In 2024, researchers in the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technology (LNET) in EPFL’s School of Engineering reported a platform for studying the hydrovoltaic (HV) effect – a phenomenon that allows electricity to be harvested when fluid is passed over the charged surface of a nanodevice. Their platform consisted of a hexagonal network of silicon nanopillars, the space between which created channels for evaporating fluid samples. Now the LNET team, led by Giulia Tagliab

Hair-width LEDs could replace lasers — and a UCSB doctoral student is helping make it happen

Researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge have developed a new method to electrically power insulating nanoparticles, a feat previously thought impossible under normal conditions. By attaching organic molecules that act as tiny antennas, they have created the first-ever light-emitting diodes (LEDs) from these materials. The breakthrough, published in Nature, opens the door to a new generation of devices with applications ranging from deep-tissue biomedi

A European research team involving scientists from DESY and Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) has developed a novel way for converting mechanical energy into electricity – by using water confined in nanometre-sized pores of silicon as the active working fluid. In a study published in Nano Energy (Elsevier), the scientists demonstrate that the cyclic intrusion and extrusion of water in water-repellentnanoporous silicon monoliths can produce measurable electrical power.

Publishing in Nature Materials, researchers at Kyushu University report that they have succeeded in developing a new SOFC with an efficient operating temperature of 300℃. The team expects that their new findings will lead to the development of low-cost, low-temperature SOFCs and greatly accelerate the practical application of these devices. The heart of an SOFC is the electrolyte, a ceramic layer that carries charged particles between two electrodes. In hydrogen fuel cells, t

The key to this research is the ‘nano-spring coating’ technology that can design elastic structures. The research team implemented a mult...

The research team solved the problem using aluminum. Aluminum is generally known to be easily corroded in alkaline environments, but the...

Hydrogen nano-clusters at low temperatures display ‘superfluidity’—a quantum state of frictionless flow only previously observed in helium.

A new study challenges the six-decade-old Fermi liquid theory of electrical transport in metals. The research uses a technique called shot n