A new technology that can generate electricity from vibrations or even small body movements means you could charge your laptop by typing or power your smartphone’s battery on your morning run.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a tiny, wearable generator in response to the urgent need for sustainable, clean energy. It is also scalable for larger machines.
“This is a real game changer,” said Dr. Asif Khan, the project’s lead researcher and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Waterloo. “We have made the first device of its kind that can power electronics at low cost and with unprecedented efficiency.”
The device uses the piezoelectric effect, which generates electrical energy by applying pressure to materials like crystal and certain ceramics. Piezoelectric materials are currently used in various sensing technologies including sonar, ultrasonic imaging and microwave devices.
“Those older materials are brittle, expensive and have a limited ability to generate electricity,” said Dr. Dayan Ban, professor and researcher at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. “The materials we’ve created for the new generator are flexible, more energy-efficient and cost less.”
In addition to Khan and Ban, the research team includes two other Waterloo professors, one professor from the University of Toronto, and their research groups.
The researchers have filed a patent and are working with a Canadian company to commercialize their generator for use in aviation, specifically to power the systems on planes that monitor the status of safety equipment.
Caption: The new generator contains materials that are flexible, energy-efficient and relatively less expensive. Credit: University of Waterloo
First, thank you to anyone who’s dropped by to read any of my posts. Second, I didn’t quite catch up on my backlog in what was then the new year (2024) despite my promises. (sigh) I will try to publish my drafts in a more timely fashion but I start this coming year as I did 2024 with a backlog of two to three months. This may be my new normal.
As for now, here’s an overview of FrogHeart’s 2024. The posts that follow are loosely organized under a heading but many of them could fit under other headings as well. After my informal review, there’s some material on foretelling the future as depicted in an exhibition, “Oracles, Omens and Answers,” at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
Human enhancement: prosthetics, robotics, and more
Within a year or two of starting this blog I created a tag ‘machine/flesh’ to organize information about a number of converging technologies such as robotics, brain implants, and prosthetics that could alter our concepts of what it means to be human. The larger category of human enhancement functions in much the same way also allowing a greater range of topics to be covered.
Here are some of the 2024 human enhancement and/or machine/flesh stories on this blog,
As for anyone who’s curious about hydrogels, there’s this from an October 20, 2016 article by D.C.Demetre for ScienceBeta, Note: A link has been removed,
Hydrogels, materials that can absorb and retain large quantities of water, could revolutionise medicine. Our bodies contain up to 60% water, but hydrogels can hold up to 90%.
It is this similarity to human tissue that has led researchers to examine if these materials could be used to improve the treatment of a range of medical conditions including heart disease and cancer.
These days hydrogels can be found in many everyday products, from disposable nappies and soft contact lenses to plant-water crystals. But the history of hydrogels for medical applications started in the 1960s.
Scientists developed artificial materials with the ambitious goal of using them in permanent contact applications , ones that are implanted in the body permanently.
For anyone who wants a more technical explanation, there’s the Hydrogel entry on Wikipedia.
Science education and citizen science
Where science education is concerned I’m seeing some innovative approaches to teaching science, which can include citizen science. As for citizen science (also known as, participatory science) I’ve been noticing heightened interest at all age levels.
It’s been another year where artificial intelligence (AI) has absorbed a lot of energy from nearly everyone. I’m highlighting the more unusual AI stories I’ve stumbled across,
As you can see, I’ve tucked in two tangentially related stories, one which references a neuromorphic computing story ((see my Neuromorphic engineering category or search for ‘memristors’ in the blog search engine for more on brain-like computing topics) and the other is intellectual property. There are many, many more stories on these topics
Art/science (or art/sci or sciart)
It’s a bit of a surprise to see how many art/sci stories were published here this year, although some might be better described as art/tech stories.
There may be more 2024 art/sci stories but the list was getting long. In addition to searching for art/sci on the blog search engine, you may want to try data sonification too.
Moving off planet to outer space
This is not a big interest of mine but there were a few stories,
I expect to be delighted, horrified, thrilled, and left shaking my head by science stories in 2025. Year after year the world of science reveals a world of wonder.
More mundanely, I can state with some confidence that my commentary (mentioned in the future-oriented subsection of my 2023 review and 2024 look forward) on Quantum Potential, a 2023 report from the Council of Canadian Academies, will be published early in this new year as I’ve almost finished writing it.
Some questions are hard to answer and always have been. Does my beloved love me back? Should my country go to war? Who stole my goats?
Questions like these have been asked of diviners around the world throughout history – and still are today. From astrology and tarot to reading entrails, divination comes in a wide variety of forms.
Yet they all address the same human needs. They promise to tame uncertainty, help us make decisions or simply satisfy our desire to understand.
Anthropologists and historians like us study divination because it sheds light on the fears and anxieties of particular cultures, many of which are universal. Our new exhibition at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Oracles, Omens & Answers, explores these issues by showcasing divination techniques from around the world.
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1. Spider divination
In Cameroon, Mambila spider divination (ŋgam dù) addresses difficult questions to spiders or land crabs that live in holes in the ground.
Asking the spiders a question involves covering their hole with a broken pot and placing a stick, a stone and cards made from leaves around it. The diviner then asks a question in a yes or no format while tapping the enclosure to encourage the spider or crab to emerge. The stick and stone represent yes or no, while the leaf cards, which are specially incised with certain meanings, offer further clarification.
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2. Palmistry
Reading people’s palms (palmistry) is well known as a fairground amusement, but serious forms of this divination technique exist in many cultures. The practice of reading the hands to gather insights into a person’s character and future was used in many ancient cultures across Asia and Europe.
In some traditions, the shape and depth of the lines on the palm are richest in meaning. In others, the size of the hands and fingers are also considered. In some Indian traditions, special marks and symbols appearing on the palm also provide insights.
Palmistry experienced a huge resurgence in 19th-century England and America, just as the science of fingerprints was being developed. If you could identify someone from their fingerprints, it seemed plausible to read their personality from their hands.
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3. Bibliomancy
If you want a quick answer to a difficult question, you could try bibliomancy. Historically, this DIY [do-it-yourself] divining technique was performed with whatever important books were on hand.
Throughout Europe, the works of Homer or Virgil were used. In Iran, it was often the Divan of Hafiz, a collection of Persian poetry. In Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions, holy texts have often been used, though not without controversy.
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4. Astrology
Astrology exists in almost every culture around the world. As far back as ancient Babylon, astrologers have interpreted the heavens to discover hidden truths and predict the future.
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5. Calendrical divination
Calendars have long been used to divine the future and establish the best times to perform certain activities. In many countries, almanacs still advise auspicious and inauspicious days for tasks ranging from getting a haircut to starting a new business deal.
In Indonesia, Hindu almanacs called pawukon [calendar] explain how different weeks are ruled by different local deities. The characteristics of the deities mean that some weeks are better than others for activities like marriage ceremonies.
6 December 2024 – 27 April 2025 ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library
The Bodleian Libraries’ new exhibition, Oracles, Omens and Answers, will explore the many ways in which people have sought answers in the face of the unknown across time and cultures. From astrology and palm reading to weather and public health forecasting, the exhibition demonstrates the ubiquity of divination practices, and humanity’s universal desire to tame uncertainty, diagnose present problems, and predict future outcomes.
Through plagues, wars and political turmoil, divination, or the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown, has remained an integral part of society. Historically, royals and politicians would consult with diviners to guide decision-making and incite action. People have continued to seek comfort and guidance through divination in uncertain times — the COVID-19 pandemic saw a rise in apps enabling users to generate astrological charts or read the Yijing [I Ching], alongside a growth in horoscope and tarot communities on social media such as ‘WitchTok’. Many aspects of our lives are now dictated by algorithmic predictions, from e-health platforms to digital advertising. Scientific forecasters as well as doctors, detectives, and therapists have taken over many of the societal roles once held by diviners. Yet the predictions of today’s experts are not immune to criticism, nor can they answer all our questions.
Curated by Dr Michelle Aroney, whose research focuses on early modern science and religion, and Professor David Zeitlyn, an expert in the anthropology of divination, the exhibition will take a historical-anthropological approach to methods of prophecy, prediction and forecasting, covering a broad range of divination methods, including astrology, tarot, necromancy, and spider divination.
Dating back as far as ancient Mesopotamia, the exhibition will show us that the same kinds of questions have been asked of specialist practitioners from around the world throughout history. What is the best treatment for this illness? Does my loved one love me back? When will this pandemic end? Through materials from the archives of the Bodleian Libraries alongside other collections in Oxford, the exhibition demonstrates just how universally human it is to seek answers to difficult questions.
Highlights of the exhibition include: oracle bones from Shang Dynasty China (ca. 1250-1050 BCE); an Egyptian celestial globe dating to around 1318; a 16th-century armillary sphere from Flanders, once used by astrologers to place the planets in the sky in relation to the Zodiac; a nineteenth-century illuminated Javanese almanac; and the autobiography of astrologer Joan Quigley, who worked with Nancy and Ronald Reagan in the White House for seven years. The casebooks of astrologer-physicians in 16th- and 17th-century England also offer rare insights into the questions asked by clients across the social spectrum, about their health, personal lives, and business ventures, and in some cases the actions taken by them in response.
The exhibition also explores divination which involves the interpretation of patterns or clues in natural things, with the idea that natural bodies contain hidden clues that can be decrypted. Some diviners inspect the entrails of sacrificed animals (known as ‘extispicy’), as evidenced by an ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet describing the observation of patterns in the guts of birds. Others use human bodies, with palm readers interpreting characters and fortunes etched in their clients’ hands. A sketch of Oscar Wilde’s palms – which his palm reader believed indicated “a great love of detail…extraordinary brain power and profound scholarship” – shows the revival of palmistry’s popularity in 19th century Britain.
The exhibition will also feature a case study of spider divination practised by the Mambila people of Cameroon and Nigeria, which is the research specialism of curator Professor David Zeitlyn, himself a Ŋgam dù diviner. This process uses burrowing spiders or land crabs to arrange marked leaf cards into a pattern, which is read by the diviner. The display will demonstrate the methods involved in this process and the way in which its results are interpreted by the card readers. African basket divination has also been observed through anthropological research, where diviners receive answers to their questions in the form of the configurations of thirty plus items after they have been tossed in the basket.
Dr Michelle Aroney and Professor David Zeitlyn, co-curators of the exhibition, say:
Every day we confront the limits of our own knowledge when it comes to the enigmas of the past and present and the uncertainties of the future. Across history and around the world, humans have used various techniques that promise to unveil the concealed, disclosing insights that offer answers to private or shared dilemmas and help to make decisions. Whether a diviner uses spiders or tarot cards, what matters is whether the answers they offer are meaningful and helpful to their clients. What is fun or entertainment for one person is deadly serious for another.
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s [a nickname? Bodleian Libraries were founded by Sir Thomas Bodley] Librarian, said:
People have tried to find ways of predicting the future for as long as we have had recorded history. This exhibition examines and illustrates how across time and culture, people manage the uncertainty of everyday life in their own way. We hope that through the extraordinary exhibits, and the scholarship that brings them together, visitors to the show will appreciate the long history of people seeking answers to life’s biggest questions, and how people have approached it in their own unique way.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the book Divinations, Oracles & Omens, edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, which will be published by Bodleian Library Publishing on 5 December 2024.
Courtesy: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
I’m not sure why the preceding image is used to illustrate the exhibition webpage but I find it quite interesting. Should you be in Oxford, UK and lucky enough to visit the exhibition, there are a few more details on the Oracles, Omens and Answers event webpage, Note: There are 26 Bodleian Libraries at Oxford and the exhibition is being held in the Weston Library,
EXHIBITION
Oracles, Omens and Answers
6 December 2024 – 27 April 2025
ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library
Free admission, no ticket required
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Note: This exhibition includes a large continuous projection of spider divination practice, including images of the spiders in action.
Exhibition tours
Oracles, Omens and Answers exhibition tours are available on selected Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1–1.45pm and are open to all.
It seems to me that this year there’s been more interest than usual in harvesting energy from heretofore untapped resources, from an October 17, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily,
Imagine tires that charge a vehicle as it drives, streetlights powered by the rumble of traffic, or skyscrapers that generate electricity as the buildings naturally sway and shudder.
These energy innovations could be possible thanks to researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developing environmentally friendly materials that produce electricity when compressed or exposed to vibrations.
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The RPI team developed a polymer film infused with a special chalcogenide perovskite compound that produces electricity when squeezed or stressed. The device could be used in consumer goods, such as a shoe that lights up when the user walks, though it has potential applications in transportation and infrastructure. Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
In a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, the team developed a polymer film infused with a special chalcogenide perovskite compound that produces electricity when squeezed or stressed, a phenomenon known as the piezoelectric effect. While other piezoelectric materials currently exist, this is one of the few high-performing ones that does not contain lead, making it an excellent candidate for use in machines, infrastructure as well as bio-medical applications.
“We are excited and encouraged by our findings and their potential to support the transition to green energy,” said Nikhil Koratkar, Ph.D., corresponding author of the study and the John A. Clark and Edward T. Crossan Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering. “Lead is toxic and increasing being restricted and phased out of materials and devices. Our goal was to create a material that was lead-free and could be made inexpensively using elements commonly found in nature.”
The energy harvesting film, which is only 0.3 millimeters thick, could be integrated into a wide variety of devices, machines, and structures, Koratkar explained.
“Essentially, the material converts mechanical energy into electrical energy — the greater the applied pressure load and the greater the surface area over which the pressure is applied, the greater the effect,” Koratkar said. “For example, it could be used beneath highways to generate electricity when cars drive over them. It could also be used in building materials, making electricity when buildings vibrate.”
The piezoelectric effect occurs in materials that lack structural symmetry. Under stress, piezoelectric materials deform in such a way that causes positive and negative ions within the material to separate. This “dipole moment,” as it is known scientifically, can be harnessed and turned into an electric current. In the chalcogenide perovskite material discovered by the RPI team, structural symmetry can be easily broken under stress leading to a pronounced piezoelectric response.
Once they synthesized their new material, which contains barium, zirconium and sulfur, the researchers tested its ability to produce electricity by subjecting it to various bodily movements, such as walking, running, clapping, and tapping fingers.
The researchers found that the material generated electricity during these experiments, enough to even power banks of LED’s that spelled out RPI.
“These tests show this technology could be useful, for example, in a device worn by runners or bikers that lights up their shoes or helmets and makes them more visible. However, this is just a proof of concept, as we’d like to eventually see this kind of material implemented at scale, where it can really make a difference in energy production,” Koratkar said.
Moving forward, Koratkar’s lab will explore the entire family of chalcogenide perovskite compounds in the search for those that exhibit an even stronger piezoelectric effect. Artificial intelligence and machine learning could prove useful tools in this pursuit, Koratkar said.
“Sustainable energy production is vital to our future,” said Shekhar Garde, Ph.D., dean of the RPI School of Engineering. “Professor Koratkar’s work is a great example of how innovating approaches to materials discovery can help address a global problem.”
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Piezoelectricity in chalcogenide perovskites by Sk Shamim Hasan Abir, Shyam Sharma, Prince Sharma, Surya Karla, Ganesh Balasubramanian, Johnson Samuel & Nikhil Koratkar. Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 5768 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50130-5 Published: 09 July 2024
Unexpectedly, this story centers on coal and in this case, coal ash. A September 12, 2024 Canadian Light Source news release (also received via email)) by Brian Owens explains how coal ash is a source for rare earth elements (RRE), Note: A link has been removed,
As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, the demand for rare earth elements (REEs) is only going to increase. These elements are vital to the production of technologies that will make the transition to green energy possible. While REEs are not technically rare, large deposits are found in only a few locations around the world – mostly in China – and they are difficult to extract.
“If we want to switch to electric vehicles by 2035 and be net-zero by 2050 we’re going to need new sources of these metals,” says Brendan Bishop, a PhD candidate studying REEs at the University of Regina.
Bishop and his colleagues have been studying one potential new source of these valuable elements: the ash that is produced as waste from coal-fired power plants. Researchers have looked into REEs in coal waste in the United States and China, but there has been little work done on ash from Canadian coal.
The team analyzed samples of ash from coal plants in Alberta and Saskatchewan to determine how much REEs the ashes contained, and how they could be extracted. While the concentration of REEs in Canadian coal ash is on par with that found in ash from other parts of the world, questions remained about whether the REEs are dispersed evenly throughout the ash particles or concentrated in certain minerals found within the ashes.
Using the powerful X-ray beamlines at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), Bishop probed the ash, in search of a rare earth element called yttrium. They found it was distributed in specific mineral phases within the ash particles, most often in the form of silicates or phosphates such as xenotime which remain unchanged when the coal is burned. The work was published in Environmental Science and Technology.
Bishop says this data can help inform development of an efficient and environmentally friendly process for recovering REEs from the ash. “This will be important when we develop a recovery process because extracting rare earth elements is technologically challenging,” he says. “In this case, since it’s in xenotime which is an ore mineral, maybe we can use an existing process and modify it for coal ash.”
The amount of REEs that could be extracted from coal ash will depend on the recovery process, says Bishop. But he thinks it could be a good short-to-medium-term source of the metals. The concentration is not particularly high, but that is offset by the fact that waste coal ash is plentiful. The concentration throughout the ash is also fairly homogenous, so no complicated grading is required as with mined ores. Once the extraction process is perfected, it will also be much faster than opening new mines, which often have gaps of up to 17 years between exploration and production.
Recovering REEs from the ash is also an important step toward a circular economy. Some ash is used in making concrete, but most just sits in landfills or tailings ponds near power plants. “It not only gets rid of an environmental liability, but it also gives us the metals we need for clean energy technologies,” says Bishop.
In a landmark advancement, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a brain-inspired analog computing platform capable of storing and processing data in an astonishing 16,500 conductance states within a molecular film. Published today in the journal Nature, this breakthrough represents a huge step forward over traditional digital computers in which data storage and processing are limited to just two states.
Such a platform could potentially bring complex AI tasks, like training Large Language Models (LLMs), to personal devices like laptops and smartphones, thus taking us closer to democratising the development of AI tools. These developments are currently restricted to resource-heavy data centres, due to a lack of energy-efficient hardware. With silicon electronics nearing saturation, designing brain-inspired accelerators that can work alongside silicon chips to deliver faster, more efficient AI is also becoming crucial.
“Neuromorphic computing has had its fair share of unsolved challenges for over a decade,” explains Sreetosh Goswami, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), IISc, who led the research team. “With this discovery, we have almost nailed the perfect system – a rare feat.”
The fundamental operation underlying most AI algorithms is quite basic – matrix multiplication, a concept taught in high school maths. But in digital computers, these calculations hog a lot of energy. The platform developed by the IISc team drastically cuts down both the time and energy involved, making these calculations a lot faster and easier.
The molecular system at the heart of the platform was designed by Sreebrata Goswami, Visiting Professor at CeNSE. As molecules and ions wiggle and move within a material film, they create countless unique memory states, many of which have been inaccessible so far. Most digital devices are only able to access two states (high and low conductance), without being able to tap into the infinite number of intermediate states possible.
By using precisely timed voltage pulses, the IISc team found a way to effectively trace a much larger number of molecular movements, and map each of these to a distinct electrical signal, forming an extensive “molecular diary” of different states. “This project brought together the precision of electrical engineering with the creativity of chemistry, letting us control molecular kinetics very precisely inside an electronic circuit powered by nanosecond voltage pulses,” explains Sreebrata Goswami.
Tapping into these tiny molecular changes allowed the team to create a highly precise and efficient neuromorphic accelerator, which can store and process data within the same location, similar to the human brain. Such accelerators can be seamlessly integrated with silicon circuits to boost their performance and energy efficiency.
A key challenge that the team faced was characterising the various conductance states, which proved impossible using existing equipment. The team designed a custom circuit board that could measure voltages as tiny as a millionth of a volt, to pinpoint these individual states with unprecedented accuracy.
The team also turned this scientific discovery into a technological feat. They were able to recreate NASA’s iconic “Pillars of Creation” image from the James Webb Space Telescope data – originally created by a supercomputer – using just a tabletop computer. They were also able to do this at a fraction of the time and energy that traditional computers would need.
The team includes several students and research fellows at IISc. Deepak Sharma performed the circuit and system design and electrical characterisation, Santi Prasad Rath handled synthesis and fabrication, Bidyabhusan Kundu tackled the mathematical modelling, and Harivignesh S crafted bio-inspired neuronal response behaviour. The team also collaborated with Stanley Williams [also known as R. Stanley Williams], Professor at Texas A&M University and Damien Thompson, Professor at the University of Limerick.
The researchers believe that this breakthrough could be one of India’s biggest leaps in AI hardware, putting the country on the map of global technology innovation. Navakanta Bhat, Professor at CeNSE and an expert in silicon electronics led the circuit and system design in this project. “What stands out is how we have transformed complex physics and chemistry understanding into groundbreaking technology for AI hardware,” he explains. “In the context of the India Semiconductor Mission, this development could be a game-changer, revolutionising industrial, consumer and strategic applications. The national importance of such research cannot be overstated.”
With support from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the IISc team is now focused on developing a fully indigenous integrated neuromorphic chip. “This is a completely home-grown effort, from materials to circuits and systems,” emphasises Sreetosh Goswami. “We are well on our way to translating this technology into a system-on-a-chip.”
Caption: Using their AI accelerator, the team recreated NASA’s iconic “Pillars of Creation” image from the James Webb Space Telescope data on a simple tabletop computer – achieving this in a fraction of the time and energy required by traditional systems. Credit: CeNSE, IISc
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Linear symmetric self-selecting 14-bit kinetic molecular memristors by Deepak Sharma, Santi Prasad Rath, Bidyabhusan Kundu, Anil Korkmaz, Harivignesh S, Damien Thompson, Navakanta Bhat, Sreebrata Goswami, R. Stanley Williams & Sreetosh Goswami. Nature volume 633, pages 560–566 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07902-2 Published online: 11 September 2024 Issue Date: 19 September 2024
A September 10, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily provides a technical explanation of how memristors, without a power source, can retain information,
Phase separation, when molecules part like oil and water, works alongside oxygen diffusion to help memristors — electrical components that store information using electrical resistance — retain information even after the power is shut off, according to a University of Michigan led study recently published in Matter.
Up to this point, explanations have not fully grasped how memristors retain information without a power source, known as nonvolatile memory, because models and experiments do not match up.
“While experiments have shown devices can retain information for over 10 years, the models used in the community show that information can only be retained for a few hours,” said Jingxian Li, U-M doctoral graduate of materials science and engineering and first author of the study.
To better understand the underlying phenomenon driving nonvolatile memristor memory, the researchers focused on a device known as resistive random access memory or RRAM, an alternative to the volatile RAM used in classical computing, and are particularly promising for energy-efficient artificial intelligence applications.
The specific RRAM studied, a filament-type valence change memory (VCM), sandwiches an insulating tantalum oxide layer between two platinum electrodes. When a certain voltage is applied to the platinum electrodes, a conductive filament forms a tantalum ion bridge passing through the insulator to the electrodes, which allows electricity to flow, putting the cell in a low resistance state representing a “1” in binary code. If a different voltage is applied, the filament is dissolved as returning oxygen atoms react with the tantalum ions, “rusting” the conductive bridge and returning to a high resistance state, representing a binary code of “0”.
It was once thought that RRAM retains information over time because oxygen is too slow to diffuse back. However, a series of experiments revealed that previous models have neglected the role of phase separation.
“In these devices, oxygen ions prefer to be away from the filament and will never diffuse back, even after an indefinite period of time. This process is analogous to how a mixture of water and oil will not mix, no matter how much time we wait, because they have lower energy in a de-mixed state,” said Yiyang Li, U-M assistant professor of materials science and engineering and senior author of the study.
To test retention time, the researchers sped up experiments by increasing the temperature. One hour at 250°C is equivalent to about 100 years at 85°C—the typical temperature of a computer chip.
Using the extremely high-resolution imaging of atomic force microscopy, the researchers imaged filaments, which measure only about five nanometers or 20 atoms wide, forming within the one micron wide RRAM device.
“We were surprised that we could find the filament in the device. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Li said.
The research team found that different sized filaments yielded different retention behavior. Filaments smaller than about 5 nanometers dissolved over time, whereas filaments larger than 5 nanometers strengthened over time. The size-based difference cannot be explained by diffusion alone.
Together, experimental results and models incorporating thermodynamic principles showed the formation and stability of conductive filaments depend on phase separation.
The research team leveraged phase separation to extend memory retention from one day to well over 10 years in a rad-hard memory chip—a memory device built to withstand radiation exposure for use in space exploration.
Other applications include in-memory computing for more energy efficient AI applications or memory devices for electronic skin—a stretchable electronic interface designed to mimic the sensory capabilities of human skin. Also known as e-skin, this material could be used to provide sensory feedback to prosthetic limbs, create new wearable fitness trackers or help robots develop tactile sensing for delicate tasks.
“We hope that our findings can inspire new ways to use phase separation to create information storage devices,” Li said.
Researchers at Ford Research, Dearborn; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; University at Albany; NY CREATES; Sandia National Laboratories; and Arizona State University, Tempe contributed to this study.
…
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Thermodynamic origin of nonvolatility in resistive memory by Jingxian Li, Anirudh Appachar, Sabrina L. Peczonczyk, Elisa T. Harrison, Anton V. Ievlev, Ryan Hood, Dongjae Shin, Sangmin Yoo, Brianna Roest, Kai Sun, Karsten Beckmann, Olya Popova, Tony Chiang, William S. Wahby, Robin B. Jacobs-Godrim, Matthew J. Marinella, Petro Maksymovych, John T. Heron, Nathaniel Cady, Wei D. Lu, Suhas Kumar, A. Alec Talin, Wenhao Sun, Yiyang Li. Matter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2024.07.018 Published online: August 26, 2024
Your early morning run could soon help harvest enough electricity to power your wearable devices, thanks to new nanotechnology developed at the University of Surrey [UK].
Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has developed highly energy-efficient, flexible nanogenerators, which demonstrate a 140-fold increase in power density when compared to conventional nanogenerators. ATI researchers believe that this development could pave the way for nano-devices that are as efficient as today’s solar cells.
Surrey’s devices can convert small amounts of everyday mechanical energy, like motion, into a significantly higher amount of electrical power, similar to how an amplifier boosts sound in an electronic system. For instance, if a traditional nanogenerator produces 10 milliwatts of power, this new technology could increase that output to over 1,000 milliwatts, making it suitable for energy harvesting in various everyday applications.
ATI’s nanogenerator works like a relay team – instead of one electrode (the runner) passing energy (charge) by itself. Each runner collects a baton (charge), adds more and then passes all batons to the next runner, boosting the overall energy that is collected in a process called the charge regeneration effect.
Lead author of the study from the University of Surrey, Md Delowar Hussain, said:
“The dream of nanogenerators is to capture and use energy from everyday movements, like your morning run, mechanical vibrations, ocean waves or opening a door. The key innovation with our nanogenerator is that we’ve fine-tuned the technology with 34 tiny energy collectors using a laser technique that can be scaled up for manufacture to increase energy efficiency further.
“What’s really exciting is that our little device with high energy harvesting density could one day rival the power of solar panels and could be used to run anything from self-powered sensors to smart home systems that run without ever needing a battery change.”
The device is a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) – a device that can capture and turn the energy from simple, everyday movements into electricity. They work by using materials that become electrically charged when they come into contact and then separate – similar to when you rub a balloon on your hair, and it sticks due to static electricity.
Dr Bhaskar Dudem, co-author of the study from the University of Surrey, said:
“We are soon going to launch a company focused on self-powered, non-invasive healthcare sensors using triboelectric technology. Innovations like these will enable us to drive new spin-out activities in sustainable health tech, improve sensitivity, and emphasize industrial scalability.”
Professor Ravi Silva, co-author of the study and Director of the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, said:
“With the ever-increasing technology around us, it is predicted that we will have over 50 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the next few years that will need energy to be powered. Local green energy solutions are needed, and this could be a convenient wireless technology that harnesses energy from any mechanical movements to power small devices. It offers an opportunity for the scientific and engineering community to find innovative and sustainable solutions to global challenges.”
“We are incredibly excited about the potential of these nanogenerators to transform how we think about energy. You could also imagine these devices being used in IoT-based self-powered smart systems like autonomous wireless operations, security monitoring, and smart home systems, or even for supporting dementia patients, an area in which the University of Surrey has great expertise.”
o Recently, with the significant increase in cooling demand due to global warming, a vast amount of energy is being consumed for heat management inside buildings. Existing windows, which have a high solar absorption rate and low reflectance, lead to considerable energy loss. Therefore, energy-saving windows are emerging as a practical solution to global challenges such as responding to climate change and ensuring energy sustainability. These windows not only provide optimal thermal comfort to occupants but also contribute to economic development by reducing dependence on conventional cooling systems.
o For windows to effectively save energy in buildings, it is necessary to adopt energy-efficient cooling technology (Zero Energy) and further ensure energy harvesting methods (Plus Energy) that guarantee sustainable power supply. Additionally, windows must maintain high transparency, which is their fundamental function, even on cold or foggy days.
■ Research Achievements / Expected Effects
o The multifunctional smart windows developed in this research demonstrate their effectiveness as next-generation energy-saving devices by implementing three main functions.
o First, they provide radiative cooling that lowers indoor temperature on sunny days without energy input. Second, they generate electricity using raindrops on rainy days. Third, they implement a transparent heater function to quickly remove frost from the windows on cold days.
■ Research Details
□ Research Content Overview
o The research team led by Professor Seung Hwan Ko from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University has developed “multifunctional smart window technology” that lowers indoor temperatures without electricity consumption and generates power using the frictional electricity from raindrops. This research is significant in that it pioneers new possibilities for Plus Energy technology, surpassing Zero Energy to contribute to improving energy self-sufficiency in response to global warming.
□ Background
o Recently, implementing Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs) that surpass Zero Energy has become a key task for achieving energy self-sufficiency in buildings. Next-generation PEBs are buildings that go beyond minimizing energy loads and can autonomously produce energy. Buildings inherently consume a massive amount of energy for heat management, and with the rise in cooling demand due to global warming, energy usage has surged dramatically. Furthermore, existing windows with high solar absorption and low reflectivity result in substantial energy losses during cooling. Therefore, to realize economically efficient next-generation Plus Energy Buildings, it is necessary to develop multifunctional smart windows equipped with transparent cooling technology (Zero Energy-based) and further energy-harvesting technology (Plus Energy-based) that ensures sustainable power supply. o To address these issues, researchers worldwide are focusing on the development of smart windows that maximize energy savings. Smart windows are often thought to adjust internal temperatures by changing color to control sunlight. However, this method has limitations since the windows become opaque during the cooling process, thus failing to maintain high transparency, which is the window’s primary function.
□ Key Research Methods
o The research team is actively working on developing new technologies that improve energy efficiency while preserving the transparency of windows. As part of this effort, Professor Ko’s research team developed a Zero Energy-based “transparent radiative cooling technology” that maintains transparency while enabling cooling without using electricity. Additionally, they developed energy-harvesting technology that produces electricity through the friction generated when raindrops contact the window surface, introducing a Plus Energy-based smart window technology that surpasses Zero Energy. The team also developed a transparent heater technology that quickly clears frost from windows on cold or foggy days, thereby implementing three functions—radiative cooling, power generation, and frost removal—simultaneously in a single device for the first time in the world. o The research team achieved these three functionalities in a single device by fabricating windows with a layered structure of silver and ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), materials with excellent electrical conductivity and unique optical properties. First, the “transparent radiative cooling technology” minimizes the absorption of sunlight entering indoors while emitting radiant heat outdoors to lower the temperature. Unlike conventional air conditioning systems that use refrigerants, this radiative cooling technology offers cooling performance without consuming electrical energy. The research team focused on allowing only the visible light spectrum from sunlight to pass through the window while selectively reflecting near-infrared sunlight to lower indoor temperatures and maximize cooling. Second, the “frictional electricity-based power generation technology” generates electricity when raindrops contact the window surface on rainy days. For this purpose, an electrode material covering the window surface is necessary, and thanks to the excellent electrical conductivity of the layered silver and ITO structure, the smart window can generate electricity through frictional electricity. Lastly, through “Joule heating,” the transparent electrodes also serve as a heater that quickly removes frost or ice from the window, ensuring clear visibility on cold days. The multifunctional smart windows developed by the research team can provide transparent radiative cooling on sunny days, generate power on rainy days, and remove frost or ice on cold days.
□ Results
o The research team led by Professor Seung Hwan Ko confirmed that the smart windows they developed maintained a temperature approximately 7 degrees lower than regular windows in hot environments under direct sunlight. In an experiment simulating rainy conditions, the smart windows generated 8.3 W m-2 of power with just a single raindrop, while also clearing frost from the window twice as fast as regular windows through Joule heating, demonstrating both high performance and multifunctionality.
□ Expected Effects
o Professor Seung Hwan Ko stated, “This achievement of presenting next-generation smart window technology optimized for responding to the depletion of fossil fuels and global warming offers valuable insights into the technological advancements for Plus Energy buildings and the eco-friendly electric vehicle industry. Smart windows are expected to be applied across various industries because they address environmental pollution, reduce cooling energy, and overcome the limitations of conventional battery technologies through self-power generation.”
□ Achievements
o This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea, and it has gained global attention, being published in the October 2024 issue of the prestigious journal Nano Energy (Impact factor: 16.8, Top 5.3%) under the title: “Energy-saving window for versatile multimode of radiative cooling, energy harvesting, and defrosting functionalities.”
o Meanwhile, Dr. Yeongju Jung, the lead author of this study, is currently conducting follow-up research at Professor Ko’s laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University and is preparing for a postdoctoral research fellowship abroad.
□ Introduction to the SNU College of Engineering
Seoul National University (SNU) founded in 1946 is the first national university in South Korea. The College of Engineering at SNU has worked tirelessly to achieve its goal of ‘fostering leaders for global industry and society.’ In 12 departments, 323 internationally recognized full-time professors lead the development of cutting-edge technology in South Korea and serving as a driving force for international development.
Barely audible to human ears, healthy soils produce a cacophony of sounds in many forms—a bit like an underground rave concert of bubble pops and clicks.
Special recordings made by Flinders University ecologists in Australia show that this chaotic mixture of soundscapes can be a measure of the diversity of tiny living animals in the soil, which create sounds as they move and interact with their environment.
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An August 16, 2024 Flinders University press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes a newish (more about newish later) field of research ‘eco-acoustics’ and technical details about the researchers’ work, Note: A link has been removed,
With 75% of the world’s soils degraded, the future of the teeming community of living species that live underground face a dire future without restoration, says microbial ecologist Dr Jake Robinson, from theFrontiers of Restoration Ecology Lab in the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University.
This new field of research aims to investigate the vast, teeming hidden ecosystems where almost 60% of the Earth’s species live, he says.
“Restoring and monitoring soil biodiversity has never been more important.
“Although still in its early stages, ‘eco-acoustics’ is emerging as a promising tool to detect and monitor soil biodiversity and has now been used in Australian bushland and other ecosystems in the UK.
“The acoustic complexity and diversity are significantly higher in revegetated and remnant plots than in cleared plots, both in-situ and in sound attenuation chambers.
“The acoustic complexity and diversity are also significantly associated with soil invertebrate abundance and richness.”
The latest study, including Flinders University expert Associate Professor Martin Breed and Professor Xin Sun from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, compared results from acoustic monitoring of remnant vegetation to degraded plots and land that was revegetated 15 years ago.
The passive acoustic monitoring used various tools and indices to measure soil biodiversity over five days in the Mount Bold region in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. A below-ground sampling device and sound attenuation chamber were used to record soil invertebrate communities, which were also manually counted.
“It’s clear acoustic complexity and diversity of our samples are associated with soil invertebrate abundance – from earthworms, beetles to ants and spiders – and it seems to be a clear reflection of soil health,” says Dr Robinson.
“All living organisms produce sounds, and our preliminary results suggest different soil organisms make different sound profiles depending on their activity, shape, appendages and size.
“This technology holds promise in addressing the global need for more effective soil biodiversity monitoring methods to protect our planet’s most diverse ecosystems.”
This is a copy of the research paper’s graphical abstract,
Caption: Acoustic monitoring was carried out on soil in remnant vegetation as well as degraded plots and land that was revegetated 15 years ago. Credit: Flinders University
Like a lot of newish scientific terms, eco-acoustics, appears to be evolving. A search for the term led me to the Acoustic ecology entry on Wikipedia, Note: Links have been removed,
Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is a discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment.[1] Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer a musician, composer and former professor of communication studies at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) with the help of his team there[2] as part of the World Soundscape Project. The original WSP team included Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp, Bruce Davies and Peter Huse, among others. The first study produced by the WSP was titled The Vancouver Soundscape. This innovative study raised the interest of researchers and artists worldwide, creating enormous growth in the field of acoustic ecology. In 1993, the members of the by now large and active international acoustic ecology community formed the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.[3]
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Soundscapes are composed of the anthrophony, geophony and biophony of a particular environment. They are specific to location and change over time.[12] Acoustic ecology aims to study the relationship between these things, i.e. the relationship between humans, animals and nature, within these soundscapes. These relationships are delicate and subject to disruption by natural or man-made means.[9]
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The acoustic niche hypothesis, as proposed by acoustic ecologist Bernie Krause in 1993,[23] refers to the process in which organisms partition the acoustic domain, finding their own niche in frequency and/or time in order to communicate without competition from other species. The theory draws from the ideas of niche differentiation and can be used to predict differences between young and mature ecosystems. Similar to how interspecific competition can place limits on the number of coexisting species that can utilize a given availability of habitats or resources, the available acoustic space in an environment is a limited resource that is partitioned among those species competing to utilize it.[24]
In mature ecosystems, species will sing at unique bandwidths and specific times, displaying a lack of interspecies competition in the acoustic environment. Conversely, in young ecosystems, one is more likely to encounter multiple species using similar frequency bandwidths, which can result in interference between their respective calls, or a complete lack of activity in uncontested bandwidths. Biological invasions can also result in interference in the acoustic niche, with non-native species altering the dynamics of the native community by producing signals that mask or degrade native signals. This can cause a variety of ecological impacts, such as decreased reproduction, aggressive interactions, and altered predator-prey dynamics.[25] The degree of partitioning in an environment can be used to indicate ecosystem health and biodiversity.
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Earlier bioacoustic research at Flinders University has been mentioned in a June 14, 2023 posting “The sound of dirt.” Finally, whether you spell it eco-acoustics or ecoacoustics or call it acoustic ecology, it is a fascinating way of understanding the natural and not-so-natural world we live in.
Intriguing, eh? An August 6, 2023 news item on ScienceDaily announces an innovative approach to studying nuclear fusion energy,
Researchers are using mayonnaise to study and address the stability challenges of nuclear fusion by examining the phases of Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Their innovative approach aims to inform the design of more stable fusion capsules, contributing to the global effort to harness clean fusion energy. Their most recent paper explores the critical transitions between elastic and plastic phases in these conditions.
Mayonnaise continues to help researchers better understand the physics behind nuclear fusion.
“We’re still working on the same problem, which is the structural integrity of fusion capsules used in inertial confinement fusion, and Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise is still helping us in the search for solutions,” says Arindam Banerjee, the Paul B. Reinhold Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics at Lehigh University and Chair of the MEM department in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science.
In simple terms, fusion reactions are what power the sun. If the process could be harnessed on earth, scientists believe it could offer a nearly limitless and clean energy source for humanity. However, replicating the sun’s extreme conditions is an incredibly complex challenge. Researchers across science and engineering disciplines, including Banerjee and his team, are examining the problem from a multitude of perspectives.
Inertial confinement fusion is a process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by rapidly compressing and heating capsules filled with fuel, in this case, isotopes of hydrogen. When subjected to extreme temperatures and pressure, these capsules melt and form plasma, the charged state of matter that can generate energy.
“At those extremes, you’re talking about millions of degrees Kelvin and gigapascals of pressure as you’re trying to simulate conditions in the sun,” says Banerjee. “One of the main problems associated with this process is that the plasma state forms these hydrodynamic instabilities, which can reduce the energy yield.”
In their first paper on the topic back in 2019, Banerjee and his team examined that problem, known as Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The condition occurs between materials of different densities when the density and pressure gradients are in opposite directions, creating an unstable stratification.
“We use mayonnaise because it behaves like a solid, but when subjected to a pressure gradient, it starts to flow,” he says. Using the condiment also negates the need for high temperatures and pressure conditions, which are exceedingly difficult to control.
Banerjee’s team used a custom-built, one-of-a-kind rotating wheel facility within Banerjee’s Turbulent Mixing Laboratory to mimic the flow conditions of the plasma. Once the acceleration crossed a critical value, the mayo started to flow.
One of the things they figured out during that initial research was that before the flow became unstable, the soft solid, i.e., the mayo, went through a couple of phases.
“As with a traditional molten metal, if you put a stress on mayonnaise, it will start to deform, but if you remove the stress, it goes back to its original shape,” he says. “So there’s an elastic phase followed by a stable plastic phase. The next phase is when it starts flowing, and that’s where the instability kicks in.”
Understanding this transition between the elastic phase and the stable plastic phase is critical, he says, because knowing when the plastic deformation starts might tip off researchers as to when the instability would occur, Banerjee says. Then, they’d look to control the condition in order to stay within this elastic or stable plastic phase.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the latest paper,
Jennifer Ouellette’s August 9, 2024 article for Ars Technica offers information that augments what can be learned from the news release, Note 1: For anyone who’s not a physicist is more accessible than the paper; Note 2: Links have been removed,
Inertial confinement fusion is one method for generating energy through nuclear fusion, albeit one plagued by all manner of scientific challenges (although progress is being made). Researchers at Lehigh University are attempting to overcome one specific bugbear with this approach by conducting experiments with mayonnaise placed in a rotating figure-eight contraption. They described their most recent findings in a new paper published in the journal Physical Review E with an eye toward increasing energy yields from fusion.
The work builds on prior research in the Lehigh laboratory of mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee, who focuses on investigating the dynamics of fluids and other materials in response to extremely high acceleration and centrifugal force. In this case, his team was exploring what’s known as the “instability threshold” of elastic/plastic materials. Scientists have debated whether this comes about because of initial conditions, or whether it’s the result of “more local catastrophic processes,” according to Banerjee. The question is relevant to a variety of fields, including geophysics, astrophysics, explosive welding, and yes, inertial confinement fusion.
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If you’re interested in learning more about inertial confinement fusion, Ouellette’s August 9, 2024 article will help.
As for fusion energy, there are many articles here; just use the search engine.
