Electronics & Software

Powering Wearables: Balancing Battery Life with Power Efficiency

Wearable medical devices must balance the need for continuous monitoring with power efficiency.

How Is Generative AI Transforming Engineering?

As generative AI continues to evolve, we are seeing many new applications emerge across industries. How much do you know about generative AI? Take this quiz to test your knowledge.

Brain-Inspired AI Code Library Notches Milestone

The open source code library — snnTorch — has surpassed 100,000 downloads and is used in a wide variety of projects, from NASA satellite tracking efforts to semiconductor companies optimizing chips for AI.

NASA’s Ruggedized Video Camera Ready for Earth

A ruggedized video camera designed to withstand the shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures of space is now ready for extreme conditions on Earth.

How Much Do You Know About PoE?

PoE is growing ever more powerful and useful. As IoT, automation, smart devices, and connectivity become more ubiquitous, new applications are continuing to expand. Test your knowledge with this quiz.

New Material Could Lead to Better Hydrogen-Based Batteries, Fuel Cells

Researchers led by Genki Kobayashi at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research in Japan have developed a solid electrolyte for transporting hydride ions at room temperature.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including a new feature for RJG's CoPilot process control system, Renishaw's expanded RenAM 500, AIRMAR's three medium ultra-wide transducers, Coilcraft's molded power inductors, VP810 vapor phase soldering systems from ASSCON, and more.

Stretchable Micro-Supercapacitors to Self-Power Wearable Devices

A stretchable system that can harvest energy from human breathing and motion for use in wearable health-monitoring devices may be possible, according to an international team of researchers.

A New Design for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are researching solutions to these Li-ion battery issues by testing new materials in battery construction. One such material is sulfur.

Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space

Wireless power transfer was recently demonstrated by MAPLE — Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment — one of three key technologies being tested by the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), the first space-borne prototype from Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP), which aims to harvest solar power in space and transmit it to the Earth’s surface.

3D Battery Imaging Reveals Real-Time Life of Lithium Metal Cells

A team from Chalmers University of Technology has succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. The new method may contribute to batteries with higher capacity and increased safety in our future cars and devices.

Next-Generation Flow Battery Design

A research team from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reports that the flow battery, a design optimized for electrical grid energy storage, maintained its capacity to store and release energy for more than a year of continuous charge and discharge.

Metasurfaces Control Polarized Light at Will

Researchers at SEAS have uncovered hidden potential in metasurfaces and demonstrated optical devices that manipulate light’s polarization state with an unprecedented degree of control. Read on to learn more.

Terahertz Energy Focused by Credit Card-Sized Device to Generate High-Resolution Images

Researchers have created a device that enables them to electronically steer and focus a beam of terahertz electromagnetic energy with extreme precision. This opens the door to high-resolution, real-time imaging devices that are hundredths the size of other radar systems and more robust than other optical systems.

Highest-Resolution Single-Photon Superconducting Camera

The NIST camera is made up of grids of ultrathin electrical wires, cooled to near absolute zero, in which current moves with no resistance until a wire is struck by a photon. In these superconducting-nanowire cameras, the energy imparted by even a single photon can be detected because it shuts down the superconductivity at a particular location (pixel) on the grid. Combining all the locations and intensities of all the photons makes up an image.

New Ultra-Strong Material for Microchip Sensors

Researchers have unveiled a remarkable new material with potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical properties crucial for vibration isolation on a microchip. It is therefore particularly suitable for making ultra-sensitive microchip sensors.

Computing Breakthrough: First Logical Quantum Processor

Harvard researchers have realized a key milestone in the quest for stable, scalable quantum computing, an ultra-high-speed technology that will enable game-changing advances in a variety of fields, including medicine, science, and finance.

Using Kirigami to make Ultrastrong, Lightweight Structures

Using kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of folding and cutting paper, MIT researchers have now manufactured a type of high-performance architected material known as a plate lattice, on a much larger scale than scientists have previously been able to achieve by additive fabrication.

Testing Space Applications with Solar Simulator Technology

NASA’s Artemis program consists of a series of missions designed to land humans on the Moon and establish a sustainable, continuing presence. A long-term foothold on the Moon’s surface enables invaluable research and testing opportunities that will set the stage for future groundbreaking missions, including the first human mission to Mars.

Executive Roundtable: Artificial Intelligence

What are the opportunities and risks AI offers in manufacturing? How can manufacturers successfully implement AI and prepare their workforce to integrate it into their processes? What’s its future outlook? Tech Briefs asked four industry experts in this roundtable.

Videos of the Month

See the videos of the month, including one on Purdue University researchers teaching robots how to navigate the swaying deck of a boat, one on a Carnegie Mellon-led team developing a soft robot to better understand an organism — the pleurocystitid — that existed 450 million years ago, and more.

Piezo Composites with Carbon Fibers for Motion Sensors

An international research group has engineered a novel high-strength flexible device by combining piezoelectric composites with unidirectional carbon fiber (UDCF), an anisotropic...

Researchers Create First Functional Semiconductor Made from Graphene

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held...

Self-Powered Sensor Automatically Harvests Magnetic Energy

MIT researchers have developed a battery-free, self-powered sensor that can harvest energy from its environment.

A Novel Strategy to Stabilize Zinc-Ion Batteries

Researchers constructed an electrocrystallization strategy to induce zinc texture growth. The adsorption of DMA induces Zn (002) texture growth and inhibits harmful side reactions.

Climate-Friendly Sodium-Ion Batteries to Rival Li-ion Batteries

The transition to a society without fossil fuels means that the need for batteries is increasing at a rapid pace. One option is a sodium-ion battery, where table salt and biomass from the forest industry make up the main raw materials.

How Much Do You Know About the History of Space Telescopes?

How much do you know about the history of space telescopes? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

Expanding Copernicus’s Earth Observation Program With Hyperspectral Imaging

Last June, the European Commission and the European Space Agency awarded Kuva Space a €5M commercial contract to be the sole provider of hyperspectral data...