Collaborate Disseminate
Electronics, and batteries in particular, are vulnerable to very high or very low temperatures, but a new thermal switch could help deal with both. It’s made from (what else) graphene foam that can dynamically trap heat when it’s cold out, or allow hea… Continue reading Graphene foam “thermal switch” keeps batteries warm or cool on demand
Over the last year or so, Sam Battle of YouTube channel Look Mum No Computer has been gathering together interesting tech and gadgetry from the past and musical curiosities of his own design for a collection known as This Museum Is (Not) Obsolete, whic… Continue reading Museum celebrates obsolete tech and oddball synth creations
Normally metals and insulators sit at opposite ends of a spectrum of conductivity, but researchers have discovered a material that can switch between those states freely, even at room temperature. The material, a compound of manganese and sulfide (MnS2… Continue reading Weird compound jumps from conductor to insulator and back under pressure
Engineers have found a way to make liquid metals switch between reflective surfaces or those that scatter light. The transition only requires a small zap of electricity and could be used to make mirrors that can be switched on or off.Continue ReadingCa… Continue reading Liquid metal mirrors switch reflectivity on and off with a zap
They don’t call this the Silicon Age for nothing – the element is vital to all of the electronics that our modern world is built on. Now, research led by the Carnegie Institution for Science has developed a way to create a new form of silicon with a un… Continue reading Scientists create strange new form of silicon
The continuing miniaturization of electronics is opening up some exciting possibilities when it comes to what we might place in our bodies to monitor and improve our health. Engineers at Columbia University have demonstrated an extreme version of this … Continue reading World’s smallest single-chip system can be injected into the body
Graphene just keeps getting weirder. Engineers at ETH Zurich have now managed to tweak the overachieving material so that some parts of a flake can be an electrical insulator while other areas act as a superconductor, just nanometers apart. The team de… Continue reading Magic angle makes graphene simultaneously superconducting and insulating
The world of 2D material science is an exciting one where new advances continue to open up new possibilities, most notably through adaptations of the wonder material graphene. Scientists in the US have introduced a new player to this game in the form o… Continue reading 2D “borophane” offers new building block for advanced electronics
Graphene has a lot of useful properties, but magnetism isn’t one of them – at least, not usually. In a new study led by the University at Buffalo, researchers have managed to induce an “artificial magnetic texture” in the material, which could have maj… Continue reading Artificial magnetic texture induced in graphene could boost spintronics
Diamond is a famously hard material, but now scientists at City University of Hong Kong have managed to stretch it further than ever before. Why? Stretching nanoscale samples changes their electronic and optical properties, which could open up a new wo… Continue reading Scientists stretch diamond to improve its electronic properties