Power

The environmentally-friendly paint uses nanotechnology to detect movement in large structures, and could shape the future of safety monitoring.

A global hotel chain will install shading systems over 8000 of their windows using G24 Innovation's dye sensitized solar cell technology to power the automated shades.

Two Lehigh physicists have developed an imaging technique that makes it possible to directly observe light-emitting excitons as they diffuse in a new material that is being explored for its extraordinary electronic properties. Called rubrene, it is one of a new generation of single-crystal organic semiconductors.

When the scientists at Alta Devices began seeing their solar devices achieve efficiency results beyond what was previously thought possible, they realized that something scientifically important was going on. Their conclusion: a great solar cell also emits light and collecting that light increases cell performance.

SuVolta announces PowerShrink Planar CMOS platform to dramatically reduce integrated circuit power consumption

Dyesol is a global solar technology company with a mission to advance the commercialization of DSC technology. It manufactures and supplies a range of dye solar cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC.

Experimental evidence of intrinsic pinning of magnetic domain walls will aid the development of next-generation memories.

The problem of cleaning thin films has been solved by Teknek, the global leader in contact cleaning technology, with the introduction of the Ultracleen range of cleaning roller.

Scientists including an MIT physics professor have found a way to make wonder material graphene magnetic, opening up a new range of opportunities for the world's thinnest material in the area of spintronics.

Silver nanowire fabrication and manufacturing scale-up

A spongy substance that could be mistaken for packing material has the nanotechnology world buzzing.

Rice researchers introduce graphene-based amplifiers

UC electrofluidics breakthrough could change the display technology used in a myriad of electronic devices. e-Readers like the Amazon Kindle may be able to display color and video.

The most powerful atom resolving microscope in the UK was revealed at the University of Cambridge.

Research team develops ultra high-power energy storage devices

New research could yield novel composites and touch-screen displays.

SINTERON™ 2000

Flexible displays, lighting and solar panels may open the way to new kinds of consumer products and architectural features, but the real driver of the current up swell of interest in flexible, printed or hybrid electronics technology is manufacturers seeking ways to reduce production costs of large-area devices.

Chris Giacoponello introduced NTERA's concept of "printegration", the possibility to integrate a display, a sensor and a battery by using successive printing steps. NTERA's technology is based on viologen inks that change colour upon accepting electrical charge. Without a need for a transparent conductor, they can be directly deposited on any opaque substrate (e.g. paper, PCB) with better reflectivity and lower cost (avoiding costly ITO).Company demonstrators include RF-powered displays (co-operation with poly-IC), solar powered ones (co-operation with Plextronics) and a device comprising a printed display & battery stack, demonstrated in June 2009.

Konarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Konarka Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, today announced the company, along with Arch Aluminum & Glass Co., Inc, has launched the first curtain wall pilot project that will integrate Konarka Power Plastic into a wall structure at Arch's office building in Tamarac, Florida.

Just three weeks after G24 Innovations (G24i) successfully launched the world's first commercial application of Dye-Sensitive Solar Cells (DSSC), the global pioneer of DSSC announced that it has signed a formal agreement with three of China's most prestigious institutes to accelerate industrial development of the technology.

Printed electronics and electrics will be a $335 billion business in twenty years, just for devices primarily made by printing with electronic inks. IDTechEx gives a summary of the projections.

Applied Materials has taken an important step toward industrialization of the global solar industry with the recent opening of their state-of-the-art solar research and demonstration facility in Xian, China.

RoseStreet Labs Energy (RSLE) scientists announced a leap forward in generating hydrogen gas directly from sunlight by a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC).

Nextreme has recently developed a thin-film thermoelectric generator (eTEG™) that converts heat directly into electricity delivering power generation densities greater than 3W/cm2.

The textile-based screen printed solar panel can be integrated into clothing fabric and has been incorporated in a transparent textile.

What makes investors invest? What leads to profit sooner rather than later? What are the hot applications and technologies? What are the market forecasts? What comes next? Attend Printed Electronics Europe 2009 to find out,

Printed electronics is used in several forms of energy harvesting, so we thought we would share this dramatic opportunity with you although it is not yet clear what technology is involved. A shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road could save a company such as Wal-Mart $13 million a year in fuel costs by converting its fleet of trucks.

There were many users and potential users at the Energy Harvesting Workshop and they were far from being hooked on any one technology - Read part II of Dr Peter's Harrop's report.

The 4th Annual Energy Harvesting Workshop organised on 28-29 January by Virginia Tech in Blacksberg Virginia was largely academic and biased toward piezoelectrics which are moving up to rival photovoltaics in potential energy harvesting applications.

This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report "Energy Harvesting and Storage for Electronic Devices 2009-2019".

Companies showcase wireless power products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

K-state engineers working with peregrine semiconductor to develop energy-harvesting radios that could make monitoring safety of bridges easier.

Raghu Das, CEO at IDTechEx reports on the Energy Harvesting Technology event which looked at the use of technologies to generate electricity from the environment which can be used to power electronics and electrics.

Nextreme reports that solid-state thermoelectric devices have long been sought after as a solution for challenging thermal management and energy harvesting problems.

IDTechEx has just launched a comprehensive report that gives a thorough analysis of printed and thin film photovoltaics and batteries - covering the technologies, markets and players.

Chemists and physicists are hard at work developing production processes for graphene - one day it may even be printable.

IDTechEx, along with other analysts, forecast the printed electronics market. While some agree others give widely different figures. After analyzing the industry for nine years, IDTechEx has just completed a new report covering the forecasts of the industry in great detail. Here Raghu Das, CEO, summarises the findings giving that crucial detail behind our forecasts.

US based company Konarka Technologies has published the performance of highly efficient inkjet printed organic bulk heterojunction solar cells.

A technology that could cost a few cents a yard to collect energy from the sun even after it has set and be imprinted on flexible materials is being developed by a team of researchers.

Energy harvesting is a hot topic in printed electronics, partly because of shortcomings of printed batteries.

Engineers at the University of Washington, US have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

Printed photovoltaics and batteries have reached a technological tipping point. With demand for power skyrocketing, IDTechEx find that the market for thin film photovoltaics beyond silicon will reach $1 billion in 2012 and $6 billion in 2014. Here Raghu Das, CEO, summarizes some of the findings of the new IDTechEx study - Printed and Thin film Photovoltaics and Batteries.

There is a much more balanced situation across the world when it comes to development and production of printed electronic and electric devices.

Now we have smart skin patches that heal wounds by restoring the natural electrical signals in the skin at the site of a wound thanks to BIOFiSICA.

Octillion Corp. (Symbol: OCTL), announced that a published research study has demonstrated, among other achievements, that the same silicon nanoparticles used in development of the Company's first-of-its-kind transparent glass window capable of generating electricity, are able to drastically increase the power performance of conventional silicon solar cells.

DSSC photoelectrochemical solar cells that mimic the action of chlorophyll in nature are already being commercialized. They are ten times as efficient as the version met in nature and they are more tolerant of reflected (polarized) light, light at narrow angles of incidence and low levels of light than most alternatives.

Overall, Europe may be losing the race for the huge new business of printed electronics and the rejuvenation of society that it will bring. This is despite having far more academic institutions than East Asia working on the subject, the number being comparable to the number in the USA.