Researchers at Oregon State University are looking at a highly durable organic pigment, used by humans in artwork for hundreds of years, as a promising possibility as a semiconductor material. Findings suggest it could become a sustainable, low-cost, easily fabricated alternative to silicon in electronic or optoelectronic applications where the high-performance capabilities of silicon aren’t […]
Transistor Fabrication Onto Curved Surface Means Turn Toward Better Diabetes Therapy
Transparent transistors fabricated onto the sharp curves of a tiny glass tube are paving the way toward a therapeutic advance for the nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population who have diabetes. The nanotechnology advance by Oregon State University researchers is a key step toward an artificial pancreas: a catheter that can detect blood sugar […]
Discovery Of New Material Is Key Step Toward More Powerful Computing
A new material created by Oregon State University researchers is a key step toward the next generation of supercomputers. Those “quantum computers” will be able to solve problems well beyond the reach of existing computers while working much faster and consuming vastly less energy. Researchers in OSU’s College of Science have developed an inorganic compound […]
Modified, 3D-Printable Alloy Shows Promise For Flexible Electronics, Soft Robots
Researchers in Oregon State University’s College of Engineering have taken a key step toward the rapid manufacture of flexible computer screens and other stretchable electronic devices, including soft robots. The advance by a team within the college’s Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute paves the way toward the 3D printing of tall, complicated structures with […]
Big Energy Savings: Building The World’s Smallest Electro-Optic Modulator
With ‘Material Robotics,’ Intelligent Products Won’t Even Look Like Robots
Robots as inconspicuous as they are ubiquitous represent the vision of researchers in the new and burgeoning field of material robotics. In an invited perspective paper published today in Science Robotics, Oregon State University researcher Yigit Mengüç and three co-authors argue against looking at robotics as a “dichotomy of brain versus body.” Mengüç and collaborators […]
New Algorithm, Metrics Improve Autonomous Underwater Vehicles’ Energy Efficiency
Robotics researchers have found a way for autonomous underwater vehicles to navigate strong currents with greater energy efficiency, which means the AUVs can gather data longer and better. AUVs such as underwater gliders are valuable research tools limited primarily by their energy budget – every bit of battery power wasted via inefficient trajectories cuts into […]
New Algorithm, Metrics Improve Autonomous Underwater Vehicles’ Energy Efficiency
Robotics researchers have found a way for autonomous underwater vehicles to navigate strong currents with greater energy efficiency, which means the AUVs can gather data longer and better. AUVs such as underwater gliders are valuable research tools limited primarily by their energy budget – every bit of battery power wasted via inefficient trajectories cuts into […]
New Hydronium-Ion Battery Presents Opportunity for More Sustainable Energy Storage
A new type of battery developed by scientists at Oregon State University shows promise for sustainable, high-power energy storage. It’s the world’s first battery to use only hydronium ions as the charge carrier. The new battery provides an additional option for researchers, particularly in the area of stationary storage. Stationary storage refers to batteries in […]
A Better Battery: One-Time Pollutant May Become Valued Product To Aid Wind, Solar Energy
Chemists at Oregon State University have discovered that one or more organic compounds in a family that traditionally has been known as pollutants could offer an important advance to make cheap, reliable batteries. Such batteries might be of particular value to store electricity from some clean energy systems. The inability to easily and cheaply store […]