Materials & Manufacturing

Materials & Coatings

Access the technical resources for a range of materials and coatings. Design engineers can browse news, technical briefs, and applications for plastics, composites, rubbers, elastomers, and metals.

Stories

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INSIDER: Materials
With a wide range of healthcare, energy, and military applications, stretchable electronics are valued for their ability to be compressed, twisted and conformed to uneven surfaces without losing...
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INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Researchers at University of British Columbia Okanagan’s School of Engineering have developed a low-cost sensor that can be interlaced into textiles and composite materials. While the research...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Micro UV Aerosol Detector
The detection of aerosols within fluid samples can be accomplished by optical methods. Such methods are useful in detecting potentially harmful aerosols such as biological aerosols that may be present after a biological agent attack or industrial accident. It is well known that biological molecules fluoresce when excited...
Facility Focus: Medical
In October 1962, the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Unit was established with a goal of providing specialized medical and physiological support to help close the gap between Army combat...
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Briefs: Imaging
Researchers have created stretchable, rubbery semiconductors including rubbery integrated electronics, logic circuits, and arrayed sensory skins fully based on rubber materials. The semiconductors have...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Lithium-ion batteries commonly used in consumer electronics are notorious for bursting into flame when damaged or improperly packaged. Inspired by the unusual behavior of some liquids...
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Briefs: Wearables
Self-Powered, Washable, Wearable Displays
Clothing usually is formed with textiles and has to be both wearable and washable for daily use; however, smart clothing has had a problem with its power sources and moisture permeability, which causes the devices to malfunction. To solve this problem, a textile-based, wearable display module technology was...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Silicon is a naturally occurring material commonly used as a semiconductor in electronic devices; however, researchers have exhausted the potential of devices with semiconductors made of...
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Briefs: IoMT
Used since 2013, electroceutical bandages — which use electrical impulses to treat medical issues — kill bacteria around a wound, allowing wounds to heal faster. In addition, if infection is...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Systems and Methods for Correcting Optical Reflectance Measurements
Optical spectroscopy can be used to determine the concentration of chemical species in samples. The amount of light absorbed by a particular chemical species is often linearly related to its concentration through Beer’s Law. For nontransparent materials such as powders, tablets,...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
An ingestible pill was developed that, upon reaching the stomach, quickly swells to the size of a soft, squishy ping-pong ball big enough to stay in the stomach for an extended...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
All-Fiber, Optically Controlled Optical Switch
An optical switch is a device where information-bearing light may be directed to one of several outputs. Prior art optical switches have mainly been integrated optical waveguide structures such as titanium-diffused (Ti) waveguides in lithium-niobate (LiNbO3) or gallium-arsenide (GaAs) structures, or...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries but when not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. While...
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5 Ws: Materials
Who Millions of people worldwide with type 1 diabetes.
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Briefs: Energy
Increase in bioethanol production throughout the US has led to an increase in the process coproduct — distiller’s grains with solubles (DGS). DGS can be used to feed...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Algorithm Predicts How Electromagnetic Waves Interact with Materials at the Smallest Scales
Magnetic materials can attract or repel each other based on their polar orientation — positive and negative ends attract each other, while two positives or two negatives repel. When an electromagnetic signal like a radio wave passes through such materials,...
Briefs: Materials
The connection of plastics and metals poses a challenge due to the different physical properties of the two materials. All conventional joining options, such as bonds using adhesives or rivets,...
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Briefs: Energy
Directly converting electrical power to heat is easy; however, converting heat into electrical power is not as easy. To address this issue, a tiny silicon-based device was developed that can harness...
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Briefs: Automotive
Conventional electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries that power household electronics like computers and cellphones are not suitable for lithium-metal batteries....
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Double-Fed Induction Linear Alternator
This technology was developed to address the limitations of traditional, single-fed linear alternators that require permanent magnets, adhesive bonding organics, and heavy iron laminations for flux control. They experience eddy-current losses and require electromagnetic interference protection. Furthermore,...
Briefs: Energy
Lithium batteries allow electric vehicles to travel several hundred miles on one charge. Their capacity for energy storage is well known — so is their tendency to occasionally catch...
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Articles: Aerospace
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
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Briefs: Energy
Traditionally, electronics are cooled using a heat sink that transfers the heat generated by the electronic system into the air or a liquid coolant. For the heat sink to work, it has to be...
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Briefs: Wearables
Graphene Flagship partner ICFO, based in Barcelona, Spain is developing graphene-based prototypes that aim to turn mobile phones into life saving devices. The first of these will allow...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Simon Fraser University and Swiss researchers are developing an eco-friendly, 3D printable solution for producing wireless Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors that can be used...
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Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
We recently had a discussion with Sri Peruvemba, VP of Strategy at BeBop Sensors (Berkeley, CA), about the technology and applications for their two-dimensional fabric sensor material. I started by asking Sri...
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Briefs: Materials
Batteries with metallic lithium anodes offer enhanced efficiency compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries because of their higher capacity. However, safety concerns and a short lifespan stand in the way. To...
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Briefs: Wearables
An interdisciplinary Northwestern University team has developed a pair of soft, flexible wireless sensors that replace the tangle of wire-based sensors that currently monitor babies in hospitals’...
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Application Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
For wheelchair users, the feeling of uneven ground can seem all too familiar. Determined to make ride discomfort a thing of the past, Israel-based SoftWheel has completely reinvented the wheel for a...
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