Imagine not having to charge your phone or laptop for weeks. That is the dream of researchers looking into alternative batteries that go beyond the current lithium-ion versions popular today. Now, in a new study appearing in the journal Science, chemists at several institutions, including Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech […]
Spinning the Light: The World’s Smallest Optical Gyroscope
The article was posted online by Nature Photonics on October 19 and can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-018-0266-5 Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every day. Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, […]
No Motor, No Battery, No Problem
Engineers at Caltech and ETH Zurich have developed robots capable of self-propulsion without using any motors, servos, or power supply. Instead, these first-of-their-kind devices paddle through water as the material they are constructed from deforms with temperature changes. The work blurs the boundary between materials and robots. In the self-propelled devices, the material itself makes […]
Medicine Of The Future: New Microchip Technology Could Be Used To Track ‘Smart Pills’
Researchers at Caltech have developed a prototype miniature medical device that could ultimately be used in “smart pills” to diagnose and treat diseases. A key to the new technology–and what makes it unique among other microscale medical devices–is that its location can be precisely identified within the body, something that proved challenging before. “The dream […]
First On-Chip Nanoscale Optical Quantum Memory Developed
For the first time, an international team led by engineers at Caltech has developed a computer chip with nanoscale optical quantum memory. Quantum memory stores information in a similar fashion to the way traditional computer memory does, but on individual quantum particles–in this case, photons of light. This allows it to take advantage of the […]
First On-Chip Nanoscale Optical Quantum Memory Developed
For the first time, an international team led by engineers at Caltech has developed a computer chip with nanoscale optical quantum memory. Quantum memory stores information in a similar fashion to the way traditional computer memory does, but on individual quantum particles–in this case, photons of light. This allows it to take advantage of the […]
Additive Converts CO2 to Multicarbon Fuels
Chemists have figured out a new, more efficient way to create carbon-based fuels from carbon dioxide (CO2). In chemical reactions performed in the lab, a Caltech team has identified a new additive that helps selectively convert CO2 into fuels containing multiple carbon atoms — a step toward ultimately making renewable liquid fuels that are not […]
Nanostructures Taste The Rainbow
Engineers at Caltech have for the first time developed a light detector that combines two disparate technologies — nanophotonics, which manipulates light at the nanoscale, and thermoelectrics, which translates temperature differences directly into electron voltage — to distinguish different wavelengths (colors) of light, including both visible and infrared wavelengths, at high resolution. Light detectors that […]
Ultra-Thin Camera Creates Images Without Lenses
Traditional cameras — even those on the thinnest of cell phones–cannot be truly flat due to their optics: lenses that require a certain shape and size in order to function. At Caltech, engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what […]
Engineers Create Artificial Skin That ‘Feels’ Temperature Changes
A team of engineers and scientists at Caltech and ETH Zurich have developed an artificial skin capable of detecting temperature changes using a mechanism similar to the one used by the organ that allows pit vipers to sense their prey. The material could be grafted onto prosthetic limbs to restore temperature sensing in amputees. It […]