Engineering News

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have achieved a new bandwidth record for data communication using visible light. They developed a new visible light communication (VLC) device that uses a color converter that combines traditional materials with perovskites, the crystals that better known for their potential for solar cells. The new color converter has a bandwidth that is 40 times greater than today’s commercial converters.

Terahertz lasers could potentially be used in security and medical diagnostics because of their ability to detect chemicals and evaluate materials. However, the technology will need to be improved before it is widely adopted.

Soft robotics is a growing field involving flexible robots that have several advantages over their rigid predecessors. Soft robots can squeeze into tight spaces, maneuver uneven terrain, and they are safer around humans. An international team of researchers is now developing artificial muscles to give robots the ability to grasp, stretch, and squish objects.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter in the UK are developing inexpensive, high efficiency solar cells made of gold and diamond-like (amorphous) carbon. They created a cell that can potentially reach much higher temperatures than traditional surfaces because it can minimize the emission of thermal radiation.

In May, Nikola Motor Company made its public debut as an electric truck company....

Silicon microchips just got a boost from the power of sound. A team of Yale scientists developed a new waveguide system that can precisely control the way that light and sound waves interact on a chip. This innovation could become the foundation for new lasers, fiber-optic communications, and signal processing technologies.

Graphene is an incredible material for many applications, but it is limited by the fact that it lacks a band gap. Scientists at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed a new technique for nitrogen doping that gives graphene a stable, tunable band gap.

Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab and Harvard University have discovered that mixing solids and liquids enhances the optical properties of both materials. They found that changing the temperature of a solid-liquid mixture dramatically alters the way that light is diffused. The researchers also built a computer model that can be used to design custom liquid-solid mixtures for specific purposes.

A new design increases the amount of sunlight that a solar absorber can convert into heat. The novel solar absorber could be used to make solar technology more efficient and affordable. The discovery is the result of a partnership between the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Dubai, the flashy city in the United Arab Emirates, is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and a place that is known for going over the top (see: gigantic manmade decorative islands). Now the city’s water and electric authority has announced it will build the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) project.