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solar silicon circuits that can stretch and bend

(ANI): The notion that silicon can be used in such applications is surprising because it is intrinsically brittle and rigid. By

structural configurations and carefully optimized mechanical designs, researchers can use silicon in integrated circuits that are fully foldable and resilient.

The new design and manufacturing strategies could produce systems for medical therapies and monitoring of personal health that can be used as clothing, or systems capable of wrapping mechanical parts such as wings and fuselage of aircraft to monitor structural properties.

In 2005, John Rogers, Professor of Science and Engineering of Materials at the University of Illinois, and his research group were able to develop a form of silicon rubber. That configuration allows reversible stretching in one direction without significantly altering the electrical properties.

Now, Roger and his colleagues at the University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and Institute of Computing High Performance in Singapore have managed to extend this basic concept to many other directions, and a much more sophisticated systems to produce fully functional integrated circuits.

The researchers constructed integrated circuits consisting of transistors, oscillators, logic gates and amplifiers. The circuits exhibited extreme levels of flexibility and elasticity, with electronic properties comparable to those of similar circuits built on conventional silicon wafers.

The new design and construction strategy represents a general and scalable route to foldable electronic devices and high-performance elastic, which can incorporate inorganic electronic materials useful features and well known, but too fragile and brittle to make it viable to use them that way without the help of this innovative strategy.

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Precision control of movement in robots

A research team from the Department of Electrical and Electronics, Faculty of Science and Technology in Leioa (UPV / EHU), led by Professor Victor Etxebarria, studies the characteristics of various types of materials for subsequent use in the generation and measurement of precise movements.

At the time of pick up an egg or a light bulb with the arms of a robot is essential to do so as accurately as possible. Therefore, the progress of science and technology of materials have led to the design and control of systems equipped with sensors and actuators built with new materials.

Auto Group, Department of Electrical and Electronics, Faculty of Science and Technology studies the stimulus-response characteristics of various types of materials used in the generation and measurement of precise movements in electromechanical systems in miniature and in robotics.

Specifically, the studies focus on two types of materials with promising properties for micro positioning applications: shape memory alloys (SMA) and shape memory alloys, magnetic or ferromagnetic (MSM or FSMA). They are all new materials, classified as intelligent for their ability to memorize the shape and other novel properties.

The shape memory alloys are capable of remembering their original size and shape even after having undergone a deformation process. The most common of these alloys are generically known as nitinol, being composed of nickel and titanium, almost 50%. There is often sold commercially in the form of threads.

The shape memory alloys are magnetic ferromagnetic materials capable of withstanding large transformations that are reversible both in shape and size, under applicable a magnetic field. There are currently commercially manufactured only in research laboratories.

The team built a number of potentially useful devices for robotics, using these shape memory materials, and investigated new applications fundamentally aimed at light or electromechanical systems in miniature.

Laboratory prototypes

The use of SMA as actuators in low-precision applications is not particularly novel. However, researchers at the UPV / EHU have developed some experimental devices that radically improve the control of positioning of these actuators. As a result, have built a prototype of a light grip for a flexible robot of small dimensions, capable of handling small objects. For this, they placed nitinol wire between two elastic metal sheets so that if the thread is applied an electric current, the sheets contract and the claws are closed entirely, collecting small objects around it. Without such power, the claws open completely. However, the research group of the UPV / EHU has improved the movement to open and close, reaching position that movement with an accuracy of a micron. The accuracy of one micron may be sufficient in many applications, eg in machine tools.

regard to shape memory alloys, magnetic and ferromagnetic, the researchers at the UPV / EHU has designed a device which has managed to position objects with an accuracy of about 20 nanometers. Being a handmade device with a simple control system, researchers do not doubt that it can be improved. It can also be a serious candidate to replace the current high precision devices, as positioning devices made of shape memory alloys are ferromagnetic great advantage that, once suitably positioned non energy. The use of FSMA actuators can be very important in some applications, for example, large telescopes, which have many mirrors that have to move with great precision to focus properly.

All these appliances, craft time, serve to prove the basic characteristics of the materials in the laboratory, but maybe in the future may become final commercial prototypes of robotic devices and micro and nanopositioning.

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HP demonstrates an efficient electronic component frequency memristor

physically HP has demonstrated something that was just a theory, with its discovery would be best to start a team and not start appearing directly in the same state as when you went out without spending energy. (DT, AGENCIES) Known as the fourth element of the circuit has been discussed in scientific circles for decades, but has never been shown so far, the company said . The HP team leader Stanley Williams, who described the breakthrough as "a big surprise," he said, "By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, HP Labs has made it possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs can improve performance and energy efficiency. "Memristor HP says it could eventually replace DRAM as the most effective and advanced memory in wide use.

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Record in microresonator

(ANI): This is the highest frequency achieved to date in silicon, with a quality factor close to 10,000.

The quality factor, which is, among other things, a measure of the amount of stored energy in an oscillator, usually decreases with increasing frequency.

The new device consists of a silicon bar set into vibration by a process called "dielectric transduction." An alternating voltage is applied to a rod electrode separated by an insulator. The attractive forces between electric charges of the electrode and the bar create mechanical vibrations that travel along the bar from one end the other of it, like sound waves in a flute or a pipe of an organ.

Previously, researchers had used an air gap as the dielectric. Substituting this for a solid dielectric is easier to obtain the oscillations at higher frequencies, but the solid dielectric damps vibrations and reduces power transmission efficiency of the oscillator.

Dana Weinstein found by mathematical analysis that efficiency could be increased by moving the dielectric layers from the ends of the bar down the middle. The ideal positions are two-thirds of distance from the center the bar towards the end. These locations are the points of maximum stress when there is vibration.

The resulting device is a silicon bar of 8.5 microns long, 40 meters wide and 2.5 thick, divided by two dielectric layers of silicon nitride only 15 nanometers thick.

According to the researchers, the method could produce resonators with frequencies exceeding 10 GHz.