Creating a lithium-ion battery that can charge in a matter of minutes but still operate at a high capacity is possible, according to research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute just published in Nature Communications. This development has the potential to improve battery performance for consumer electronics, solar grid storage, and electric vehicles. A lithium-ion battery charges and […]
World’s Biggest Student-Led Cybersecurity Games Announce Winners of CSAW 2018
A team of four computer science students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) once again took home top honors at the 15th anniversary edition of Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW), the world’s largest student-run cyber security event. Hosted by the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, this year’s event was held November 8-10 and featured international competitions, workshops, […]
Delivering Pressure with an Unconventional Crystal Interface
The use of pressure to alter semiconductor properties is showing increasing promise in applications such as high-performance infrared sensors and energy conversion devices. With a novel and unconventional crystal interface, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have enabled more powerful and dynamic tuning of the method, which they initially pioneered in 2015. “A conventional way to […]
Research on Light-Matter Interaction Could Improve Electronic and Optoelectronic Devices
A paper published in Nature Communications by Sufei Shi, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer, increases our understanding of how light interacts with atomically thin semiconductors and creates unique excitonic complex particles, multiple electrons, and holes strongly bound together. These particles possess a new quantum degree of freedom, called “valley spin.” The “valley spin” […]
New Deposition Technique Puts The Heat On Silicon
In the early history of electronic devices, germanium, a more efficient elemental semiconductor than silicon, was the material of choice. Ultimately, the high cost of developing germanium crystals eclipsed its efficiency, and silicon captured the field. But new research establishing an economical method for growing crystalline thin-film germanium – using a process known as van […]
Exploring Phosphorene, A Promising New Material
Two-dimensional phosphane, a material known as phosphorene, has potential application as a material for semiconducting transistors in ever faster and more powerful computers. But there’s a hitch. Many of the useful properties of this material, like its ability to conduct electrons, are anisotropic, meaning they vary depending on the orientation of the crystal. Now, a […]