The rapid development of flexible and wearable electronics is giving rise to an exciting range of applications, from smart watches and flexible displays—such as smart phones, tablets, and TV—to smart fabrics, smart glass, transdermal patches, sensors, and more. With this rise, demand has increased for high-performance flexible batteries. Up to now, however, researchers have had […]
Single Molecules Can Work As Reproducible Transistors — At Room Temperature
A major goal in the field of molecular electronics, which aims to use single molecules as electronic components, is to make a device where a quantized, controllable flow of charge can be achieved at room temperature. A first step in this field is for researchers to demonstrate that single molecules can function as reproducible circuit […]
Cognitive Hearing Aid Filters Out The Noise
People who are hearing impaired have a difficult time following a conversation in a multi-speaker environment such as a noisy restaurant or a party. While current hearing aids can suppress background noise, they cannot help a user listen to a single conversation among many without knowing which speaker the user is attending to. A cognitive […]
Freezing Lithium Batteries May Make Them Safer, Bendable
Yuan Yang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Columbia Engineering, has developed a new method that could lead to lithium batteries that are safer, have longer battery life, and are bendable, providing new possibilities such as flexible smartphones. His new technique uses ice-templating to control the structure of the solid electrolyte for lithium […]
New Method Increases Energy Density In Lithium Batteries
Yuan Yang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Columbia Engineering, has developed a new method to increase the energy density of lithium (Li-ion) batteries. He has built a trilayer structure that is stable even in ambient air, which makes the battery both longer lasting and cheaper to manufacture. The work, which may improve […]
Quick Meal? 3-D Printed Dinner.
We’re all accustomed to having appliances on our kitchen counters, from toasters and blenders to coffee makers and microwavesOver the past year, Lipson and his students have been developing a 3D food printer that can fabricate edible items through computer-guided software and the actual cooking of edible pastes, gels, powders, and liquid ingredients — all […]
Researchers Use Acoustic Voxels to Embed Sound with Data
Columbia Engineering researchers, working with colleagues at Disney Research and MIT, have developed a new method to control sound waves, using a computational approach to inversely design acoustic filters that can fit within an arbitrary 3D shape while achieving target sound filtering properties. Led by Computer Science Professor Changxi Zheng, the team designed acoustic voxels, […]
Engineers Develop New, Low-Cost Way to Capture Carbon
A recent study led by Xi Chen, associate professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia Engineering, and Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University, reports an unconventional reversible chemical reaction in a confined nanoenvironment. The discovery, a milestone in clarifying the scientific underpinnings of moisture-swing chemical reaction, is critical to understanding how to scrub CO2 from […]
A Flexible Camera: A Radically Different Approach to Imaging
A team led by Shree K. Nayar, T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, has developed a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. The Columbia team, which includes research engineer Daniel Sims BS’14 and postdoctoral researcher […]
Heat and Light Get Larger at the Nanoscale
In a new study recently published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers from Columbia Engineering, Cornell, and Stanford have demonstrated heat transfer can be made 100 times stronger than has been predicted, simply by bringing two objects extremely close—at nanoscale distances—without touching. Led by Columbia Engineering’s Michal Lipson and Stanford Engineering’s Shanhui Fan, the team used custom-made ultra-high […]