tag: MIT

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 2
By Ann Mutschler - 02 Sep, 2014 - Comments: 0

Hidden patterns Since patterned surfaces are popular among researchers seeking to induce surfaces to repel water or adhere to other things, or to modify materials’ electrical properties, materials scientists at MIT have added a new wrinkle to research on the patterning of surfaces. Most research has focused on patterns on the outer surfaces of materials, but a team in MIT’s Department of ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 19
By Ann Mutschler - 19 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Spray-on power In a discovery that could help cut the cost of solar electricity, a team of scientists at the University of Sheffield has fabricated perovskite solar cells using a spray-painting process. The researchers had used the spray-painting method previously to produce solar cells using organic semiconductors - but using perovskite is a major step forward, they asserted. Efficient ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 12
By Ed Sperling - 12 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Origami Robots It may sound like something out of the movie Transformers, but MIT and Harvard have created origami robots that be reconfigured using timed sequencing. The robots were built from laser-cut parts using five layers of materials. A layer of etched copper is embedded between two structural layers of paper, with outer layers made of a polymer that folds when heated, according to... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 12
By Ann Mutschler - 12 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

Putting waste heat to use According to MIT, it is estimated that more than half of U.S. energy — from vehicles and heavy equipment, for instance — is wasted as heat, which mostly escapes into the air. However, an MIT professor and his team have begun to change that with thermoelectric materials that convert temperature differences into electric voltage.About a decade ago, Gang Chen, the C... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 29
By Ed Sperling - 29 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Cool Magnets MIT researchers believe that magnets on the outside of the refrigerator may someday be used for cooling. Magnons, which are essentially a collective spin wave or quasi-particle, are also conductors of heat. MIT researchers found that when exposed to a magnetic field gradient, magnons can be driven from one end of a magnet to another, carrying heat with them. “You can p... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 15
By Ann Mutschler - 15 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Improving battery performance with sand Researchers at the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering have created a lithium ion battery that outperforms the current industry standard by three times using sand as the key material. The researchers, who said this is a low cost, non-toxic, environmentally-friendly way to produce high performance lithium ion battery a... » read more

IoT, A Market And Technology Set To Explode
By Zach Shelby - 10 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

While a fully-connected Internet of Things (IoT) world is still away off, an increasing number of devices are being built that can communicate with each other through wireless connections such as WiFi, Bluetooth, 6LoWPAN or Cellular. Current technology trends point toward a more seamlessly connected world, and for that to happen we must have cost-effective, low-power and highly connected dev... » read more

System Bits: June 24
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 0

Experimental 36-core chip The more cores — or processing units — a computer chip has, the bigger the problem of communication between cores becomes. For years, Li-Shiuan Peh, the Singapore Research Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, has argued that the massively multicore chips of the future will need to resemble little Internets, where each core has an associ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 10
By Ann Mutschler - 10 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 0

Cheaper, lighter solar cells Think those flat, glassy solar panels on your neighbor’s roof are the best solar technology has to offer? Not so. Engineers in the University of Toronto’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have designed and tested a new class of solar-sensitive nanoparticle that they say outperforms the current state of the art. Based on a new form of solid... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 27
By Ann Mutschler - 27 May, 2014 - Comments: 0

Battery captures waste heat, converts it to electricity While vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants, researchers around the world have spent decades looking for ways to harness some of this wasted energy, according to engineering researchers at Stanford and MIT. They pointed out that most of these efforts have focused on thermoelectric d... » read more

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