National University of Singapore (NUS) physicists have discovered that recovered carbon black powder can be transformed by laser treatment to give a wide range of colors for potential display applications. Recovered carbon black powder is a common pigment produced from scrap rubber tires. There is a growing demand to use it as an environmentally friendly…

National University of Singapore scientists have taken inspiration from underwater invertebrates like jellyfish to create an electronic skin with similar functionality. Just like a jellyfish, the electronic skin is transparent, stretchable, touch-sensitive, and self-healing in aquatic environments. It can be used in everything from water-resistant touchscreens to aquatic soft robots. The team, led by NUS…

Researchers from the Green IC research group at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have invented a low-cost ‘battery-less’ wake-up timer — in the form of an on-chip circuit — that significantly reduces power consumption of silicon chips for Internet of Things (IoT) sensor nodes. The novel wake-up timer by the NUS team demonstrates for…

A lack of quality control in the graphene market has led to inferior products being touted as high-grade, so now a National University of Singapore research team has developed a reliable way to test graphene quality Ever since the isolation of graphene was first achieved in 2004, there has been an explosion in graphene-related research…

National University of Singapore scientists have developed design guidelines that increase the catalytic effectiveness of graphene-based solid state catalysts for potential industry applications. Catalysts are widely used in the chemical industry to make manufacturing processes more efficient and economical. This is achieved by providing an alternative pathway for the synthesis of chemicals and compounds. Graphene-based…

The Centre for Advanced Two-Dimensional Materials (CA2DM) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has teamed up with US-based aerospace company Boreal Space to test the properties of graphene after it has been launched into the stratosphere. The results could provide insights into how graphene could be used for space and satellite technologies. “Graphene’s usefulness…

National University of Singapore researchers have discovered a simple and effective method to produce a large area pseudo-magnetic field (PMF) on graphene, and demonstrated how it can be tuned with desired spatial distribution and intensity for data storage and logic applications (“Tailoring sample-wide pseudo-magnetic fields on a graphene-black phosphorus heterostructure”). The field of electronics focuses…

Scientists at the National University of Singapore have discovered a new way to closely look at the electronic quantum behavior of materials, giving a deeper understanding of how they could be used for future quantum computing applications With companies like Google, Microsoft, and IBM all racing to create the world’s first practical quantum computer, scientists…

Plastic nanoparticles — tiny pieces of plastic less than 1 micrometer in size — could potentially contaminate food chains and ultimately affect human health, according to a recent study by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS). They discovered that nanoplastics are easily ingested by marine organisms and they accumulate in the organisms over…

National University of Singapore scientists have discovered a unique growth mechanism to produce atomically thin semiconductor ribbons that can serve as a building block for high-performance nanoelectronic devices. Synthesis of ultrathin semiconductors, such as monolayer molybdenum disulphide and related compounds, has attracted tremendous interest in the past several years for their potential use in improving…

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 demanding extreme power efficiency.…

A research team led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an economical and industrially viable strategy to produce graphene. The new technique addresses the long-standing challenge of an efficient process for large-scale production of graphene, and paves the way for sustainable synthesis of the material. Graphene is a two-dimensional material with a…

A novel invention by a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) holds promise for a faster and cheaper way to diagnose diseases with high accuracy. Professor Zhang Yong from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the NUS Faculty of Engineering and his team have developed a tiny microfluidic chip that could…

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has pioneered a new water-based air-conditioning system that cools air to as low as 18 degrees Celsius without the use of energy-intensive compressors and environmentally harmful chemical refrigerants. This game-changing technology could potentially replace the century-old air-cooling principle that is still being used in…