TechBlog

Carbon nanotube array absorbs light, could boost solar energy conversion

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University have created the darkest material ever made by man.

The material, a thin coating comprised of low-density arrays of loosely vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes, absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light and one day could be used to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of solar energy conversion, infrared sensors, and other devices. The researchers who developed the material have applied for a Guinness World Record for their efforts.

“It is a fascinating technology, and this discovery will allow us to increase the absorption efficiency of light as well as the overall radiation-to-electricity efficiency of solar energy conservation,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer and a member of the university’s Future Chips Constellation, who led the research project. “The key to this discovery was finding how to create a long, extremely porous vertically-aligned carbon nanotube array with certain surface randomness, therefore minimizing reflection and maximizing absorption simultaneously.”

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High-power diode lasers are well known as reliable and economic light sources in various medical, industrial, and scientific applications. Only the higher beam-parameter-product restricts the use of common diode lasers in some fields.Now, LIMO introduces the prototype LIMO25-C10×10-DL980 High-Power Diode Laser. This 25 Watt high power diode laser emits a 10 x 10 mm beam with a currently unrivaled small divergence of only 2 x 2 mrad. The exceptionally low beam-parameter-product of 5 mm mrad yields power densities of 5 MW/cm² in a 25 µm spot. Doubling of the output power is already in progress. Thus, LIMO will soon offer a 50 W high power diode laser unit.

The main areas of application for this high power diode laser are marking, micro material processing, pumping, and microsurgery.

Operation with thermoelectric cooling or simple tap water cooling guarantees high reliability and extended uptime for our high power diode lasers.

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Scientists at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute have developed the world’s first gene detection platform made up entirely from self-assembled DNA nanostructures. The results, appearing in the January 11 issue of the journal Science, could have broad implications for gene chip technology and may also revolutionize the way in which gene expression is analyzed in a single cell.

“We are starting with the most well-known structure in biology, DNA, and applying it as a nano-scale building material, ” said Hao Yan, a member of the institute’s Center for Single Molecule Biophysics and an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Liberal and Sciences.

Yan is a researcher in the fast-moving field known as structural DNA nanotechnology — that assembles the molecule of life into a variety of nanostructures with a broad range of applications from human health to nanoelectronics.

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