More effective production of “green” hydrogen with new combined material

26-Jun-2025 - The chemical reaction to produce hydrogen from water is several times more effective when using a combination of new materials in three layers, according to researchers at Linköping University in Sweden. Hydrogen produced from water is a promising renewable energy source – especially if the ...

How to keep data safe on the long run

Team presents new path to long-term data storage based on atomic-scale defects

08-Apr-2024 - With the development of the internet, social media or cloud computing, the amount of data created worldwide on a daily basis is sky-rocketing. This calls for new technologies which could provide higher storage densities combined with secure long-term data archiving far beyond the capabilities of ...

Researchers discover new ultra strong material for microchip sensors

A material that doesn't just rival the strength of diamonds and graphene, but boasts a yield strength 10 times greater than Kevlar

06-Nov-2023 - Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by assistant professor Richard Norte, have unveiled a remarkable new material with potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical ...

Unique X-ray Topography Based Defect Characterization for SiC Wafers Honored with Georg Waeber Innovation Award 2023

02-Nov-2023 - A cross-organizational team from Rigaku SE and Fraunhofer IISB has established a new semiconductor material characterization method in their jointly operated Center of Expertise for X-ray Topography in Erlangen, Germany. They succeeded not only in developing an industry-ready X-ray topography ...

Silicon carbide pressure sensors working at 600°C could make air travel easier on the environment

Built to take the heat

11-Mar-2022 - While conventional sensors reach breaking point at around 300°C, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM are creating a sensor that works reliably at twice that temperature. The secret of the heat-loving sensors: Silicon carbide, etched with exceptional precision. Their ability to monitor pressure even in ...

2D material in three dimensions

This could help, for example, to increase the storage capability per volume for hydrogen or to build chemical sensors with higher sensitivity

02-Feb-2022 - How do you integrate as much as possible of the 2D material graphene into a limited space? By producing it not on a flat surface, but on a 3D nanostructure. The carbon material graphene has no well-defined thickness, it merely consists of one single layer of atoms. It is therefore often referred ...

New porous material promising for making renewable energy from water

Producing hydrogen gas from water using sunlight

26-Mar-2021 - One prospective source of renewable energy is hydrogen gas produced from water with the aid of sunlight. Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed a material, nanoporous cubic silicon carbide, that exhibits promising properties to capture solar energy and split water for ...

A touch of gold and silver

For the first time, it is possible to produce crystalline layers of precious metals that consist of a single atomic layer and which are semiconducting

05-Jun-2020 - Metals are usually characterized by good electrical conductivity. This applies in particular to gold and silver. However, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, together with partners in Pisa and Lund, have now discovered that some precious metals lose ...

Silicon as a semiconductor: silicon carbide would be much more efficient

09-Sep-2019 - In power electronics, semiconductors are based on the element silicon – but the energy efficiency of silicon carbide would be much higher. Physicists of the University of Basel, the Paul Scherrer Institute and ABB explain what exactly is preventing the use of this combination of silicon and ...

Molecular assemblies heal epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide

29-Nov-2018 - Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have made a breakthrough in the way one can control the charge carrier density in graphene. They have discovered a novel method to dope graphene over large areas that enables the study of the physics at the Dirac point, where graphene is ...