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IMAGE: a, Modulation on the Coulomb interaction. (left) Illustration of increased screening of Coulomb interactions in 2D semiconductors. (right) Schematic illustration showing the impact of increased screening of Coulomb interactions on. view more
Credit: by Yuhan Wang, Zhonghui Nie, Fengqiu Wang
Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors can host a rich set of excitonic species because of the greatly enhanced Coulomb interactions. The excitonic states can exhibit large oscillator strengths and strong light-matter interactions, and dominate the optical properties of 2D semiconductors. In addition, because of the low dimensionality, excitonic dynamics of 2D semiconductors can be more susceptible to various external stimuli, enriching the possible tailoring methods that can be exploited. Understanding the factors that can influence the dynamics of the optically-generated excited states represents an important aspect of excitonic physics in 2D semiconductors, and is als
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IMAGE: A new $7.5 million Department of Defense grant is seeking to build a super camera that combines multiple metasurfaces that together can extract almost every bit of information that light. view more
Credit: Mark Brongersma, Stanford
DURHAM, N.C. - Engineers at Duke University are leading a nationwide effort to develop a camera that takes pictures worth not just a thousand words, but an entire encyclopedia.
Funded by a five-year, $7.5 million grant through the Department of Defense s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) competition, the team will develop a super camera that captures just about every type of information that light can carry, such as polarization, depth, phase, coherence and incidence angle. The new camera will also use edge computing and hardware acceleration technologies to process the vast amount of information it captures within the device in real-time.
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IMAGE: Power transmitted through the conductive silver-hydrogel composite actuated the shape-memory alloy muscle of this stingray-inspired soft swimmer. view more
Credit: Soft Machines Lab, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
In the field of robotics, metals offer advantages like strength, durability, and electrical conductivity. But, they are heavy and rigid properties that are undesirable in soft and flexible systems for wearable computing and human-machine interfaces.
Hydrogels, on the other hand, are lightweight, stretchable, and biocompatible, making them excellent materials for contact lenses and tissue engineering scaffolding. They are, however, poor at conducting electricity, which is needed for digital circuits and bioelectronics applications.
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IMAGE: The cellulose yarn, which the researchers present in the article, is practical to work with and could be used to make clothing with smart functions. Using a standard household sewing. view more
Credit: Anna-Lena Lundqvist/Chalmers University of Technology
Electronic textiles offer revolutionary new opportunities in various fields, in particular healthcare. But to be sustainable, they need to be made of renewable materials. A research team led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, now presents a thread made of conductive cellulose, which offers fascinating and practical possibilities for electronic textiles. Miniature, wearable, electronic gadgets are ever more common in our daily lives. But currently, they are often dependent on rare, or in some cases toxic, materials. They are also leading to a gradual build-up of great mountains of electronic waste. There is a real need for organic, renewable materials for use in electronic textiles, says So
New contact lens technology from Purdue University to help diagnose and monitor medical conditions may soon be ready for clinical trials. The team enabled commercial soft contact lenses to be a bioinstrumentation tool for unobtrusive monitoring of clinically important information associated with underlying ocular health conditions.