The Science Updating, rather than replacing, outdated circuits in tiny sensors would reduce cost and waste. The unusual electronic properties of ferroelectric domain walls could be the answer. A domain wall is the interface between different types of electrical ordering. Applying a voltage to the domain wall can change the preferred electrical ordering, making the […]
Bending A New Tool For Low Power Computing
The Science Today’s computers rely on moving electrons to move data. Moving these charges, like the currents in electricity, can generate waste heat. What if an electron’s spin, rather than its charge, could move data? In a special type of ultra-thin material, charge current and spin current only flow along the edges. Bending the film […]
Light Perfects Interfaces
The Science Improving electronic devices demands materials perform multiple functions. To create such materials, scientists often need to grow semiconducting films on dissimilar materials. Attempts to grow such films can result in a highly defective interface and unusable devices. Scientists deposited atoms in precise layers by directing beams of elements at the surface. During growth, […]
Honey, I Shrunk The Features For Low-Cost, Flexible, Large-Area Electronics
The Science Solar panels, lights and computer displays could use upgrades. A key issue blocking these upgrades is the difficulty in creating large, dense and flexible polymer films that can control electricity. Standard fabrication techniques use a sacrificial light-sensitive polymer to create patterns. Think of it like painting with a stencil. However, the liquids used […]
On-Demand 3-D Printing Of Tiny Magic Wands
The Science Structures built on the scale of nanometers (a human hair is around 80,000 nanometers wide) could build new and improved light sources, sensors and computers. Scientists created a novel way to 3-D print on virtually any material or shape without costly and time-consuming masking steps. In a patterned sequence, researchers used a focused […]
Launching A Supercomputer: How To Set Up Some Of The World’s Fastest Computers
As you walk out of an electronics store clutching the cardboard box with your new computer, you dream of all of the cool things you’ll be able do, from writing your screenplay to slaying monsters in a multiplayer game. Managers of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s supercomputers have similar visions, whether crunching […]
Glass For Solar Cells And Phone Screens Resists Light Degradation
The Science For materials in solar cells, cell phones, and other devices, the material should not change in undesirable ways when exposed to sunlight. Scientists determined how two glasses with the same composition but different fabrication processes behaved when exposed to light. Each glass had a carbon-based chemical composition. Vapor-deposited organic glass, where constituents were […]
One Small Change Makes Solar Cells More Efficient
The Science The quest for more efficient solar cells has led to the search of new materials. For years, scientists have explored using tiny drops of designer materials, called quantum dots. Now, we know that adding small amounts of manganese decreases the ability of quantum dots to absorb light but increases the current produced by […]
Battery-Free Technology For Instant Electronic Inventory Of Sensitive Items At A Distance
R&D Opportunity Imagine a tag that provides detailed information about an object, but you can activate it at a much greater distance than that needed to scan a bar code, and it can transmit encrypted information without a battery. This is precisely what radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags produced by Dirac Solutions Inc. (DSI) can accomplish, […]
Hybrid Perovskites: Super-ion Building Blocks
Lead-free, more efficient solar cells and other optoelectronics devices will likely be based on a family of materials known as hybrid perovskites. Scientists identified how to control different properties and stability in these solar cell materials using lead-free preparation. These new design principles identified super-ion building blocks, clusters of atoms that carry the same charge […]