energy storage technology, announced that it has completed the first testing period of its fully-functioning in-lab “Beta Core” energy storage system, which provides 20 kWh of energy storage with a peak capacity of 6 kW and contains 432 cells. The co

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Date:

12/23/2016

Exeter has developed a new method for creating entire device arrays directly on the copper substrates

Novel production method could accelerate graphene development

A team of engineers from Exeter’s Centre for Graphene Science have developed a new method for creating entire device arrays directly on the copper substrates used for the commercial manufacture of graphene. Complete and fully-functional devices can then be transferred to a substrate of choice, such as silicon, pl

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Date:

12/21/2016

Portions of the BiFeO3 lattice of cycloidal and collinear phases with only Fe ions are shown at left and right, respectively. The arrows indicate the Fe3+ moment direction. The ground state of BiFeO3 had a cycloidal spin structure, which is destabilized by substitution of Co for Fe and at higher temperatures. The spin magnetic moments compensate with each other in the left panel, but canting between neighboring spins leads to the appearance of weak ferromagnetism in the left panel.

Novel material with ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism may lead to better memory

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have demonstrated that ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism coexist at room temperature in thin films of bismuth-iron-cobalt oxide. The research could have implications in the next generation of computer memory and sensors. Traditional computer memory, k

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Date:

12/20/2016

A glass ceramic membrane, coated with aluminum and plastic, allows only lithium ions to pass through. It is impermeable to all other components of the electrolyte fluid

Battery research reaching out to higher voltages

For years, small rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have reliably supplied billions of portable devices with energy. But manufacturers of high-energy applications such as electric cars and power storage systems seek for new electrode materials and electrolytes. Michael Metzger, researcher at the Technical University of

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Date:

12/19/2016

Chinese electric car startup NextEV claims its NIO EP9 model is the world's fastest electric car

China's NextEV faster than Tesla?

John McIlroy, CNN

It's not often that a start-up can claim to be a world-beater from the off. But that's precisely what's happening in the auto industry, where Chinese unknown NextEV has launched what it claims is the world's fastest electric car. Pure-electric cars have been around for decades but only in the past five years or

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Date:

12/12/2016

Schematic illustrating for the fabrication of painted thermoelectric devices.

Thermoelectric paint harvests energy from almost any heat

Joo Hyeon Heo

A new study, led by Professor Jae Sung Son of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST has succeeded in developing a new technique that can be used to turn industrial waste heat into electricity for vehicles and other applications. In their study, the team presented a new type of high-performance thermoele

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Date:

12/12/2016

Breakthrough reveals novel alternative to batteries

Ground-breaking research from the University of Surrey and Augmented Optics, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, has developed potentially transformational technology which could revolutionise the capabilities of appliances that have previously relied on battery power to work. This development by Augmen

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Date:

12/08/2016

NREL scientist Matt Reese holds a substrate with the solar cells removed to minimize the weight of the solar cell

Lightening soldiers' loads with flexible PV cells

Two thousand years ago, Roman legionnaires lugged 100-pound packs into battle. A lot has changed since then, but technology hasn't really reduced an infantryman's load. On the battlefield, mobility is critical—but a typical, modern Marine may shoulder an 80-pound backpack containing 20 pounds of back-up batteries for

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Date:

12/07/2016

Imec shows first vertically-stacked gate-all-around Si nanowire CMOS transistors

Leading research and innovation hub for nano-electronics and digital technology, imec, reported for the first time the CMOS integration of vertically stacked gate-all-around (GAA) silicon nanowire MOSFETs. Key in the integration scheme is a dual-work-function metal gate enabling matched threshold voltages for th

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Date:

12/06/2016

Trench gate IGBT schematic indicating the mesa width (S), gate length (Lg), and the oxide thickness in the MOSFET (tox), cell pitch (W), and the trench depth (DT).

Tokyo Tech researchers unveil 3D energy-saving silicon power transistor

Tokyo Tech researchers demonstrate operation energy-savings in a low price silicon power transistor structure by scaling down in all three dimensions. In electronics, lower power consumption leads to operation cost savings, environmental benefits and the convenience advantages from longer running devices.

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Date:

12/05/2016