Materials R&D

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have found an intriguing application for graphene, headphone loudspeakers. It is the low density and high mechanical strength of the new semiconductor material which makes it attractive for wide-frequency-response electrostatic audio speaker design. “Low mass ensures good high frequency response, while high strength allows for relatively large free-standing diaphragms necessary for effective ...

Electrospinning is now established as a commercially viable manufacturing process with nanofibres of a range of different polymers now readily available, either as standard product or as “specials”, writes  Professor Bob Stevens, Professor of Smart Materials and Devices at Nottingham Trent University Applications for these nanofibres are potentially in many different market areas and it is becoming clear that the ...

Berlin-based semiconductor research centre Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin is collaborating with Soitec subsidiary Altatech to develop materials for high-efficiency solar cells. Altatech is installing a single-substrate multi-chamber or materials deposition at HZB’s energy materials laboratory (EMIL) at the synchrotron light source BESSY II facility in Berlin. The vapour-deposition system will be used by HZB to deposit amorphous silicon, transparent conductive oxides and ultra-thin dielectrics used in fabricating solar energy devices. The two companies said ...

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Imperial College are working on a project which they say “could completely change the refrigeration industry”. Traditional refrigeration methods could be replaced by a more efficient and environmentally friendly cooling alternative which uses the electrocaloric effect to develop new methods of cooling. The electrocaloric effect is a phenomenon in which a material changes ...

Researchers in the US believe they may have discovered a new ‘super-conductive’ material which could out-perform graphene. Like graphene it is a material with a single layer of atoms, but unlike graphene it is constructed from a single layer of tin atoms. The material has been called “stanene”. It is the “first material to conduct electricity with 100% efficiency at the temperatures that ...

Spider silk darkened with a coating of carbon nanotubes can tell if your heart just skipped a beat. Following a few simple steps, researchers have made a silk-nanotube hybrid that is tough, flexible and electrically conductive. The material might find uses in a range of bendy medical sensors. Long known as one of nature’s toughest and most flexible materials, spider ...

A UK consortium has developed a 200°C Pb-free ceramic capacitor for automotive power converters. Key to the capacitor is a completely new dielectric material that does not suffer from the capacitance-reducing phase change around 125°C experienced by the modified barium titanates (BaTiO3) used to produce ‘X7R’ and ‘Y5V’ class capacitors. “This is a completely new and most unusual material with ...

UK researchers have found a way to chemically bond silver to cotton fibres to form conductive cloth which is being evaluated for wearable electronics. “All the fibre is fully coated with nano metal particles attached to one another. The layer is 20nm in thickness, and it works on cotton cloth: both stretchable and non-stretchable,” National Physical Laboratory scientist Roya Ashayer-Soltani ...

Middlesex-based National Physical Laboratory is developing techniques to characterise high-temperature piezoelectrics. The materials are increasingly popular in engineering. For example: “Most modern diesels use piezoelectrics in the injectors,” NPL’s Dr Paul Weaver told Electronics Weekly. As firms are developing higher temperature materials, measuring their properties is becoming increasingly difficult because temperature, applied voltage and physical size have a complex relationship ...

SmartKem, the Manchester-based developer of organic semiconductor materials for flexible electronics, has seen its p-FLEX product recognised with the technical development materials award for the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event, which took place in Tokyo this week. The award called the p-FLEX product as the most significant technical advancement over the last 24 months in the field of material development. The product combines high mobility small molecule materials ...