Tag: nanotechnology

Silicon Photonics Chip Mimics Human Brain

Pooja Kashyap

Researchers from Ghent University came up with a breakthrough approach by demonstrating processing of information on a chip, mechanism of which was based on the functioning of human brain. Artificial neural networks or the bio inspired technique has been used in the past to bring about complex tasks which otherwise would have been tricky to solve by rule-based programming like computer vision and speech recognition. The researchers applied 16 nodes of neural network directly in hardware with the help of silicon photonics chip. Unlike the traditional computer chips that require…

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Juxtaposing Living and the Nonliving Worlds Together: Materials Synthesis

Pooja Kashyap

So far, we have seen robots inspired from the best of biomimicry. Researchers have often looked upon nature to solve problems. At the same time, there are certain natural tendencies, which engineers are still trying to figure out the way towards artificially re-invention and one of them is ‘bone’. Bone is one of those natural materials that require no supervision, yet it fabricates material in response to environmental signals. In order to understand this phenomenon, researchers at the MIT, have tried to juxtapose living bacterial cells with non-living substance like…

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Microplasma Transistors for Smartphones and Nuclear Environment

Pooja Kashyap

Researchers at the University of Utah have created one of the most minuscule plasma transistors that can resist soaring temperatures and ionizing radiation that could be seen in a nuclear reactor. The engineers envision that such transistors would: 1) Facilitate taking and collecting X-rays in war zones by high-end cellular phones 2) Integrated within equipments to gauge air quality in the actual time 3) Plasma based bot could be sent into the nuclear reactor for certain assignments Like beavers, the transistors perform the most important work in the field of…

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Graphene Photodetectors Will Now Offer Thermal Vision

Pooja Kashyap

By harvesting the optical capabilities of graphene, researchers at the University of Michigan were able to create infrared contact lens morphed out of the carbon material. Graphene is merely 1-atom thick that makes its absorb nearly 2.3% of light that strikes it, which of course is extremely less especially for generating an electric potential and hence makes it far away from operating as an infrared sensor. Therefore, the researchers devised an innovative technique to resolve this issue. In place of gauging lost electrons by incoming light, they augmented the current…

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Multiferroics’ Propagating Disturbance: Power Booster for Processors

Pooja Kashyap

It’s been quite a some time now since researchers were working upon conserving heat that get wasted when electronic device(s) – laptops, computers, smartphones – is in operation. Researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have come up with a new form of material named “multiferroics” which is rich in magnetic properties. The researchers aim that by incorporating this material, they could enhance the efficiency of energy in the next lot of future devices, an element that is missing in the current technologies. Electric current…

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Nano Innovation to Cure Macular Degeneration

Pooja Kashyap

Until now, treatment for eye disorders and other related problems were administered through injections, which were not only unpleasant but expensive as well. However, this would very soon become obsolete since researchers at University College London (UCL) have come up with eye drops for procuring macular degeneration. Nearly 2 in 10 people over 75 have age-related macular degeneration. And at this point of time, the research would prove a boon in combating the growing numbers of patients, and especially when the escalating demands of eye injections becomes responsible for halting…

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Researchers Leverage Lattice Dynamics to Conserve Thermoelectric Energy

Pooja Kashyap

It’s been quite some time since researchers were working on the property of thermoelectric material and lately, they were able to develop a prototype that allows electricity to pass through while heat transfer but maintains insulation at the same time. They were able to do this by placing an arrangement of nanopillars on top of the thermoelectric material; to conduct the experiment the material they took was a thin film of silicon. Effect that thermoelectricity produces refers to a phenomena, where electricity is produced due to the temperature variation between…

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Will Nanofabrication Recall 3D TV Without Glasses?

Pooja Kashyap

Jayan Thomas, an assistant professor at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center is at the verge of showing a red flag to the conventional 3D television, where one needs to wear the glasses to have a feel of 3D effect. The researcher has already received a grant of US $400 000 to work towards fabricating the materials that would be able to create a 3D image. As per him, he wants to create a TV, which would be something like table, and the images will resonate on top of it and people…

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Graphene Morphs From Hydrophobic To Hydrophilic

Pooja Kashyap

Graphene is taking the role of Zeus in the fraternity of materials. Its astounding properties come to the fore every time researchers try to do something new with it. Interestingly this time, the material has shown its ‘romantic inclination’ towards water. Its hydrophobic nature allows graphene to repel water however, narrow capillaries fabricated from the material reverses the nature of the same material, turning it into hydrophilic. Rapid permeation occurs when the layer of water molecule is of same dimension as that of graphene itself, that is, one atomic thickness.

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Graphene Sandwich Results In Higher Resolution Images Of Biomolecules

Pooja Kashyap

Biomolecule when sandwiched between sheets of graphene results in a high resolution of atomic level images of the molecule, a rare research put forth by the researchers at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The molecule called ferritin, an iron-storage protein, was imaged in the research. Prior to this method, imaging of any Biomolecule was taken of course with an electron microscope along with a liquid stage container that is placed between thick windows of silicon nitrate to protect the sample from vacuum. Graphene’s superior transparency becomes instrumental in providing an…

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New Laser Printed Bone Like Material To Be Both Light And Strong

Pooja Kashyap

Humans are curious by nature and this curiosity has led them to morph from Stone Age to Bronze Era. As the centuries progressed, humans too evolved intellectually and hence quenched their thirst for more by reaching solutions technologically. As we can see in the current century, technology is touching its zenith researchers are busy manipulating substances at atomic level so that human race can witness totally new and evolutionary materials. Until now, it was difficult to find or to create bone like material artificially but a team of researchers headed…

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High Haze Paper Might Replace The Plastic Substrates Of Solar Cells

Pooja Kashyap

Paper coming from wood fibers would now be replacing plastic substrates that are employed in the manufacturing solar cells. Researchers from University of Maryland, the South China University of Technology, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have proposed this evolutionary step towards future technology. As per the researchers, solar cells gives maximum output when the materials involve have high optical transparency and high optical haze. Diffusion of light is of high quality when the optical transparency is high. And high optical haze helps in increasing the scattering of light which further…

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Beginning Of A New Communication Paradigm For Graphene

Pooja Kashyap

Graphene, I am sure, is one of the most sought after materials for researchers across the world today. Just two months back we shed light on how graphene will be replacing silicon in the chips creating revolution in the field of semiconductors and then we talked about the new annealing treatment that might take graphene to the next level. Still curious for more, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology claim that they have devised a mechanism through which they can extent the capability of nanoscale antennas fabricated from graphene…

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New Annealing Treatment Might Take Graphene To The Next Level

Pooja Kashyap

Graphene wafers are the subject of interest for the researchers at MIT and the University of California at Berkeley these days. The 2-dimensional, crystaline allotrope of carbon has huge potential across applications like solar cells, thermoelectric devices and water filtration to name a few but the expensive treatment is becoming a major huddle in its advancement. Therefore, to bring about the material’s versatility the team has put forth a solution, which they claim is inexpensive relatively. Pure graphene does not qualify for any electronic devices but the scenario changes with…

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Nanogenerator Fabricated By Virus Template

Pooja Kashyap

Nature has an innate ability of fabricating organic structures at the nano scale, self-cleaning mechanism or water repellence in lotus effect best describes this tendency. Dexterously the leaves of lotus flower repel water. The complex micro and nanoscopic architecture of the surface is responsible for creating physical atmosphere that assist in disengaging water molecules to the leaves. Scientists today are working towards replicating the mechanism by using nature as a template. However, imitating the natural process is not that easy especially when working on the nanoscale, often it requires toxic…

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