Antifreeze, cheap materials may lead to low-cost solar energy

A process combining some comparatively cheap materials and the same antifreeze that keeps an automobile radiator from freezing in cold weather may be the key to making solar cells that cost less and avoid toxic compounds, ...

3-D printing goes from sci-fi fantasy to reality

Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses 3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized, transparent braces. Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer to pump out chocolate molds. And earlier this ...

Microwave oven cooks up solar cell material

University of Utah metallurgists used an old microwave oven to produce a nanocrystal semiconductor rapidly using cheap, abundant and less toxic metals than other semiconductors. They hope it will be used for more efficient ...

Long-wavelength laser will be able to take medicine fingerprints

A laser capable of working in the terahertz range – that of long-wavelength light from the far infrared to 1 millimetre – enables the 'fingerprint' of, say, a drug to be examined better than can be done using chemical ...

SAM I am

The Mars Science Laboratory is on its way to the red planet, and its rover Curiosity should touch down next summer. If the mission hits paydirt and comes across organic material, then one instrument in particular has the ...

Breakthrough furnace can cut solar costs

(PhysOrg.com) -- Solar cells, the heart of the photovoltaic industry, must be tested for mechanical strength, oxidized, annealed, purified, diffused, etched, and layered.

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