In liquid crystals, molecules automatically arrange themselves in an ordered fashion. Researchers from the University of Luxembourg have discovered a method that allows an anti-ordered state, which will enable novel material properties and potentially new technical applications, such as artificial muscles for soft robotics. They published their findings in the scientific journal Science Advances. The…
First Reputation-based Blockchain Guarantees Security Against 51 Percent Attacks
How Swarms of Nanomachines Could Improve the Efficiency of any Machine
All machines convert one form of energy into another form – for example a car engine turns the energy stored in fuel into motion energy. Those processes of energy conversion, described by the theory called thermodynamics, don’t only take place on the macro-level of big machines, but also at the micro-level of molecular machines that…
New Applications for “Smart” Material
Research led by scientists from the University of Luxembourg has shown the potential of liquid crystal shells as enabling material for a vast array of future applications, ranging from autonomous driving to anti-counterfeiting technology and a new class of sensors. Liquid Crystals, already widely used in flat-screen TVs, are materials that are in a state…
Modeling the Brain With ‘Lego Bricks’
Researchers from the University of Luxembourg, in cooperation with the University of Strasbourg, have developed a computational method that could be used to guide surgeons during brain surgery. Surgeons often operate in the dark. They have a limited view of the surface of the organ, and can typically not see what lies hidden inside. Quality…
Generating Unclonable Patterns to Fight Counterfeiting
In a multinational collaboration, researchers from the Universities of Luxembourg, Ljubljana and Vienna have developed a new method to produce unique reflecting patterns that can be applied on valuable objects. As these patterns can’t be cloned or copied, they could be used to identify products unambiguously in order to avoid counterfeiting. In today’s globalized and…