Posts Tagged ‘leds’
Silver Ballpoint Pen Can Draw Functional Electronic Circuits on Paper
First mightier than the sword, now mightier than the laser
A plain rollerball pen filled with a conductive ink can draw circuits on a sheet of paper, where they can provide power to an LED display and an antenna, among other potential uses.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made a new type of liquid metal ink that stays liquid in a pen, but dries after being applied to paper, wood or another surface. The liquid consists of silver nanoparticles that were reduced in size using acid, and then modified with cellulose so the fluid has a more inky viscosity.
Draw a line, and when it dries, the result is a silver wire that can conduct electricity. Researchers built an LED display with their school’s initials, UIUC, and the lovely sketch below depicting a house and trees. The ink serves as wiring for the LED mounted on the roof of the house, and it’s powered by a five-volt battery connected to the edge of the painting, according to a UI .
While can also create customized circuitry, a handheld pen is a cheaper, more portable method, materials scientist Jennifer Lewis said. There’s no software required — just a steady hand. The pen would enable circuits to be drawn on small, oddly shaped surfaces, and it can work as fast as someone can move his or her hand.
The team folded the paper to see how the circuits would up and found they needed to be folded several thousand times before the lines were broken, according to via .
The circuit pen could enable new disposable, bendable electronics and folded 3-D objects, the researchers said. They want to expand their palette to other types of conductive materials, according to UIUC.
The ink research, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was described in an early online version of the journal Advanced Materials.
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High-Powered NASA Grow-Light Reduces Chemotherapy Side Effects
WARP 75 lamp eases pain
The technology is called High Emissivity Aluminiferous Luminescent Substrate, or “HEALS,” and in a clinical trial, it used the equivalent energy of a dozen suns to alleviate a condition called oral mucositis, essentially mouth and throat sores. Patients who take chemo drugs have a high incidence of mucositis, which can be so painful that they can’t eat solid foods.
HEALS was initially developed as a plant growth chamber for shuttle missions. It uses LEDs that emit long wavelengths of light, stimulating cells to grow (or to aid in healing). The LEDs emit plenty of photons, but no heat, according to NASA.
The study used a WARP 75 light-delivery system, which provides the equivalent light energy of 12 suns from each of 288 LED chips, each the size of a grain of salt. There’s no heat, just lots of energy.
In a two-year, double-blind trial, researchers tested the light therapy on 20 cancer patients at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, and 60 patients from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The patients all had bone marrow transplants or stem cell transplants. They were organized into groups at low and high risk of developing mucositis. At random, half of each risk group received HEALS treatment and half were treated with a placebo device that had no therapeutic effects.
Nurses held the devices close to patients’ left and right cheek and neck for 88 seconds each, every day for two weeks at the start of the bone marrow or stem cell transplant. Patients filled out a form to describe their levels of pain, and doctors and nurses checked their mouths for signs of mucositis.
Ultimately, they found the patients with real HEALS treatment experienced less pain, NASA said. There’s a 96 percent chance this was a direct result of the light therapy, according to the study.
Doctors say the treatment could offer several benefits, including better nutrition, less drug use and improved morale, which can all help patients improve faster.
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Taiwanese Researchers Developing Bendable E-Readers and Screens Made From Silk
Your next smartphone could be manufactured by goats
Researchers at National Tsing Hua University turned liquified silk proteins into insulating membranes used for thin-film transistor screens, according to IDG News. The membranes could improve the transistors’ performance , according to researcher Hwang Jenn-Chang. What’s more, silk is cheap, costing about 3 cents per device.
Most thin-film transistor displays are made of silicon deposited onto glass, resulting in rigid screens. There have been some examples of flexible thin-film transistors using organic materials, like a developed by Sony last year. Using natural silk instead is a cheaper way to enable flexible materials. Even better, the silk-based membranes result in improved electron field-effect mobility — meaning better-performing flexible electronics, according to Hwang.
The researchers are reportedly working with manufacturers to commercialize the process, but Hwang said it would take at least two to three years before they hit the market.
That means the Taiwanese firms will need access to plenty of silk. Of course, you would want the toughest silk possible, so your e-reader version of PopSci could survive being rolled up in your pocket or shoved in your bag. Thankfully, teams of are producing spider silk proteins, yielding new ways to produce the strongest silk on Earth.
Just imagine — a future milk factory with hardworking goats pumping out gallons of spider silk proteins, to be spun into new display screens.
The research is published in the journal Advanced Materials.
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Bored By Non-Glowing Skin? Ultra-Flexible, Waterproof LED Implants Are What You Seek
LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are often used for text and video displays, and their infrared counterparts are everywhere in remote control technology. You can't take a trip without running into an LED - traffic signals are all LEDs, as are most of the lights on a car dashboard. And anyone who has been to a rock concert has probably run into a few people going crazy with LED-powered glowsticks.
Still, as researcher John Rogers of the University of Illinois points out, LEDs are brittle, meaning they can't be bent into different shapes. Well, no more, thanks to his new invention. He and his team have put tiny LEDs, each one smaller than the tip of a pen, on flexible electronic sheets. These sheets can be stretched and twisted up to 720 degrees without any loss in LED function, and they can hold up under soapy water or even underneath the skin, which they demonstrated by implant one sheet under the skin of mice.
As scientist's tend to do, Rogers looks at this from the perspective of how it might benefit humanity. He sees great potential applications in using implanted LEDs for diagnostic purposes, and putting his LEDs on surgical gloves could allow doctors an even better view at what they're operating on.
But let's be real here - the crazy awesome applications of this invention way outstrip the humanity-benefiting ones. Implanted LEDs can be the new tattoo - put red ones down your spine for the sexy Cylon look!) Take your boring old household pets and stick some LEDs in them - instant excitement with glowing kitties and puppies! New glowsticks could be twisted 720 degrees to look like double helixes of DNA and handed out to biologists, giving scientific conferences a refreshingly heavy metal feel. And you just know somebody is figuring out how to put these things on a condom.
What crazy ideas do you have for these ultra-flexible LEDs? Here are some more awesome pictures of Rogers's LEDs in action to get your creative juices going.
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Microsoft’s New Lens Promises 3-D TVs Sans Glasses
The 2.5 million 3-D HDTV sets that are expected to land in homes this year might seem like a lot, but it's really only a drop in the TV bucket. Early adopters will always exist, but this current wave of next-gen home-theater gear has more standing in its way than price. Who wants to wear those glasses? (Especially when most 3-D TV packages only come with two pairs, with extras running at least $50 a pop.) Doesn't exactly make for the best 3-D World Cup viewing party, now does it?
We've seen small-scale glasses-free 3-D displays before, like the LCD screen on that use light directed at each eye individually to deliver a stereoscopic image. Microsoft's display does a similar trick, but on a much larger scale. Their lens has a series of LEDs along the bottom edge of the screen that switch off and on rapidly and at varying angles to control where the light goes.
The screen can deliver a 3-D image to two different viewers' eyes at once. In order to do so, its onboard computer has to track their eyes to target the light to each individual. In the past, such systems have been very bulky to account for air space needed between the lens and projector; Microsoft's design, though, uses a lens that tapers from 11 millimeters thick at the top to six millimeters at the bottom. This taper means that the light can travel through the lens instead of thin air, Applied Sciences Group Director Steven Bathiche told Technology Review, meaning the entire setup can substantially shrink in size.
Light from the diodes enters the lens along the bottom and bounces through the lens until it reaches the proper viewing angle, at which point it escapes.
Though the setup currently only has a viewing angle of about 20 to 40 degrees, it's still early in the development stages. One day the lens could oust the now-conventional backlight in LCD HDTVs to bring home a glasses-less screen.
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