Because of their many benefits, LEDs are becoming more popular for use with light-curable materials. However, because of technology differences, making the switch from broad-spectrum to LED curing energy sources is seldom a matter of simply replacing conventional lamps with LED units and leaving...

If electric cars could recharge while driving down a highway, it would virtually eliminate concerns about their range and lower their cost, perhaps making electricity the standard fuel for vehicles. Researchers have wirelessly transmitted electricity to a nearby moving object, which could advance...

A number of instruments have been built to obtain range images — a two-dimensional array of numbers that gives the depth of a scene along many directions from a central point in the instrument. Instead of measuring the brightness of many points in a scene, as in a television camera, these instruments measure where each...

Motivated by public hazards associated with contaminated sources of drinking water, a group of scientists has successfully developed and tested tiny, glowing crystals that detect and trap heavy-metal toxins like mercury and lead.

Using high-tech human heart models and mouse experiments, scientists at Johns Hopkins and Germany’s University of Bonn have shown that beams of light could replace electric shocks in patients reeling from a deadly heart rhythm disorder.

Researchers from KU Leuven in Belgium, the University of Strasbourg, and CNRS have discovered a new phosphor that could make next-generation fluorescent and LED lighting even cheaper and more efficient. The team used highly luminescent clusters of silver atoms and the porous framework of minerals known...

NASA’s bright pink Pressure-Sensitive Paint (PSP) is helping to test new aircraft designs. A thin coat of PSP is sprayed onto the model that will be tested in the wind tunnel and allowed to dry. The model is then installed in the wind tunnel, which also is equipped with a series of blue...

The arrival of a thin, lightweight computer that even rolls up like a piece of paper will not be in the far distant future. Flexible organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), built upon a plastic substrate, have received greater attention lately for their use in next-generation displays that can be...

An energy-harvesting technology developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers captures the energy of human motion to power mobile electronic devices. The footwear-embedded energy harvester could be especially useful for the military, as soldiers currently carry heavy batteries to power their...

Scientists from Stanford University have discovered how to make the electrical wiring on top of solar cells nearly invisible to incoming light. The new design, which uses silicon nanopillars to hide the wires, could dramatically boost solar-cell efficiency.

In most solar cells, the upper...

Highly efficient, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) could slash the world’s electricity consumption. They are already sold in stores, but more widespread adoption of the technology has been hindered by high costs due to limited availability of raw materials and difficulties in achieving acceptable light...

A team of scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has found that blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) have strong antibacterial effects on major foodborne pathogens, and are most effective when in cold temperatures (between 4°C and 15°C) and mildly acidic...