INSIDER

Making Cheaper Biocompatible E-Skin Electrodes

Scientists around the world are working to develop electronic skins that attach to the body and monitor vital signs. These E-skins need to be comfortable, breathable, and flexible for everyday...

This LED Can Be Integrated Directly Into Computer Chips

Light-emitting diodes — LEDs — are important in many more applications than just illumination. These light sources are useful in microelectronics too. Smartphones, for example, can...

New Transistor Design Disguises Key Computer Chip Hardware to Protect Against Hackers

A hacker can reproduce a circuit on a chip by discovering what key transistors are doing in a circuit — but not if the transistor “type” is...

Ultra-Thin and Highly Sensitive Strain Sensors

A research team from National University of Singapore (NUS) has taken a first step towards improving the safety and precision of industrial robotic arms by developing a new range of...

Chemically Driven Wheels “Morph” Into Gears

University of Pittsburgh researchers have utilized a catalytic reaction that causes a two-dimensional, chemically coated sheet to spontaneously “morph” into a three-dimensional gear.

T-REX Rover Looks to the Dark Side

The Tethered permanently shadowed Region EXplorer (T-REX) rover, designed and built by a team of Michigan Technological University students – is designed to provide reliable power and data to other...

New Products

Bandpass Filters MidOpt® (Palatine, IL) introduced the BP450 Indigo Bandpass and the BN450 Narrow Indigo Bandpass, two new filters designed for multi-application use. The BP450 enhances the viewing of subjects illuminated by a...

Large-Area Flexible Organic Photodiodes Can Compete with Silicon Devices

The performance of flexible large-area organic photodiodes has advanced to the point that they can now offer advantages over conventional silicon photodiode...

Combining Electronic, Photonic Chips Enables Super-Fast Quantum Light Detection

Researchers from the University of Bristol’s Quantum Engineering Technology Labs (QET Labs) and Université Côte d‘Azur have made a new miniaturized light...

Orbiting Instrument Hints That Stored Magnetic Energy Heats Solar Atmosphere

A phenomenon first detected in the solar wind may help solve a long-standing mystery about the sun: why the solar atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than the...

Robots Learn to Drive a Car in a Few Easy Lessons

USC researchers have developed a method that could allow robots to learn complicated new tasks, like setting a table or driving a car, from observing a small number of demonstrations.

Materials Transform Robots Made of Robots

Scientists from the U.S. Army and MIT created a new way to link materials with unique mechanical properties, opening up the possibility of future military robots made of robots. The method unifies...

Laser Jolts Microscopic Robots into Motion

A Cornell University team has created microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor components, allowing them to be controlled – and made to walk – with standard electronic signals. The...

Miniscule Machines Made of Metal and Plastic

Researchers have developed a technique for manufacturing micrometer-long machines by interlocking multiple materials in a complex way. The micromachines are made out of metal and plastic, in...

Teaching Old Robots New Tricks

With a training technique commonly used to teach dogs to sit and stay, computer scientists showed a robot how to teach itself several new tricks including stacking blocks. With the method, the robot was able...

Advanced Solar Panels Extract More Energy from Sunlight

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers working to maximize solar panel efficiency said layering advanced materials atop traditional silicon is a promising path to eke more...

New Technique Extends Next-Generation Lithium Metal Batteries

Electric vehicles (EVs) hold great promise for our energy-efficient, sustainable future but among their limitations is the lack of a long-lasting, high energy density battery...

Fast Calculation Dials in Better Batteries

A simpler and more efficient way to predict performance will lead to better batteries, according to Rice University engineers. That their method is 100,000 times faster than existing modeling...

Clean, Limitless Power from Graphene

A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene’s thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

How to Make Tomorrow’s Electronics Using Ink-Jet Printed Graphene

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have cracked the conundrum of how to use inks to 3D-print novel electronic devices with useful properties, such as an ability...

NIST Sensor Experts Invent Super-Cold Mini-Thermometer

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a miniature superconducting thermometer with big potential applications, such as monitoring the...

Novel Miniaturized Organic Semiconductor Will Support Flexible Electronic Devices

Field Effect Transistors (FET) are the core building blocks of modern electronics such as integrated circuits, computer CPUs, and display backplanes. Organic...

Sensors Driven by Machine Learning Sniff-Out Gas Leaks Fast

A new study has confirmed the success of a natural-gas leak-detection tool pioneered by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, which uses sensors and machine learning to...

Printing Paper Structures for Mechatronics

Natural motion in plants occurs because of cellulose fibers absorbing and releasing water. Scientists developed a simple method to produce self-folding origami structures based on this concept. The...

Robotic “Snake” Grips and Picks Up Objects

An invention similar to an elephant’s trunk has potential benefits for many industries where handling delicate objects is essential. UNSW Sydney developed a soft fabric robotic gripper that...

3D Hand Pose Estimation Achieved Using a Wrist-Worn Camera

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) working in collaboration with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of St Andrews and the University of...

Navy Researchers Evaluate Ultraviolet Sources to Combat COVID-19

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory researchers evaluated commercial ultraviolet (UV) sources for viral disinfection to combat COVID-19 on land and at sea and established a...

Turning Streetwear into Solar Concentrators

Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich succeeded in developing a material that works like a luminescent solar concentrator and can even be applied to textiles. This opens up numerous possibilities for...

Transforming Rover Explores the Toughest Terrain

NASA’s DuAxel, a pair of two-wheeled rovers each called Axel, can split in half with each half connected only by a tether that unspools as the lead axle approaches a hazard.