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Articles in 'Technology' (Page 2)
Inexpensive new instruments test building sealants under real-world conditions
— 6 Apr 2011 18:16Sealants, like weather stripping, are what separates the inside from the outside of a building, byproviding a barrier that prevents water from seeping in, for example, or heat from leaking out. The challenge, says research chemist Christopher White of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is predicting when they will fail…
Force of acoustical waves tapped for metamaterials
— 6 Apr 2011 18:13A very simple bench-top technique that uses the force of acoustical waves to create a variety of 3D structures will benefit the rapidly expanding field of metamaterials and their myriad applications - including 'invisibility cloaks.'…
Defective plastics repair themselves
— 6 Apr 2011 17:01It can be a total surprise: car tires burst, sealing rings fail and even your dearly beloved panton chair or your freely oscillating plastic chair develops cracks and the material gets fatigued. The reason for this often sudden and unforeseen material failure is triggered by microcracks that may be found in any component. You may hardly see these cracks and they may grow fast or slow. This also applies to fractures in components made of plastic that can be elastically formed. Sealing rings or tires are made of these elastomers and they can withstand mechanical loads especially well…
Giant batteries for green power
— 4 Apr 2011 19:18Green power is an unstable commodity. Photovoltaic plants rest at night, and wind turbines stand still when there are lulls in the wind. This is why in the future there will be a need for intermediate storage of considerable amounts of environmentally friendly power. One of the hot topics at the moment is the use of electric cars for intermediate power storage. Experts agree that this alone will not suffice. Instead, large-scale stationary storage facilities will be needed, substations centrally located in the grid and capable of buffering energy in megawatt quantities for low-current periods…
Transmission lines for nanofocusing of infrared light
— 4 Apr 2011 19:12In conventional optical instruments, light cannot be focused to spot sizes smaller than half the wavelength because of diffraction effects. An important approach to beat this diffraction limit is based on optical antennas, their name being an allusion to their radiofrequency counterparts. They have the ability to concentrate (focus) light to tiny spots of nanometre-scale dimensions, which are orders of magnitude smaller than what conventional lenses can achieve. Tiny objects such as molecules or semiconductor nanoparticles that are placed into these so-called 'hot spots' of the antenna can efficiently interact with light. Thus, optical antennas boost single molecule spectroscopy or the sensitivity of optical detectors. However, the hot spot is bound to the antenna structure, which limits flexibility in designing nanooptical circuits…
Materials scientists at Harvard demonstrate the first macro-scale thin-film solid-oxide fuel cell
— 4 Apr 2011 18:39Materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and SiEnergy Systems LLC have demonstrated the first macro-scale thin-film solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC)…
Engineers create vibrant colours in vertical silicon nanowires
— 4 Apr 2011 18:36Engineers may soon be singing, 'I'm going to wash that grey right out of my nanowires,' thanks to a colourful discovery by a team of researchers from Harvard University and Zena Technologies. In contrast to the somber grey hue of silicon wafers, Kenneth B. Crozier and colleagues demonstrated that individual, vertical silicon nanowires can shine in all colours of the spectrum…
First polymer solar-thermal device heats home, saves money
— 4 Apr 2011 18:12A new polymer-based solar-thermal device is the first to generate power from both heat and visible sunlight - an advance that could shave the cost of heating a home by as much as 40 percent…
Self-cooling observed in graphene electronics
— 4 Apr 2011 17:49With the first observation of thermoelectric effects at graphene contacts, University of Illinois researchers found that graphene transistors have a nanoscale cooling effect that reduces their temperature…
Advance in microchannel manufacturing opens new industry applications
— 2 Apr 2011 11:46Engineers at Oregon State University have invented a new way to use surface-mount adhesives in the production of low-temperature, microchannel heat exchangers - an advance that will make this promising technology much less expensive for many commercial applications…
Marcus Nanotechnology Building at Georgia Tech formally dedicated
Scientists get a grip on colliding fermions to enhance atomic clock accuracy