New process enables 3D printing of small and complex components made of glass in just a few minutes

Possible applications of the new process technology are micro-optical components of sensors, microscopes or lab-on-a-chip systems

21-Apr-2022 - Because of its outstanding transparency as well as its stability in contact with heat or chemicals, glass is relevant for many high-tech applications. However, conventional processes for shaping glass are often tedious, energy-intensive and quickly reach their limits for small and complicated ...

As hard as a diamond and as deformable as metal

Scientists develop new material for tomorrow's technology

15-Jan-2021 - Smartphones with large glass housings and displays are impressive, but they are also very prone to get cracked and scratched. To prevent these kinds of damages, a material combining the hardness of diamond and the deformability of metals would be ideal – and is indeed considered the holy grail of ...

New technology could wean the battery world off cobalt

13-Apr-2018 - Lithium-based batteries use more than 50 percent of all cobalt produced in the world. These batteries are in your cell phone, laptop and maybe even your car. About 50 percent of the world's cobalt comes from the Congo, where it's largely mined by hand, in some instances by children. But now, a ...

Coming to a monitor near you: A defect-free, molecule-thick film

01-Dec-2015 - An emerging class of atomically thin materials known as monolayer semiconductors has generated a great deal of buzz in the world of materials science. Monolayers hold promise in the development of transparent LED displays, ultra-high efficiency solar cells, photo detectors and nanoscale ...

Nanopillars promise cheap, efficient, flexible solar cells

14-Jul-2009 - Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated a way to fabricate efficient solar cells from low-cost and flexible materials. The new design grows optically active semiconductors in arrays of ...

Tunable semiconductors possible with hot new material called graphene

12-Jun-2009 - Today's transistors and light emitting diodes (LED) are based on silicon and gallium arsenide semiconductors, which have fixed electronic and optical properties. Now, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that a form of carbon called graphene has an electronic structure that ...

A billion-year ultra-dense memory chip

11-Jun-2009 - When it comes to data storage, density and durability have always moved in opposite directions – the greater the density the shorter the durability. For example, information carved in stone is not dense but can last thousands of years, whereas today's silicon memory chips can hold their ...

Engineering nanoparticles for maximum strength

23-Oct-2008 - Because they are riddled with defects, bulk crystalline materials never achieve their ideal strength; nanocrystals, on the other hand, are so small there's no room for defects. Yet while nanocrystalline materials may approach ideal strength in their resistance to stress, most nanostructures have ...

A Phonon Floodgate in Monolayer Carbon

The first STM spectroscopy of graphene flakes yields new surprises

24-Jul-2008 - Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have performed the first scanning tunneling spectroscopy of graphene flakes equipped with a "gate" electrode. The result is the latest in a series of ...

Feeling the Heat: Berkeley Researchers Make Thermoelectric Breakthrough in Silicon Nanowires

14-Jan-2008 - Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of ...