Tag: riceuniversity

‘3D’ white graphene could revolutionize gadget cooling

Graphene seems to be the new millennium’s wonder material: it can be used to build more powerful processors , more efficient solar cells, better sounding headphones and, apparently, can even be deep-fried to create long-lasting batteries. Now, researchers at Rice University think that a “3D” variant of the material could change the way we cool our gadgets. Normal graphene is already a pretty good heat conductor, but it has limitations–heat moves easily across the surface of stacked graphene, but not so well across the material’s multiple layers. That problem, however, can be solved: according to simulations at Rice, creating 3D structures of white graphene with boron nitrade nanotubes can overcome these thermal limitations, allowing for unimpeded heat transfer in all directions. In laymen’s terms, that all means that this research could eventually lead to new, smaller, more efficient thermal solutions–making it possible for us to cool smaller and more powerful electronics in the future. Sounds good to me. [Image Credit: Sharsavari, Rice University] Filed under: Science Comments Via: Eureka Alert Source: ACS Publications

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‘3D’ white graphene could revolutionize gadget cooling

Researchers stumble onto ‘lava’ generated quantum dots, could power future peripherals

Have you ever been playing around with molten metal salt, when you accidentally created hollow, soft-shelled particles that could one day increase hard disk storage or power future QLED displays ? Us neither, but that’s exactly what happened to scientists at Rice University when they were researching “tetrapods” to make solar panels more efficient. Through an apparently wacky coincidence, they removed a single ingredient from the tetrapod stew, which left behind tiny droplets of cadmium nitrate. Selenium then melted around those drops, which completely dissolved away, leaving a melted selenium ball with a hole in the middle. It turns out that those selenium “doughnuts” can be packed tightly onto a metal surface without touching, thanks to their soft shells, which could allow more bits to be packed onto a hard drive, or be used in quantum computers and next-gen displays. Since the dots are smaller than a living cell, it took the researchers an entire year to figure out what they’d made and how they did it — luckily they didn’t just bin the whole thing and start over. Filed under: Displays , Storage , Science , Alt Comments Via: Extreme Tech Source: IOP Science

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Researchers stumble onto ‘lava’ generated quantum dots, could power future peripherals