Stories
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Briefs: Test & Measurement
Plastic Material Works as a Heat Conductor
Plastics are excellent insulators, meaning they can efficiently trap heat — a quality that can be an advantage in something like a coffee cup sleeve. But this insulating property is less desirable in products such as plastic casings for laptops and mobile phones that overheat, in part, because the...
Facility Focus: Energy
This year, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) marks 75 years as a research institution. Located in Oak Ridge, TN, ORNL is the largest US Department of Energy science and energy laboratory, conducting basic and...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Two-photon lithography (TPL), a high-resolution 3D printing technique, is capable of producing nanoscale features smaller than 1/100 the width of a human hair. The technique could enable X-ray...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Water heaters and other thermal energy storage devices increase the temperature of a medium above an ambient or normal temperature, and store the warmer medium. Water heaters, in particular, must store the...
Briefs: Materials
New Methods in Preparing and Purifying Nanomaterials
Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have made several breakthroughs in treating hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) nanomaterials, improving their properties to supplant carbon nanotubes in many applications. These inventors have greatly enhanced the processes of intercalation and exfoliation....
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Researchers have created a material that consists of carefully structured molecules designed to be particularly electrochemically stable in order to prevent the battery from losing energy to unwanted reactions. In...
Application Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Digital microscopes are being automated and computerized to make them easier to use, display more data with more detail and precision, and expand their areas of application. With traditional...
Articles: Electronics & Computers
The need to measure laser output characteristics, including average power, pulse energy, and pulse shape, is a common requirement across many industrial and research applications. However,...
Application Briefs: Lighting
As the lighting industry continues to mature, vendors continue to pursue inexpensive lighting solutions that offer universal compatibility and are easy to install. For OEMs and manufacturers, LEDs have proven to be a...
Products: Imaging
Portable Laser Scanner
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence (North Kingstown, RI) has announced the Leica Absolute Scanner LAS-XL, a new ultralarge scale portable laser scanner. Designed for industries and applications where both...
Articles: Transportation
Next-generation manufacturing takes on a 50-year-old icon as ORNL researchers transform the classic Shelby Cobra sports car into a 3D-printed laboratory on wheels. Additive manufacturing enables the seamless integration...
Blog: Aerospace
Answering Your Questions: Is This the End of VME?
A reader asked our expert: What technology will spell the beginning of the end for the VME embedded computing platform?
Question of the Week: Materials
Will All-Liquid 3D-Printing lead to ‘Liquid Electronics’?
A recent video on Tech Briefs TV featured an achievement from Berkeley Lab scientists who have developed a way to print all-liquid 3D structures.
Blog: Electronics & Computers
Larry Curtiss answers reader questions about a new kind of lithium-air battery.
Application Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A600-pound spider-like robot, called Spidernaut, was part of a prototype robot team built in 2005 to assemble a solar array on the Moon. The goal was not only to have robots do the manual...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
As the need for nano precision has become increasingly important in many fields of research and manufacturing — such as microelectronics fabrication,...
Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Rotary encoders play important roles in motion control and industrial automation systems, providing control systems with information about the motion of motor shafts,...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
Algorithms Analyze Images from Minimal Data
Smartphones and sensors have produced a treasure trove of pictures, many tagged with pertinent information identifying content. Using this vast database of cross-referenced images, convolutional neural networks and other machine learning methods have revolutionized the ability to quickly identify natural...
Briefs: Aerospace
In 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing — an object is built layer-by-layer, allowing for the creation of structures that would be impossible to manufacture by...
Articles: Electronics & Computers
The market for higher-voltage automotive systems is expanding. The number of electric vehicles that use battery-powered drive systems having voltage equal to or higher than 48V is...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Microphones, from those in smartphones to hearing aids, are built specifically to hear the human voice — humans can’t hear at levels higher than 20 kHz, and microphones max out at...
Briefs: Communications
Leaders of teams such as first responders must maintain situational awareness to effectively react, coordinate, and respond to circumstances that can often become hazardous. Effective communications...
Briefs: Aerospace
System and Method for Managing Autonomous Entities Through Apoptosis
This NASA innovation is a biologically inspired system management method designed to make sensor webs as well as other autonomous and autonomic systems more self-directing and self-managing. Based on the mechanisms of cell apoptosis, this method ensures safe and correct operation...
Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
NASA Glenn’s cup cylindrical waveguide antenna (CCWA) is a short backfire microwave antenna capable of simultaneously supporting the transmission or reception of two distinct signals having opposite circular...
Briefs: Energy
By binding photosensitive dyes to common plastic membranes and adding water, chemists have made a new type of solar power generator. The device is similar to familiar silicon...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Cobalt Oxygen-Evolving Catalysts for Clean Solar Fuel
By splitting a water molecule into two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, scientists can use the Sun’s energy to make a clean fuel. Splitting a water molecule requires a metal catalyst to get the reaction started. Recently, much scientific attention has focused on cobalt, a relatively...
Briefs: Aerospace
Highly capable small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide substantial business opportunity, especially if allowed to operate in the suburban market. Reliability issues force the use of a safety pilot for each vehicle in...
Briefs: Materials
Most electronic devices have glass or plastic covers that protect against dust, moisture, and other environmental contaminants, but light reflection from these surfaces can make...
Briefs: Energy
High-Power Solid-State Power Amplifier System
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has developed a High-Power Solid-State Power Amplifier System that combines 1-KW modules (16 amps total) to generate up to 16KW of radio frequency (RF) power from 230 MHz. The NASA device is a first step toward increasing the power of solid-state power amp...
Top Stories
Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
2025 Holiday Gift Guide for Engineers: Tech, Tools, and Gadgets
Blog: Power
Using Street Lamps as EV Chargers
INSIDER: Semiconductors & ICs
Scientists Create Superconducting Semiconductor Material
Blog: Materials
This Paint Can Cool Buildings Without Energy Input
Blog: Software
Quiz: Power
Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: AR/AI
The Real Impact of AR and AI in the Industrial Equipment Industry
Upcoming Webinars: Motion Control
Next-Generation Linear and Rotary Stages: When Ultra Precision...
Podcasts: Manufacturing & Prototyping
SAE Automotive Engineering Podcast: Additive Manufacturing
Podcasts: Defense
A New Approach to Manufacturing Machine Connectivity for the Air Force
On-Demand Webinars: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Streamlining Manufacturing with Integrated Digital Planning and Simulation

