Research

The University of Cambridge has developed a squishy jelly with 80% water content that is unfazed by being run over with a car. “At 80% water content, you’d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn’t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces,” said Professor Oren Scherman who led the research. “The properties of the ...

Three minutes of 670nm exposure in the morning appears to make the eyesight of humans over 40 years old better for a week, according to Imperial College London. The improvement is shown in cone-mediated colour contrast thresholds, tested in people from 37 to 70 years old in this research. Improvements have been seen before, using light at ~40mW/cm2, but this work ...

IBM presented its ultra-low power AI processor at its Zurich technology meeting today. Called Hermes, the core is a scientific demonstrator made on 14nm CMOS that has scored a record energy efficiency of 10.5Top/s/W, plus a density of 1.59Top/s/mm2. The technology is mixed analogue and digital compute-in-memory, using multi-level phase-change memory – the latter added to the CMOS during back-end processing. ...

Silicon carbide mosfets and Schottky diodes are both subject to the unipolar limit – the trade-off between breakdown voltage and specific resistance of the drift layer. Super-junction transistors bypass this limit, and bipolar transistor are not subject to it, but both require p-type semiconductor layers in otherwise n-type unipolar devices. To create p-type SiC, it has to be doped with ...

Silicon Catalyst  and Heriot-Watt are collaborating to drive the development and launch of semiconductor companies. They have shared strategic objectives which focus on transforming  Scottish-based semiconductor ventures into scale-ups. Through GRID, Heriot-Watt is focused on global research, innovation and discovery. A major focus of GRID is on commercialising high-impact research that delivers economic and social value. Silicon Catalyst has a ...

Electro-spun fibres are a promising candidate for cloth-based tribo-electric nanogenerators (TENGs) according to the University of Fukui. Electro-spinning involves drawing solutions of polymers into fibres using electrical charge. The researchers have developed an all-fibre composite layer TENG that can be integrated with normal cloth. “With our work, we are aiming to provide a new point of view towards wearable energy harvesters ...

A drop of metal that is liquid at just above room temperature can be used as a pump in microfluidics, according to researchers at the University of New South Wales Sydney. Gallium and gallium alloys are suitable. These “are attractive materials due to their unique electrical, thermal and fluidic properties,” according to the university. They “exhibit low melting point, non-toxicity ...

A collaboration between Glaxo Smith Kline, the pharmaceuticals giant, and Imec aims to create disruptive new solutions for the pharmaceutical sector. The partnership follows a year of explorative collaboration and research leading to promising preliminary results. It will focus on specific R&D and biomanufacturing projects. In R&D, Glaxo and Imec will explore how nanotechnology can accelerate the development and production ...

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has developed a material for cathodes in  li-ion batteries called Layered-Rocksalt Intergrown Battery Electrode Material which ensures high capacity, fast charging time and energy transfer, and superior cycling and thermal stability. The material can be synthesised under ambient atmosphere, easing processing and reducing production costs. Its thermal stability and minimal gas release reduce fire and explosion risks. “We demonstrate ...

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has awarded £650,000 to Northumbria University to continue its work to develop what it describes as the first commercially available laser-based inter-satellite communications system. Their CubeSats use lasers, instead of radio frequency, for data transmissions with more capacity and security. And the aim is to develop an “off the shelf” product for telecoms providers, which ...