From the printing press to the jet engine, mechanical machines with moving parts have been a mainstay of technology for centuries. As U.S. industry develops smaller mechanical systems, they face bigger challenges—microscopic ...
Piezoelectricity (aka the piezoelectric effect) occurs within certain materials – crystals (notably quartz), some ceramics, bone, DNA, and a number of proteins – when the application of mechanical stress or vibration generates ...
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the U.S. Army Research Office have developed a way to integrate novel functional materials onto a computer chip, allowing the creation of new smart devices and systems.
Many machines such as turbines, oil-drills, health monitors and nuclear reactors require internal sensors to monitor physical states such as temperature. To meet this challenge, researchers at A*STAR are developing compact ...
With vehicles communicating with embedded monitors alongside roadways to better route traffic, and home appliances connected to the smart grid to improve efficiency and reliability, the Internet of Things (IOT) may generate ...
Researchers are using a technology likened to "mini force fields" to independently control individual microrobots operating within groups, an advance aimed at using the tiny machines in areas including manufacturing and medicine.
Researchers at HRL Laboratories, LLC, have achieved a new milestone in 3D printing technology by demonstrating an approach to additively manufacture ceramics that overcomes the limits of traditional ceramic processing and ...
Microelectromechanical systems—or MEMS—were a $12 billion business in 2014. But that market is dominated by just a handful of devices, such as the accelerometers that reorient the screens of most smartphones.
Researchers at the University of Twente's MESA+ research institute, together with researchers from several other knowledge institutions, have developed a 'flexo-electric' nanomaterial. The material has built-in mechanical ...
Movies such as 1987's "Predator," in which an alien who sees in the infrared hunts down Arnold Schwarzenegger and his team, introduced a generation of sci-fi fans to thermal imaging. Since then, heat-sensing devices have ...
