Researchers from Japan have demonstrated that a long-elusive kind of laser diode based on organic semiconductors is indeed possible, paving the way for the further expansion of lasers in applications such as biosensing, displays, healthcare, and optical communications. Long considered a holy grail in the area of light-emitting devices, organic laser diodes use carbon-based organic…
Mathematically Designed Graphene Possesses Superior Electrocatalytic Activity
An international research group has improved graphene’s ability to catalyze the “hydrogen evolution reaction,” which releases hydrogen as a result of passing an electronic current through water. They designed a mathematically predicted graphene electrocatalyst, and confirmed its performance using high resolution electrochemical microscopy and computational modelling. The findings were published in the journal Advanced Science.…
Proton Beam Energy Doubled with Colliding Lasers
Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg present a new method, which can double the energy of a proton beam produced by laser-based particle accelerators. The breakthrough could lead to more compact, cheaper equipment that could be useful for many applications, including proton therapy. Proton therapy involves firing a beam…
Plumbene, Cousin of Graphene, Created by Researchers
Two-dimensional materials made of Group 14 elements, graphene’s cousins, have attracted enormous interest in recent years because of their unique potential as useful topological insulators. In particular, the up-to-now purely theoretical possibility of a lead-based 2-D honeycomb material, called plumbene, has generated much attention because it has the largest spin-orbit interaction, due to lead’s orbital…
NASA’s Mars 2020 Undergoes Tests in Cleanroom
NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft has completed acoustic and thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The acoustic test of the spacecraft that will carry the Mars 2020 rover to a soft touchdown in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, is the best Earthly approximation for what the spacecraft will endure…
Researchers Develop Wearable Sensor Inspired by Octopus Suckers
Wearable electronics that adhere to skin are an emerging trend in health sensor technology for their ability to monitor a variety of human activities, from heart rate to step count. But finding the best way to stick a device to the body has been a challenge. Now, a team of researchers reports the development of…
Bacterial Sensors Hacked by Synthetic Biologists
Rice University synthetic biologists have hacked bacterial sensing with a plug-and-play system that could be used to mix-and-match tens of thousands of sensory inputs and genetic outputs. The technology has wide-ranging implications for medical diagnostics, the study of deadly pathogens, environmental monitoring and more. In a project spanning almost six years, Rice bioengineer Jeff Tabor…
New Applications of 2D Materials Enabled by Strain
Superconductors’ never-ending flow of electrical current could provide new options for energy storage and superefficient electrical transmission and generation, to name just a few benefits. But the signature zero electrical resistance of superconductors is reached only below a certain critical temperature, hundreds of degrees Celsius below freezing, and is very expensive to achieve. Physicists from…
Ultra-thin Superlattices for Nanophotonics Formed from Gold Nanoparticles
Researchers, led by Professor Dr. Matthias Karg at the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf, report a simple technique for developing highly ordered particle layers. The group worked with tiny, deformable spherical polymer beads with a hydrogel-like structure. Hydrogels are water-swollen, three-dimensional networks. Such structures are used as super-absorbers in such products as…
‘Spidey Senses’ Assist Autonomous Machines with Sight
What if drones and self-driving cars had the tingling “spidey senses” of Spider-Man? They might actually detect and avoid objects better, says Andres Arrieta, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, because they would process sensory information faster. Better sensing capabilities would make it possible for drones to navigate in dangerous environments and…
Smart Device Finds Food Contaminants in Real Time
Fast, accurate and affordable food safety testing is now possible. Thanks to a portable scanner, farmers, food manufacturers and retailers can now do their own tests in the field, eliminating costly and time-consuming lab tests. Consumers place importance on different things in the foods they consume. Some insist on locally grown or organic food. Others…
Cleanroom Tip: Choosing Cleanroom Doors
High-speed doors play a key role in maintaining clean operations in pharmaceutical plants. They are designed to address facility needs for environmental control, productivity and safety (as well as cleanliness). In cleanroom applications, they are used to maintain correct room pressures, air circulation rates and optimal operating efficiency and to prevent cross-contamination. High operating speeds are critical to minimize air infiltration when staff members…
Controlled Environments’ Trends and Salary Survey
For the fifth year, Controlled Environments surveyed its readership on cleanroom facility-related purchasing decisions, as well as the salary and benefits of cleanroom industry professionals. We have used these results to analyze the latest trends, which will enable you to compare your cleanroom and overall compensation package with those of your peers. We also asked questions about industry salaries, workloads, benefits and job…
Creating a Fully Fitted Out Cleanroom
The installation of a 460 sq. m. ISO Class 7 cleanroom, fully fitted with custom stainless steel furniture, has increased Parker Bioscience Filtration’s capacity for the production of single-use manifolds used in biopharmaceutical processing. The cleanroom facility at Parker Bioscience’s site in Birtley, U.K., houses a main production area and includes change and transfer areas, plus an unclassified office area. Integrated cleanroom solutions…
Lasers could save Notre-Dame Cathedral
The world watched in horror on April 15 as a massive fire raged at Notre-Dame de Paris, a medieval Catholic cathedral considered one of the world’s most magnificent examples of French Gothic architecture. The fast-moving inferno raged for 15 hours, destroying most of the church’s wooden roof and sending its 19th century spire crashing to the ground. Hundreds…
Electron Beam Manipulates Atoms One at a Time
The ultimate degree of control for engineering would be the ability to create and manipulate materials at the most basic level, fabricating devices atom by atom with precise control. Now, scientists at MIT, the University of Vienna, and several other institutions have taken a step in that direction, developing a method that can reposition atoms…
Displacement Sensor Developed to Measure Gravity of Smallest Source Mass Ever
One of the most unknown phenomena in modern physics is gravity. Its measurement and laws remain somewhat of an enigma. Researchers at Tohoku University have revealed important information about a new aspect of the nature of gravity by probing the smallest mass-scale. Professor Nobuyuki Matsumoto has led a team of researchers to develop a gravity…
Energy-free Superfast Computing with Light Pulses
Superfast data processing using light pulses instead of electricity has been created by scientists. The invention uses magnets to record computer data which consume virtually zero energy, solving the dilemma of how to create faster data processing speeds without the accompanying high energy costs. Today’s data center servers consume between 2 to 5 percent of…
Next-gen Core Semiconductor Technology Based on Graphene
The DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology) Department of Information and Communication Engineering has developed a graphene-based high-performance transmission line with an improved operating speed of electrons than using the existing metal in high-frequency. This is expected to contribute greatly to next generation’s high-speed semiconductor and communication device with much faster processing speed…
Blood and Sweat Enhance Training App
The 20,000 entrants who ran the Stockholm Marathon in 2018 may remember what a warm day it was, and how many of them were forced to quit due to the hot weather. KTH Royal Institute of Technology researcher Gaston Crespo and his colleagues have developed a multifaceted measuring technology that is able to detect a…
Smartphones Sniff Out Disease
Gastric cancer, also known as stomach cancer, is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related deaths in Europe. Because of the lack of early signs specifically related to the disease, it’s usually only detected at an advanced stage—when treatment is for the most part ineffective. Driven to improve stomach and other cancer survival rates, for…
Nitrogen-vacancy Centers Created by Ultrafast Laser Pulses
“Quantum technologies” utilize the unique phenomena of quantum superposition and entanglement to encode and process information, with potentially profound benefits to a wide range of information technologies from communications to sensing and computing. However, a major challenge in developing these technologies is that the quantum phenomena are very fragile, and only a handful of physical…
Innovative New Sensor Reacts to Light, Heat, Touch
Inspired by the behavior of natural skin, researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics have developed a sensor that will be suitable for use with electronic skin. It can measure changes in body temperature, and react to both sunlight and warm touch. Robotics, prostheses that react to touch, and health monitoring are three fields in…
Laser-propelled Spacecraft Could Shorten Journey to Mars
These are the journeys of the “StarChip Wafersize.” UC Santa Barbara students sent up, via balloon, a prototype miniature spacecraft that might eventually become the “wafercraft” that researchers posit could be propelled by lasers to achieve space travel at relativistic speeds to reach nearby star systems and exoplanets. So begins a journey, funded by NASA…
