It opens the door to solar as a critical source of power and makes way for long term breakthroughs

11-02-2013

The current oversupply of solar modules which is putting tremendous pressure on the industry and its financial backers has led to a generally negative view of the solar industry. However, according to Dr. Harry A. Atwater, Director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech, while the ...

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Caltech engineers invent light-focusing device that may lead to applications in computing, communications, and imaging

13-12-2012

As technology advances, it tends to shrink. From cell phones to laptops - powered by increasingly faster and tinier processors - everything is getting thinner and sleeker. And now light beams are getting smaller, too. Engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created ...

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Caltech chemists identify the mechanism by which such catalysts work

07-09-2012

Scientists and engineers around the world are working to find a way to power the planet using solar-powered fuel cells. Such green systems would split water during daylight hours, generating hydrogen (H2) that could then be stored and used later to produce water and electricity. But robust ...

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Caltech-led physicists create first-ever mechanical device that measures the mass of a single molecule

28-08-2012

A team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have made the first-ever mechanical device that can measure the mass of individual molecules one at a time. This new technology, the researchers say, will eventually help doctors diagnose diseases, enable biologists ...

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30-07-2012

A collaboration of physicists from MPQ, LMU, Harvard and Caltech detect Higgs-type excitations in a low-dimensional system of ultracold atoms at the transition between different phases of matter. The sudden breaking of symmetry plays a fundamental role in physics, in particular for the ...

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24-01-2011

Using a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes to change our energy future. The metal is cerium oxide—or ceria—and it is the centerpiece of a promising new technology developed by Haile and her colleagues that concentrates solar energy and uses it to ...

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Uniquely versatile material could be used for more efficient light collection in solar cells

27-04-2010

A group of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has engineered a type of artificial optical material—a metamaterial—with a particular three-dimensional structure such that light exhibits a negative index of refraction upon entering the material. ...

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18-02-2010

Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The ...

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12-02-2010

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a way to make some notoriously brittle materials ductile—yet stronger than ever—simply by reducing their size. The work, by Dongchan Jang, senior postdoctoral scholar, and Julia R. Greer, assistant professor of ...

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4D electron microscopy makes it possible to image photons of nanoscale structures and visualize their architecture

21-12-2009

Techniques recently invented by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)—which allow the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the structure of nanoscale matter—have been used to image the evanescent electrical fields produced by the interaction of ...

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