Electronics & Software

Energy

Your destination for advances in renewable energy, energy storage technologies, and trends in portable solar power, energy harvesting, wind power, and alternative energy. Design engineers will find the latest applications and multimedia resources including videos, white papers, webinars, and technical briefs.

Latest Briefs & News

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Blog: Design
Researchers developed a form of hafnium oxide that acts as a highly stable, low‑energy ‘memristor’ — a component designed to mimic the efficient way neurons are connected in the brain.
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Webinars: Energy
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Reliable power integrity is essential in AI data centers where massive current demands and fast transients push power delivery networks to their limits. Accurately measuring these...
Technology & Society: Design
Researchers in the School of Engineering at Tufts University have developed a proof-of-concept for efficient AI systems that could use 100 times less energy than current ones while at the same time provide more accurate results on tasks.
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Quiz: Energy
Here is a five-question quiz to see how much you know about fuel cells. Take now!
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Special Reports: Wearables
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Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles & Systems - May 2026
Defense startup unveils autonomous fighter jet…advanced radar boosts Ukrainian air defense…NASA technology powers fire‐fighting drones. Read all about it in this compendium of articles from...

Briefs: Energy
Yarn-Shaped Supercapacitors Promise Efficient Energy Storage
As interest in wearable technology has surged, research into creating energy-storage devices that can be woven into textiles has also increased. Researchers at North Carolina State University have now identified a “sweet spot” at which the length of a threadlike energy storage technology called a “yarn-shaped supercapacitor” yields the highest and most efficient flow of energy per unit length. Read on to learn more.
Briefs: Medical
A research team led by Dr. Sunghoon Hur of the Electronic and Hybrid Materials Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and Professor Hyun-Cheol Song of Korea University has developed a biocompatible ultrasonic receiver that maintains its performance even when bent. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
A research team innovatively proposed the “Integrated Battery Large Model,” establishing the first AI-driven paradigm covering the entire lifecycle of the Li-ion battery industry, providing a novel technological path for the industry’s intelligent upgrade. Read on to learn more about the Battery Large Model system.
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Articles: Energy
See the products of tomorrow, including a new material that can use sunlight and water to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide; a novel design for solar-powered data centers that will orbit the Earth and could realistically scale to meet the growing demand for AI computing while reducing the environmental impact of data centers; and more.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory developed a magnetocaloric heat pump that matches current vapor-compression heat pumps for weight, cost, and performance. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually measure important material properties. A fully autonomous robotic system developed by MIT researchers could speed things up. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
A team led by Professor Yan Lu, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, and Professor Arne Thomas, Technical University of Berlin, has developed a material that enhances the capacity and stability of lithium-sulfur batteries. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Energy
It's a challenge that today’s sensors do not work optimally in humid environments. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, are presenting a new sensor that is well suited to humid environments — and actually performs better the more humid it gets. Read on to learn more about it.
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Briefs: Energy
Researchers have developed a flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times, opening the door to self-powered sensors on our roads and for other electronic devices. Read on to learn more.
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INSIDER: Research Lab
To become a mainstream energy source, solar panels need to become more efficient, and a recent breakthrough by researchers from Kyushu University and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz may accelerate this progress. Read on to learn more.
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INSIDER: Energy
German researchers have developed a technique for applying realistic designs to photovoltaic modules, which convert sunlight into electricity, enabling them to mimic roof tiles and integrate more seamlessly into buildings. Read on to learn about this new method, termed ShadeCut.
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INSIDER: Energy
Precision agriculture uses sensors to monitor soil and help farmers improve yields. However, powering these sensors with continuous, uninterrupted power is challenging due to limited battery capacity and limited development of renewable power. To help address farmers' power needs, Northwestern University researchers have developed a fuel cell the size of a paperback that captures energy as microbes break down organic matter, powering underground sensors for agriculture and environmental monitoring.
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Special Reports: AR/AI
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Advanced Materials & Coatings - April 2026
In this compendium of articles from the editors of Tech Briefs and Aerospace & Defense Technology, learn how breakthroughs in materials science are enabling exciting new applications in defense...

News: Power
Fuel supply and costs are a growing concern for consumers and businesses alike. Fleets running medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles have many options beyond conventional diesel fuel. Test your knowledge on the history and current state of alternative fuels with this quiz.
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Application Briefs: Propulsion
U.K.-based Pulsar Fusion has tested the physical architecture of a nuclear fusion exhaust system for space travel.
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Special Reports: Defense
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Power Electronics - April 2026
This compendium of articles from the editors of Tech Briefs and Aerospace & Defense Technology magazines looks at the latest advances in power electronics and energy storage for applications ranging from...

Summits: Energy
As electrification reshapes how vehicles are designed, powered, and integrated into energy ecosystems, OEMs and design engineers are faced with complex design challenges.
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5 Ws: Software
Buildings researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have released Building Energy Model AI (BEM-AI) is an open-source bot that can help energy modelers save time and money.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Improving energy conversion efficiency in power electronics is vital for a sustainable society. Wide-bandgap semiconductors like GaN and SiC power devices offer advantages due to their high-frequency capabilities. However, energy losses in passive components at high frequencies hinder efficiency and miniaturization. Find out what a research team from the School of Engineering, Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan, developed to help.
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Briefs: Energy
Even in arid parts of the world, there is usually moisture in the air. This moisture could provide much-needed water for drinking and irrigation, but extracting water out of air is difficult. A new technology developed by KAUST researchers can consistently extract liters of water out of thin air each day without needing regular manual maintenance. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Materials
A Better Way to Recycle Carbon Fibers
The world is hurtling rapidly toward a developed future, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) play a key role in enabling technological and industrial progress. However, recycling CFRPs presents a significant challenge, with waste management being a pressing issue. Now, a team of researchers has come up with a novel direct discharge electrical pulse method for efficiently recycling CFRPs. Read on to learn more about it.
Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
See the products of tomorrow, including Chalmers University of Technology's new sensor that is well suited to humid environments — and actually performs better the more humid it gets; a new fabrication technique that can produce multifunctional “smart synthetic skin” from a research team at Penn State; and RMIT University researchers' flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times.
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Briefs: Materials
The coating toughens the surface of the electrolyte fivefold against fracturing from mechanical pressure. It also makes existing imperfections much less vulnerable to lithium burrowing inside, especially during fast recharging. Read on to learn more.
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Videos