Polymer Synthesis Could Aid Future Electronics

Monday, July 19th, 2010

In the future, electronic visual displays could be made brighter, clearer and more energy-efficient as a result of a process developed by a team of researchers from Canada and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The synthesis of a conjugated organic polymer—widely used as a conductive material ...

EU Researchers Develop Nanowires for Electronics and Optoelectronics Applications

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

[caption id="attachment_15439" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Under the transmission electron microscope, several cobalt phthalocyanine nanowires grow out of an iron phthalocyanine nanowire that is decorated with silver particles. Image courtesy of Empa."][/caption] From the Wire: Organic semiconductors are promising candidates as starting materials for the manufacture of cheap, large area and flexible electronic ...

Low-Power Computer Chips Allow Development of Wearable Patient Monitoring Devices

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

[caption id="attachment_12932" align="alignleft" width="368" caption="MIT engineers have designed this wearable ECG monitor that runs on very little power and could replace cumbersome devices now used to monitor heart patients. Image courtesy of Eric Winokur"][/caption] From the Wire: The next wave of the electronics revolution will involve biomedical devices, say electrical engineers ...

Silk-Silicon Implantable Electronics Dissolve in the Body

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

[caption id="attachment_10020" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Silk substrates fitted with silicon transistors can be implanted to conform to the body's tissues. The orange liquid in the photo is a disinfectant used during the implanting procedure. Image courtesy of Rogers/Omenetto."][/caption] Popular Science has reported that researchers have devised electronics encased in a substrate ...

Carbon Nanotube Breakthrough Promising for Future Electronics

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

From the Wire: Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional silicon-based transistors. Carbon nanotubes, which were discovered in the early 1990s, could make possible more powerful, compact and energy-efficient computers, as ...

Tiny MEMS Devices Filter, Amplify Electronic Signals

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

[caption id="attachment_8400" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="Researchers are developing a new class of tiny mechanical devices containing vibrating, hair-thin structures that could be used to filter electronic signals . A tiny prototype, roughly comparable in size to a grain of sand, is pictured above. Image courtesy of Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue ...

Silicon with Afterburners: Research Could Lead to More-Powerful Electronics

Friday, July 24th, 2009

[caption id="attachment_8114" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon affects the threshold voltage, or gate voltage, required to create a conductive path between the source and drain electrodes (blue) and turn the device on. Image courtesy Rice University."][/caption] Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method ...