Researchers at the University of Maryland College of Chemical and Life Sciences have developed a new technique which will improve nanofabrication, and in the same time it will make it cheaper. The advances in nanotechnology are important in manufacturing computer microchips and other tiny devices, but they are more important to create smaller structures.

In order to design structures smaller than human hair, you will need to use a technique called photolithography which requires difficult-to-use and expensive ultraviolet light. The team of researchers at the University of Maryland College of Chemical and Life Sciences led by John Fourkas, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, have developed a new photolithography technique which doesn’t require ultraviolet light. The team called it RAPID, short for Resolution Augmentation through Photo-Induced Deactivation.

The well-known process of photolithography is based on light to deposit and remove materials, and create tiny patterns on surfaces. The researchers say that there is a strong link between the size created and the wavelength used so until now nanofabrication required ultraviolet light to create nanostructures.

“The RAPID lithography technique we have developed enables us to create patterns twenty times smaller than the wavelength of light employed which means that it streamlines the nanofabrication process. We expect RAPID to find many applications in areas such as electronics, optics, and biomedical devices,” said Fourkas.

Fourkas and this research group used two laser light sources of the same color – the first was used to harden the material, while the latter was used to prevent the material from hardening. The difference between the two was that the first produced only short bursts of light, while the latter was kept on perpetually. Also, the second laser light went through a custom optic which was designed to allow the sculpting of the hardened materials.

“If you have gotten a filling at the dentist in recent year, you have seen that a viscous liquid is squirted into the cavity and a blue light is then used to harden it. A similar process of hardening using light is the first element of RAPID. Now imagine that your dentist could use a second light source to sculpt the filling by preventing it from hardening in certain places. We have developed a way of using a second light source to perform this sculpting, and it allows us to create features that are 2500 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The fact that one laser is on constantly in RAPID makes this technique particularly easy to implement, because there is no need to control the timing between two different pulsed lasers,” said Fourkas.

The study is only at the beginning but Fourkas says that his team already made some important advances, and that now they are looking to improve RAPID as they want to create structures half the size of the one they created so far.

Researchers have developed world’s first nanofluidic device with complex 3D surfaces which could have enormous implications in applications like nanoscale materials processing, in pharmaceuticals, nanoparticles sorting, and it could help isolating particular DNA strands for further research studies.

The scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology were inspired by the manufacturing process of integrated circuits and they used it at nanoscale. The result is world’s first nanofluidic device with 3D complex surfaces called the “Lilliputian chamber” which will be used with custom-based surfaces to engineer nanoparticles among many other applications. In order to develop a nanofluidic device, researchers have to etch very small channels into a silicon wafer, just like in the manufacturing process of an integrated circuit.

So far, researchers have only managed to develop simple surfaces of only a few depths meaning that you cannot study DNA or other molecules in detail. Now, that their ability is not limited anymore, researchers will be able to study complex surfaces of nanoparticles in detail.  The manufacturing process of integrated circuits is based on “lithographic” procedures, and the researchers used them to develop complex 3D surfaces, then they designed a nanofluidic chamber which featured a staircase geometry engraved in its floor. The steps of the staircase represented a level, each increasing in depth from 10 nanometers to 620 nanometers.

In order to test their Lilliputian chamber with 3D complex surfaces, the researchers used two solutions/materials – first was based on 100-nanometer in diameter of polystyrene spheres, while the latter consisted of 20-micrometer in length DNA molecules. In the tests, the researchers introduced the solution in the deep end of the chamber, then they maneuvered the samples across the chamber using electric fields, and they tracked their movements on a microscope (the polystyrene spheres, and the DNA strands were “tagged” with fluorescent dyes to observe their movement).

The results of the tests were very convincing as when using polystyrene spheres, the so-called “size exclusion” happened when the area of the Lilliputian chamber (the channels were less than 100-nanometers in depth) remained free of the nanoparticles. When using the DNA strands, the molecules were coiled in much deeper channels, and then forced to enter in shallower channels. In other words the results clearly show that NIST’s nanofluidic device can be used to perform complex 3D operations at nanoscale.

The Lilliputian chamber could have enormous implications in various applications like scientific studies, safety invetigations, and for environmental health. The research if only at the beginning, and now the NIST researchers are looking to separate mixtures of nanoparticles, and to study DNA’s behavior in a 3D nanofluidic device.

Throughout the world there are about 8,000 Rubber Tired Gantry cranes which do a lot of damage to the environment due to huge fuel consumption, and gas emissions. In order to reduce the harmful emissions, an ECE researcher called Mark Flynn has developed a device that can be integrated in ports around the world. Dr. Flynn designed a high-speed flywheel motor controller which reduces the fuel consumption of the RTG cranes which are powered by a diesel motor.

The RTG cranes can move a shipping container in three minutes, and this requires a lot of power especially in the lift as these containers weigh 50 metric tons depending on their load. Also, considering the fact that the descent requires a special attention, then you can only imagine how much power the cranes consume. The high-speed flywheel motor controller can be integrated in RTG’s energy storage systems, and it will capture the so-called “braking energy”, and it will use it for the next crane.

VYCON Inc. is the company that produces Flynn’s device, and sea ports are among the best places to test new greener technologies. RTG cranes lose a lot of power when maneuvering containers, and instead of using it for the upcoming containers, the energy is dissipated as wasted heat. Like aforementioned, Flynn’s device captures the energy and uses it for the next load.

According to some field tests in China, the flywheel energy storage system can also lower power requirements which will save a lot of energy. The tests also showed that the fuel consumption was lowered by 38%, while NOx and PM emissions were dramatically cut down. Driven by the success of the VYCON flywheel, now data centers and hospitals are replacing industrial batteries with the high-speed flywheel motor controller.

“Industrial batteries are less expensive initially than a flywheel, but when you factor in maintenance and having to pay for more charge than you need to avoid frequent battery replacement a flywheel-based solution can be considerable less expensive. A VYCON flywheel will last 20 years and eliminates the problem of what to do with 200 large-scale toxic lead-acid batteries,” said Flynn.

You don’t have to be a genius to tell that data centers and hospitals can’t afford blackouts as many lives and businesses depend on them. Although hospitals and data back-up centers have back-up diesel generators, their energy will not be entirely utilized which means that the energy is lost forever. VYCON’s flywheel can handle most power outages, and if an outage persists then the device will absorb “energy abnormalities” and transfer power to generators.

“I am very pleased with the fuel and emissions savings results we are seeing and with additional improvements currently under research that aim to improve the savings further. Future work will investigate the feasibility of using flywheels in subway rail stations to accelerate one train with the braking energy recovered from another. Doing so will not only save energy but can be used to defer or eliminate the costs of adding utility substations as rail service grows,” explained Flynn.

The VYCON flywheel has a promising future ahead of it, we expect even more from the device. It’s not hard to tell that in the 8,000 sea ports around the world, a lot of energy is wasted while harmful emissions are released in the atmosphere damaging the entire eco-system. Maybe this flywheel energy storage system will help us save the planet, and the tests clearly show that. Expert environmentalists just have to “convince” the authorities to integrate the device in sea ports, and later in other applications.

Hydrogen fuel cells need catalysts to accelerate the chemical reactions inside them, but the problem is that they are very expensive because the catalysts are made of precious materials like platinum. The new catalyst is based on iron, nitrogen, and carbon which are far less expensive than platinum which ranges between $1,000 to $2,000 an ounce. Although these three non-precious materials were used for hydrogen fuel cells before, they didn’t react too well making the cells unpractical.

Researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Quebec have managed to increase the power of the catalyst to 99 amps per cubic centimeter at .8 volts which is 35 times better than previous iron-based catalysts. With just a few improvements the INRS scientists should soon reach the 130 amps per cubic centimeter, which is the minimum amount for hydrogen fuel cell catalysts. According to Jean Pol Dodelet, leader of the INRS team, this iron-based catalyst is just as good as platinum catalysts which means that hydrogen fuel cells will become cheaper, and in time, better.

“We thought nobody would ever meet [the benchmark for hydrogen fuel cells]. For the very first time, a non-precious metal catalyst makes sense,” said Hubert Gasteiger, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Gasteiger is only one of the researchers who praised INRS’ breakthrough which is “quite surprising” if it were to quote Radoslav Adzic, researcher and fuel cell catalysts-developer at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Although other researchers have tried, the INRS team used a different approach, and they increased the number of the catalytic sites in the iron-based material. They figured that if they would have more active sites, then the number of reactions within the material will increase. These catalytic sites are “obtained” by heating a graphite-like form of carbon called carbon black which reacts and creates “gaps” when in contact with ammonia and iron acetate. Then the researchers used nitrogen atoms to link gaps’ opposite sides which eventually result in active catalytic sites.

According to Dodelet, their iron-based catalyst performs best in PEM fuel cells which work at low temperatures, and feature a high power density. He also said that there are other non-precious metal-based catalysts which work in alkaline cells, however, these catalysts will not operate in an acidic environment like the one found in PEM fuel cells.

“We solved the problem,” said Dodelet, but he admits that the catalyst needs further improvements because it has two major flaws – the former is its durability which has to be increased as after 100 hours, the reactions in the cells were halved; and the latter is the fact that catalysts can operate as fast as the reactants allow them, but the oxygen and protons transportation will have to be improved by fuel cell engineers as Dodelet’s team only develops the catalysts.

I don’t think that it will take too long before these obstacles will be overcome, and it is quite possible that in the near future automakers will get their hands on cheaper hydrogen fuel cells which means that we will be able to buy hydrogen cars at lower prices.

After years and years of research, debates, and studies, European astronomers may have found dark matter. Several years ago a satellite has detected and abnormal energy which may be dark matter. According to the researchers, the Universe consists of 5% of ordinary material (atoms), 23% of dark matter, and 72% of dark energy.

Although dark matter and dark energy are a mystery, the astrophysicists have somehow calculated what you can find in the cosmos. Until now dark matter was observed indirectly thanks to the gravitational forces exerted on the visible matter. However, the European astronomers believe that dark matter is that mysterious energy signal that was detected by a satellite.

In the meantime, the Universe remains an infinite puzzle, and astronomers can only argue what can be found in the cosmos. Some say that darl matter is Universe’s new dimension, some say that the dark matter consists of a different type of particle called WIMPs, while others are convinced that the dark matter is based on sub-atomic or supersymmetric particles. Considering these three aforementioned theories, the hypothesis of WIMPs is the most plausible – WIMPs stands for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, and it is said that these new particles interact so weakly with visible and regular matter that it doesn’t generate light-emitting phenomenons, but so far nobody presented conclusive evidence.

According to this new study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the dark matter may have been detected by the orbiting satellite called “Pamela”. The leader of the team, Piergiorgio Picozza, says that they found a huge number of positrons in cosmic rays which is anomalous.

“Some scientists think this is dark matter, while others think we have to study contributions from other positron sources. We need much more verification, which can come from other observations,” said Picozza.

Is it possible that astronomers may have found dark matter? Or dark energy? Or that “stuff” that holds the Universe? Is this just a new hoax theory? We really need the answers for these questions because we need to know more about the Universe. Why? Well, the human race has an urge for knowledge.

If I learned one thing about concepts and prototypes, I learned that most of them never make it to the production line and with time they are forgotten. However, this is not the case of a prototype device created by researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering. This device is a supercapacitor who usually performs electronic operations thanks to silicon chips, but the USC researchers managed to develop a transparent and flexible supercapacitor using carbon nanotubes.

The team of researchers led by Chongwu Zhou claims that the supercapacitor which uses CNT films and indium-oxide nanowires can be manufactured at prices competitive with conventional techniques which use silicon. Also, this energy storage and conversion device is completely transparent, and is so flexible that it can be “bent and twisted like a poker card.”

According to Zhou, this new capacitor features an energy density of 1.29 watt-hour per kilogram, and a storage capacitance of 64 Farad per gram, while conventional capacitors store an energy density of at most .1 watt-hour per kilogram with a specific capacitance in the range of tens of millifarads. The team consisting of aforementioned Zhou, USC post-doctorate Guozhen Shen, and USC graduate students Sawalok Sukcharoenchoke and Po-Chiang Chen, believes that their supercapacitor will have enormous implications in e-paper displays, many electronic devices, and other applications.

Zhou and his team attached indium-oxide and CNTs films on a transparent flexible substrate, then they optimized its thickness in order to preserve its flexibility and its transparency. The researchers managed to combine metal nanowires with carbon nanotubes (after many attempts) and they said that this represents the key for flexible and transparent supercapacitors as conventional storage devices are not flexible, neither transparent.

“We demonstrated enhanced specific capacitance, power density, energy density, and long operation cycles, compared to those supercapacitors made only by CNTs,” said Zhou. “We successfully produced a prototype of flexible and transparent supercapacitors built on two important nanostructured materials [including metal oxide nanowires and CNTs].”

“CNT films were fabricated by vacuum filtration method. An adhesive and flat poly (dimethysiloxane) (PDMS) stamp was adapted to peel the CNT film off of the filtration membrane and then released it onto a polyethylene terephtalate (PET) substrate. In2O3 nanowires with a diameter of ~ 20 nm and a length of ~ 5 ?m were synthesized by a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. The as-grown nanowires were sonicated into IPA solutions and then dispersed upon transferred CNT films to form In2O3 nanowire /CNT heterogeneous film for transparent and flexible supercapacitor study,” explained Zhou.

Well, as the researchers have demonstrated the potential of flexible and transparent supercapacitors, now we are waiting for the devices to be commercialized. Zhou said that the new supercapacitors can be manufactured at costs competitive with conventional supercapacitors and we can’t understand why the researcher didn’t mention when the devices will be available. We will have to wait for further details.

Researchers from the New York University have developed a new multi-touch display which is cheaper and more flexible than conventional touchscreens. iPhone-like screens can be operated with only one finger, while Microsoft’s touch-surface is expensive and rigid, but this new multitouch interface is flexible, meaning that it can be sized to fit small devices, and it can also be designed to fit a wall. The New York University researchers have called it the Inexpensive Multi-Touch Pressure Acquisition Device, and they will unveil it at the Computer Human Interaction show in Boston next week.

You might be wondering what’s so special about the IMPAD – well, iPhone-like touchscreens measure capacitance changes when an object or finger touches the display; other touch interfaces like surface screens are based on cameras to check the position of the objects or fingers; other displays like Perceptive Pixel are also based on cameras, but they capture information using infrared light and pressure, and they are not practical for use with small devices. On the other hand, IMPAD consists of few layers of materials and it measures the change of electrical resistance when it comes in contact with a finger or an object.

“One of the problems that’s been endemic to multitouch sensors is . . . you’re either touching it or not touching it. A significant amount of potentially useful information is thrown away because the sensor isn’t capturing the subtleties,” said Ken Perlin, Professor of Media Research at the New York University.

Another advantage of IMPAD is that it measures the pressure that a person applies to the touchpad meaning that it can measure how hard you press it and this opens up a broad range of applications – the device can be used to control a piano keyboard or other musical instruments, or you can use it for virtual painting or sculpting.

Aforementioned, I said that IMPAD consists of few materials, and according to Ilya Rosenberg, graduate researcher and co-author at the study, the device is based on two plastic sheets which measure 8 to 10 inches, and each include parallel lines of electrodes. The lines of electrodes are spaced a quarter-inch apart, and you will notice that they form a grid, and each intersection is actually a pressure sensor. The key to the IMPAD device is the FSR (force sensitive resistor) ink which “features” tiny bumps on its surface, and which was previously used  on musical instruments.

How does the FSK ink work? Well, when you press an object coated with the ink, the microscopic bumps move along and touch each other while conducting electricity.

“The harder you press, the more it conducts,” said Rosenberg.

In order to make it perfect, the NYU team of researchers were looking to measure the exact placement of an object touching the IMPAD, but they needed too many sensors and expensive wiring for that. The goal was to measure to a resolution of 100 dots per square inch, and instead of using something expensive, they developed a complex algorithm that calculates the input at each intersection, and inserts the exact position of a finger or object, no matter how small it is.

The algorithm also allows the touch interface to realize when you press with two fingers – it collects information, sends it to a computer which measures the intensity and the exact placement of the objects, and according to Rosenberg, the computer collects information from the multi-touch pad 50 to 200 times per second, but the researchers are still looking to improve the technology.

“The pad gives you an animated pressure picture but has only 20 connectors or so coming out of it. This sounds like it’s not a big deal, but it makes it feasible to use it on very small mobile devices such as our nanoTouch,” said Patrick Baudisch, a researcher at Microsoft which collaborates with the NYU researchers.

For the moment, the researchers would like to commercialize this technology, while in the future the NYU team predicts that IMPAD will replace conventional touchscreen in cellphones and other touch-based devices. The multi-touch interface could be used as a skin for robots giving them the possibility to detect and feel touch. Also the technology could be used in construction industry as it could measure stress on structures and buildings. Only the future will tell if this technology will have enourmous implications in various topics. Until then stay tuned, and we will come with more information next week from Boston.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new way to recharge electronic devices like an iPod or iPhone without the need of a battery. Their breakthrough consists of a new power source, body movements, and it was presented at the 237th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

According to the researchers, their technology is based on converting mechanical energy coming from body movements into electrical energy which could power electronic devices. Although this technology was designed for US Army Soldiers, it is possible to become available for the open public sometime in the future. But why for military purposes? Well, when the soldiers are far on the battlefield with no energy source, they will be able to power their devices by waving, stretching (actually, shooting down the enemy), and it will also help them cut down some of the weight of the gear.

“This research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics,” said Zhong Lin Wang, leader of the research, and Regents’ Professor, School of Material Science and Engineering at GIT.

It’s a major breakthrough as this technology can convert low frequency vibrations into electrical energy thanks to ZnO (zinc oxide) nanowires. The energy coming from body movements, the flow of the blood or even the beating of the heart will be transmitted to the devices through ZnO nanowires which can conduct electricity. The zinc oxide nanowire measures 1/5,000th and 1/25th of the human hair in length and in diameter, respectively. The advantage of the ZnO nanowires is that this material is piezoelectric meaning that it generates electrical current when put to mechanical stress.

The team of researchers called it a nanogenerator, and it’s the most efficient when it comes to low-frequency and flexible materials. Another advantage of the ZnO nanowires is that they are waterproof after they are properly and specially packaged. According to the researchers, these nanogenerators can be grown on clothing, metals, polymers, tents, and ceramics.

“Quite simply, this technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement,” said Wang.

Moreover, the technology could be useful for defense agencies in the United States as the nanogenerators could be used as nanoscale sensing devices to detect bio-terror attacks. The researchers say that the police can use it to sample air and possibly to detect harmful bio-terror agents. The advantage of the nanogenerators is that they don’t need batteries, unlike biosensors that are implanted under the skin and still need batteries.

The study is only at the beginning, but it looks promising as it can provide electricity continuosly. However, the GIT researchers are now looking to increase the power and the output voltage, and other aspects of the nanogenerators. As an offbeat topic, we have to inform you that this research was funded by DARPA, DoE, NSF, and the National Institute of Health. Also, we have to remind you that the nanogenerators will be available only for the US Army in the early stages of the development so you should enrol yourself if you want limitless energy for your devices.

I’ve said it many times – nanotechnology is the future. Scientists at the Maryland NanoCenter from the University of Maryland have designed batteries that store energy coming from renewable sources, and which are 10 times more efficient than conventional systems. If you own a hybrid car or if you have solar panels on your roof, then you probably know that the systems which store the power are now very efficient, as you cannot drive long distances, while solar power deliver energy only a part of the day.

The devices that store power from alternative sources are very expensive and inefficient, but this could change in the near future thanks to the research made by the researchers at the University of Maryland.

“Renewable energy sources like solar and wind provide time-varying, somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored as electrical energy until demanded. Conventional devices to store and deliver electrical energy — batteries and capacitors — cannot achieve the needed combination of high energy density, high power, and fast recharge that are essential for our energy future,” said Gary Rubloff, director of the University of Maryland’s NanoCenter.

The new energy storage devices are based on nanotechnology and they consist of millions of identical nanostructures which were shaped to transport power very fast to the storage surface. The team led by Professor Rubloff and his collaborator, Professor Sang Bok Lee, said that materials act according to the laws of nature, however, they have exploited unusual behaviors of these materials like self-assembly, self-limiting reaction, and self-alignment, and they have created millions of identical nanostructures which receive, store, and deliver electrical power.

“These devices exploit unique combinations of materials, processes, and structures to optimize both energy and power density – combinations that, taken together, have real promise for building a viable next-generation technology, and around it, a vital new sector of the tech economy. The goal for electrical energy storage systems is to simultaneously achieve high power and high energy density to enable the devices to hold large amounts of energy, to deliver that energy at high power, and to recharge rapidly,” said Rubloff.

Energy storage devices are divided in three categories – batteries (most based on lithium-ion) which store a lot of energy, but do not deliver high power and they cannot be recharged quickly; electrochemical capacitors which deliver high power at the price of lower energy density; electrostatic capacitors which deliver high power and can be recharged quickly at the price of lower energy density.

Now, the energy storage devices that the Maryland researchers have developed are called electrostatic nanocapacitors which deliver high power, can be recharge quickly, but they increase the energy density, and according to the team of researchers, these new storage devices are ten times better than conventional devices available on the market.

The nanotech batteries will get improvements soon, and Professors Lee and Rubloff expect them to enter in mass production shortly, and soon we could see them as storage devices for solar panel system and inside a hybrid car battery. Also, on the long run we could see nanotechnology as the “new energy capture technology” and it could be fully-integrated with energy storage devices. Well, ten times more power sounds great, now we just have to wait for the nanotech batteries to be perfected.

When a new and revolutionary technology appears, everybody is concerned about its  cycle time, and of course, pricing. However, so far nobody was interested in how much energy new manufacturing processes use, and if we believe a MIT analysis then we will notice that cutting-edge techniques require too much energy and materials.

According to the study led by MIT researchers, modern manufacturing techniques are one thousand to one millions times bigger “consumers of energy per pound of output” than conventional industries. Timothy Gutowski, Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, says that we use a whole lot more energy to make microchips than to make a manhole housing. Although these are very different domains of activity, Professor Gutowski says that somebody has to ring the alarm bell in order to optimize modern manufacturing methods in terms of energy and materials use.

“The seemingly extravagant use of materials and energy resources by many newer manufacturing processes is alarming and needs to be addressed alongside claims of improved sustainability from products manufactured by these means,” said Gutowski in the study published in the ES&T (Environmental Science and Technology) journal.

MIT researchers are hoping that the energy use will become a priority for manufacturers which are more concerned about profit, but this will probably change when energy prices will rise and when a carbon tax will be adopted. Gutowski used solar panels as an example because the manufacturing process is similar with the manufacturing process of microchips but on a larger scale. State-of-the-art solar panels manufacturing techniques require very much energy and it’s a very inefficient process. According to the study, in their lifecycle solar panels do not generate as much power as the energy consumed during their manufacturing process.

“Our study represents just the first step in doing something about it,” said Gutowski. ” We covered everything from soup to nuts, from heavy-duty old fashioned industries like a cast-iron foundry, all the way up to semiconductors and nanomaterials.”

I have to say that I have a doubt about the above words as the researchers did not consider pharmaceuticals and petroleum. The excuse of  Professor Gutowski was that they only analyzed manufacturing processes that use electricity as the main energy source, however, it was a wrong thing to claim that you “covered everything from soup to nuts” and MIT’s study might lose some of its credibility.

Gutowski also added that their study doesn’t include “some significant energy costs” like the energy used to manufacture materials themselves as “all these things would make the energy costs worse.”

“New processes are huge users of materials and energy, but because some are so new, they will be optimized and improved over time,” concluded Gutowski. “[The study] claims that these technologies are going to save us in some way need closer scrutiny. There’s a significant energy cost involved here.”