20 May 2010

Laminar batteries are better
Laminar batteries are increasingly adopted in electronics because they have better cooling, damage tolerance and performance in respect of charge and discharge speed when optimally designed for this shape. Companies such as Cymbet and Infinite Power Solutions already supply small laminar lithium batteries for such applications as backup power for electronics and some even continue to operate if a nail is driven through them.
6 May 2010

Photovoltaic solar sails in space
The Japanese Space Agency succeeded with an origami space orbiter and zero-gravity sushi experiments. Now comes the first "space yacht". This month in a trial run that will captivate space researchers and science-fiction writers alike, a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket goes into orbit from the island of Tanegashima and releases its small satellite into the void.
21 Apr 2010

Integrated energy scavenging and storage system
Aurora Flight Sciences designs and builds robotic aircraft and other advanced aerospace vehicles for scientific and military applications, and has now been selected for an award through the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) to develop an integrated energy scavenging and storage system for portable electronics, unmanned vehicles, and weapons systems.
3 Nov 2009

Thin films and nanotechnology for power
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.
6 Aug 2009

Aircraft propelled by solar energy to complete day-night-day cycle
Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg have unveiled, at Dübendorf airfield close to Zurich, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA, the first aircraft designed to fly both day and night without fossil fuel or pollution.
4 Jun 2009

Energy Harvesting & Storage Europe, Cambridge, UK
Now in its second day, the IDTechEx Energy Harvesting and Storage conference in Cambridge, UK, has 150 attendees discovering the latest in harvesting and storage technologies and the applications that drive such innovation.
14 Jan 2009

Paybacks from energy harvesting
This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report "Energy Harvesting and Storage for Electronic Devices 2009-2019".
External press release
1 Dec 2008

Applied Materials joins Flexible Display Centre
The Flexible Display Centre (FDC) at Arizona State University has announced that Applied Materials, Inc., through its Display Business Group-AKT, has become an Associate Member, joining the ranks of other world-class providers of technology, materials and process equipment who are collaborating with the FDC to develop advanced flexible electronic displays.
1 Dec 2008

Wider interest in printed electronics
At a time of financial uncertainty, companies know they must accelerate their move into the future. That is why there is a huge interest in printed electronics, a subject that pushes all the right buttons - environmental, affordable and leading to a new market of $300 billion that is just there for the taking. That is why the giant corporations are attending Printed Electronics USA, December 3-4 in San Jose, California.
13 Nov 2008

Printed electronics - The magic arrives
How Printed Electronics is changing consumer goods and services - highlights from the forthcoming Printed Electronics USA event
2 Oct 2008

Third Generation Active RFID Bursts onto the Scene
Third Generation Active RFID is the Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) sometimes known as the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and characterized by the tag doubling as a reader and a so-called mesh network being used with a choice of sensors on each tag.
18 Aug 2008

Solar cell efficiency record for space satellite markets
A world record of 40.8 percent in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device has been claimed by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US.
28 Jul 2008

News from SEMICON West and InterSolar North America
IDTechEx report on the SEMICON West event held in San Francisco in mid July - an event with over one thousand exhibitors covering the silicon supply chain.
18 Jun 2008

IDTechEx Photovoltaics Beyond Conventional Silicon 2008 event
This week IDTechEx is holding its first event dedicated to Photovoltaic (PV) technologies beyond conventional silicon. It covers the increasing work on CIGS, CdTe, Organic PV and many other chemistry devices, offering benefits over conventional silicon PV such as cost, weight and ease of installation.
28 May 2008

Impossible photovoltaics
Conventional silicon photovoltaics is a non-starter in Antarctica because it is very poor at low angles of incidence of light let alone low levels of illumination or reflected light and it is heavy.
17 Mar 2008

US government to make solar energy more cost competitive
Eleven technology led projects will focus on developing advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) technology manufacturing processes and products.
6 Mar 2008

Investing in the metals that will be needed
Jim Mellon has invested in Emerging Metals Ltd in the UK. He says photovoltaics will be