A new invention that uses sunlight to drive water purification could help solve the problem of providing clean water off the grid. The device resembles a large sponge that soaks up water but leaves contaminants – like lead, oil and pathogens – behind. To collect the purified water from the sponge, one simply places it in sunlight. The researchers described the device in a paper(link is external) published this week in the journal Advanced Materials.
The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will be held online due to the corona crisis and will run January 11-14 this year. For the first time, CES will take place online this year. It has always been the leading trade fair for global consumer electronics, with exhibits ranging from small chips to large airplanes and yachts. The fair covers almost all consumer electronics products and the world’s largest companies typically present their latest products and show their latest technologies here.
The introduction of two cutting-edge dual-beam focused ion beam scanning electron (FIB-SEM) microscopes at Covalent’s Sunnyvale, CA headquarters will provide clients faster, deeper, and more advanced analytical capabilities.
A team headed by the TUM physicists Alexander Holleitner and Reinhard Kienberger has succeeded for the first time in generating ultrashort electric pulses on a chip using metal antennas only a few nanometers in size, then running the signals a few millimeters above the surface and reading them in again a controlled manner. The technology enables the development of new, powerful terahertz components.
A new experimental method permits the X-ray analysis of amyloids, a class of large, filamentous biomolecules which are an important hallmark of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. An international team of researchers headed by DESY scientists has used a powerful X-ray laser to gain insights into the structure of different amyloid samples.
qFLASH-A is a compact and economical 3D optical measurement system designed for use in smaller automated shop-floor inspection cells. Compatible with a wide range of industrial robots including small-load and collaborative robot systems, qFLASH-A measurement cells have a small footprint and offer an affordable way to automate dimensional data capture for all kinds of part.
Place a chunk of the clear mineral Iceland spar on top of an image and suddenly you’ll see double, thanks to a phenomenon called double refraction — a result of a quality of the crystal material called optical anisotropy. Beyond just a nifty trick, materials with optical anisotropy are vital for a variety of devices such as lasers, liquid-crystal displays, lens filters and microscopes.
Metamaterials are artificially engineered materials. Scientists create them by combining multiple elements from composite materials such as metal and dielectric. The result is an entirely new material with properties not found in nature.
Aeolus, A.K.A. Atmospheric Dynamics Mission Aeolus, is an Earth observation satellite built by Airbus Defence and Space that is planned to launch in September 2018. The Aeolus satellite carries a laser for wind measurement. The information collected by the Aeolus Satellite is useful not only for weather forecasting but also to help us better understand atmospheric conditions and climate.
Graphene electrodes could enable higher quality imaging of brain cell activity thanks to new research by a team of engineers and neuroscientists at the University of California San Diego. The researchers developed a technique, using platinum nanoparticles, to lower the impedance of graphene electrodes by 100 times while keeping them transparent.
More than halfway across the universe, an enormous blue star nicknamed Icarus is the farthest individual star ever seen. Normally, it would be much too faint to view, even with the world’s largest telescopes. Through a quirk of nature that tremendously amplifies the star’s feeble glow, however, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to pinpoint this faraway star. They also used Icarus to test a theory of dark matter, and to probe the makeup of a foreground galaxy cluster.
Magnetic sensors play a key role in a variety of applications, such as speed and position sensing in the automotive industry or in biomedical applications. Within the framework of the Christian Doppler Laboratory “Advanced Magnetic Sensing and Materials” headed by Dieter Süss novel magnetic sensors have been realized that surpass conventional technologies in performance and accuracy in a cooperation between the University of Vienna, the Danube University Krems and Infineon AG.