http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (Phys.org) -- The intricate properties of the fingertips have been mimicked and recreated using semiconductor devices in what researchers hope will lead to the development of advanced surgical gloves. http://phys.org/news263738437.html Nanotechnology Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:00:06 EST news263738437 Chemical batteries power many different mobile electronic devices, but repeated charging and discharging cycles can wear them out. An alternative energy storage device called an ultracapacitor can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times without degrading, but ultracapacitors have their own disadvantages, including a voltage output that drops precipitously as the device is discharged. Now a researcher from the University of West Florida has designed an ultracapacitor that maintains a near steady voltage. The novel constant-voltage design, which may one day help ultracapacitors find new uses in low-voltage electric vehicle circuits and handheld electronics, is described in the American Institute of Physics' Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. http://phys.org/news261911960.html Physics Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:19:25 EST news261911960 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Arizona physicists are making discoveries that may advance electronic circuit technology. http://phys.org/news252317516.html Nanotechnology Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:12:14 EST news252317516 Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have invented a new type of electronic switch that performs electronic logic functions within a single molecule. The incorporation of such single-molecule elements could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronics. The research findings, supported by a $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, were published online in the Nov. 14 issue of Nano Letters. http://phys.org/news241964183.html Nanotechnology Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:50:01 EST news241964183 Scientists at Cambridge University have shown an amazing degree of control over the most fundamental aspect of an electronic circuit, how electrons move from one place to another. http://phys.org/news235828758.html Physics Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:00:13 EST news235828758 (PhysOrg.com) -- Mission managers for NASA's Dawn spacecraft are studying the spacecraft's ion propulsion system after Dawn experienced a loss of thrust on June 27. Dawn team members were able to trace the episode to an electronic circuit in the spacecraft's digital control and interface unit, a subsystem that houses the circuit and a computer that provides the "brains" to Dawn's ion propulsion system. That circuit appeared to lose an electronic signal. As a result, the valves controlling the flow of xenon fuel did not open properly. Dawn automatically put itself into a more basic configuration known as "safe-communications" mode, where the spacecraft stopped some activities and turned its high-gain antenna to Earth. http://phys.org/news229341831.html Space & Earth Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:30:01 EST news229341831 (PhysOrg.com) -- Single molecule electronics is a division of nanotechnology utilizing single molecules as electronic components and its study has the ultimate goal of reducing the size of common electrical circuits. Since 1974, when Mark Ratner and Arieh Aviram from IBM first described how a single molecule was capable of working as a diode in passing current in one direction, research has moved forward in trying to develop a way to use single molecule electronics. http://phys.org/news224515144.html Nanotechnology Fri, 13 May 2011 14:19:33 EST news224515144 Researchers here have created the first electronic circuit to merge traditional inorganic semiconductors with organic "spintronics" – devices that utilize the spin of electrons to read, write and manipulate data. http://phys.org/news221918302.html Physics Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:59:01 EST news221918302 (PhysOrg.com) -- Shape-memory polymers are not a new discovery, as anyone who has played with Shrinky-Dinks or who has used heat-shrink tubing for wires in an electronic circuit can testify. But now, thanks to new analysis by researchers at MIT, the behavior of these interesting materials has been mathematically modeled in detail, which should make it easier to use the materials in new ways; potential applications include implantable biomedical devices and space structures that could be launched in a compact form and then unfurled once in orbit. http://phys.org/news210837100.html Chemistry Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:53:04 EST news210837100 Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have found theoretical evidence* of a new way to generate the high-frequency waves used in modern communication devices such as cell phones. Their analysis, if supported by experimental evidence, could contribute to a new generation of wireless technology that would be more secure and resistant to interference than conventional devices. http://phys.org/news203786930.html Physics Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:29:03 EST news203786930 (PhysOrg.com) -- As RFID tags are becoming more widespread for tracking and identifying almost anything, researchers are continuing to develop cheap, ultralow-power memory devices for these applications. In a recent study, scientists from Cambridge have taken another step forward in this area by developing a write-once-read-many-times (WORM) memory device that requires just a fraction of the power needed by previous devices. In principle, the low-power memory can be used in any organic electronic circuit where the operation power is low. http://phys.org/news202028170.html Nanotechnology Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:00:02 EST news202028170 Imec researchers demonstrated the value of its SiGe above-IC MEMS technology platform for improving performance of state-of-the-art MEMS with the development of new MEMS devices. The new devices are a 15µm SiGe micromirror and a grating light valve for high-resolution displays. The devices were realized with Imec's generic CMOS-compatible MEMS process for the monolithic integration of MEMS devices directly on top of CMOS metallization. http://phys.org/news198312417.html Technology Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:50:02 EST news198312417 Organic semiconductors are very promising candidates as starting materials for the manufacture of cheap, large area and flexible electronic components such as transistors, diodes and sensors on a scale ranging from micro to nano. A condition for success in achieving this goal is the ability to join components together with electrically conducting links - in other words, to create an electronic circuit. European scientists have developed a new method which allows them to create simple networks of organic nanowires. http://phys.org/news196505668.html Nanotechnology Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:10:01 EST news196505668 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at the University of Sydney have brought silicon chips closer to performing all-optical computing and information processing that could overcome the speed limitations intrinsic to electronics, with the first report published of an on-chip all-optical temporal integrator in Nature Communications today. http://phys.org/news196258264.html Physics Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:00:01 EST news196258264 With "hands-on" experiences in childhood and adolescence having sparked so many science careers, scientists in Canada are describing a quick, simple, safe, and inexpensive way for kids to participate in making microfluidic devices. Those devices are at the heart of lab-on-a chip, inkjet printing, DNA chip, and other technologies. The scientists' instructions for making microfluidic devices from Jell-O type dessert mixes and Popsicle-type sticks, and using them to demonstrate the basics of microfluidics, appear in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal. http://phys.org/news195910096.html Chemistry Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:50:01 EST news195910096 (PhysOrg.com) -- IBM Research in Zurich has demonstrated a new nanoscale patterning technique that could replace electron beam lithography (EBL). The demonstration carved a 1:5 billion scale three-dimensional model of the Matterhorn, a 4,478 meter high mountain lying on the border between Italy and Switzerland, to show how their technique could be used for a number of applications, such as creating nanoscale lenses on silicon chips for carrying optical circuits at a scale so small that electronic circuits are inefficient. http://phys.org/news191223230.html Nanotechnology Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:40:01 EST news191223230 (PhysOrg.com) -- As a way to simplify lab-on-a-chip devices that could offer quicker, cheaper and more portable medical tests, University of Michigan researchers have created microfluidic integrated circuits. http://phys.org/news191093935.html Physics Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:39:19 EST news191093935 The electronics can bend, stretch and twist. No small feat. Now the flexible and stretchable electronics can map waves of electrical activity in the heart with better resolution and speed than that of conventional cardiac monitoring technology. http://phys.org/news188657982.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:00:15 EST news188657982 (PhysOrg.com) -- European researchers have developed a new class of electronics that uses noise -- normally a problem -- as part of the signal. It means better, faster electronics. http://phys.org/news188639471.html Technology Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:20:01 EST news188639471 (PhysOrg.com) -- A single cell in the human body is approximately 10,000 times more energy-efficient than any nanoscale digital transistor, the fundamental building block of electronic chips. In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power. http://phys.org/news186333064.html Technology Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:50:02 EST news186333064 (PhysOrg.com) -- Exerting delicate control over a pair of atoms within a mere seven-millionths-of-a-second window of opportunity, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created an atomic circuit that may help quantum computing become a reality. http://phys.org/news186333950.html Physics Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:26:18 EST news186333950 Peratech Limited has been commissioned by the MIT Media Lab to develop a new type of electronic 'skin' that enables robotic devices to detect not only that they have been touched but also where and how hard the touch was. http://phys.org/news186177265.html Chemistry Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:10:06 EST news186177265 At today's International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC), Holst Centre, Imec and TNO present a dual-gate-based organic RFID chip with record data rate and lowest reported operating voltage. For the first time, the advantages of dual gate transistors in circuit speed and robustness have thereby been exploited in a complex organic-electronic circuit. http://phys.org/news184925679.html Technology Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:30:02 EST news184925679 For the first time, French researchers at CNRS and CEA have developed a transistor that can mimic the main functionalities of a synapse. http://phys.org/news183373216.html Nanotechnology Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:00:49 EST news183373216 In work that someday may lead to the development of novel types of nanoscale electronic devices, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology has combined DNA's talent for self-assembly with the remarkable electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, thereby suggesting a solution to the long-standing problem of organizing carbon nanotubes into nanoscale electronic circuits. http://phys.org/news177073039.html Nanotechnology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:11:43 EST news177073039 (PhysOrg.com) -- Standard laser devices are fast enough for measuring the size of a room, but they need to be faster for outdoor mobile applications. Researchers have brought these scanners up to speed -- they can measure ten times faster than usual scanners. http://phys.org/news176623864.html Technology Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:50:03 EST news176623864 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of European researchers has demonstrated some of the first commercially viable plasmonic devices, paving the way for a new era of high-speed communications and computing in which electronic and optical signals can be handled simultaneously. http://phys.org/news174907144.html Physics Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:21:05 EST news174907144 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use tiny structures called carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional silicon-based transistors. http://phys.org/news173626785.html Nanotechnology Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:40:28 EST news173626785 You've heard about flower power. What about tree power? It turns out that it's there, in small but measurable quantities. There's enough power in trees for University of Washington researchers to run an electronic circuit, according to results to be published in an upcoming issue of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Transactions on Nanotechnology (PDF). http://phys.org/news171643486.html Technology Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:00:02 EST news171643486 (PhysOrg.com) -- If manmade devices could be combined with biological machines, laptops and other electronic devices could get a boost in operating efficiency. http://phys.org/news169145728.html Nanotechnology Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:56:13 EST news169145728