Collaborate Disseminate
Researchers in Saudi Arabia have developed thin, organic solar cells with a few advantages over others of their type. The new solar cells are more efficient, made using more common elements, and can be inkjet-printed onto surfaces, making them light an… Continue reading Inkjet-printed ultrathin solar cells ditch rare minerals
By discreetly measuring the concentration of key chemicals in our sweat, thin, pliable sensors could play a huge role in how wearable devices track our health and wellbeing in the future. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) h… Continue reading Ultra-thin film sits under a smartwatch to monitor body chemistry
Graphene may be a versatile material, but it remains very tricky to produce in large amounts. Now, an MIT team has found a new way to make large sheets of graphene in a roll-to-roll process, by depositing it onto a substrate that can easily be peeled o… Continue reading MIT’s new roll-to-roll production method promises pristine graphene
“You can never be too rich or too thin,” the saying goes, and when it comes to coatings, it’s true that thinner is often better. The way to truly thin coatings, ones that are sometimes only a few atoms thick, is physical vapor deposition, or PVD, a technique where a …read more
Continue reading Vacuum Sputtering with a Homemade Magnetron
Electronic devices are made possible thanks to a group of elements often referred to as rare-Earth metals, but as the name suggests, these may be in limited supply and are relatively expensive. Now, a team of scientists has found a way to com… Continue reading Common element combos could replace rare-Earth metals in electronics
Here’s a fun exercise: take a list of the 20th century’s inventions and innovations in electronics, communications, and computing. Make sure you include everything, especially the stuff we take for granted. Now, cross off everything that can’t trace its roots back to the AT&T Corporation’s research arm, the Bell Laboratories. We’d wager heavily that the list would still contain almost everything that built the electronics age: microwave communications, data networks, cellular telephone, solar cells, Unix, and, of course, the transistor.
But is that last one really true? We all know the story of Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley, the brilliant team …read more
A normal life in hacking, if there is such a thing, seems to follow a predictable trajectory, at least in terms of the physical space it occupies. We generally start small, working on a few simple projects on the kitchen table, or if we start young enough, perhaps on a desk in our childhood bedroom. Time passes, our skills increase, and with them the need for space. Soon we’re claiming an unused room or a corner of the basement. Skills build on skills, gear accumulates, and before you know it, the garage is no longer a place for cars but …read more
Continue reading Of Roach Killer and Rust Remover: Sam Zeloof’s Garage-Made Chips
[Nixie] wants to make semiconductors at home, and that requires some unusual tools. Chief among them is a vacuum chamber to perform thin-film deposition, and true to the hacker credo his is homemade, and will soon be equipped with a tiny manipulator arm with magnetically coupled mechanical controls.
If [Nixie]’s setup looks familiar, it might be because we featured his plasma experiments a few days ago. He was a little cagey then about his goal, but he’s come clean with his desire to make his own FETs (a project that is his 2018 Hackaday Prize entry). Doing so will require …read more
Continue reading Tiny Vacuum Chamber Arm to Help with Homemade Semiconductors
The idea of making your own semiconductors from scratch would be more attractive if it weren’t for the expensive equipment and noxious chemicals required for silicon fabrication. But simple semiconductors can be cooked up at home without anything fancy, and they can actually yield pretty good results.
Granted, [Simplifier] has been working on the method detailed in the video below for about a year, and a look at his post on copper oxide thin-film solar cells reveals a meticulous approach to optimize everything. He started with regular window glass, heated over a propane burner and sprayed with a tin oxide …read more
Continue reading Home Brew Solar Cells for the Chemically Curious