Tunable Materials Clear the Way for Advanced Optics
January 19, 2016 | University of Wisconsin-MadisonEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
The researchers successfully tuned the transition for the material across a variety of specific temperatures — ranging from typical indoor comfort to medium-rare hamburger.
“Objects designed to emit light efficiently at high temperatures but not at low temperatures could be used as purely passive temperature regulators that don’t require external circuitry or power sources,” says Kats.
Materials with this unprecedented versatility could also create new types of thermal camouflage.
“Structures designed to emit the same amount of thermal radiation no matter the temperature could be used to hide objects from infrared cameras,” says Kats.
Previously, researchers attempting to change the transition temperatures of vanadium dioxide introduced impurities while trying to uniformly alter the material’s entire surface.
Instead, Kats and colleagues bombarded specific regions of the vanadium dioxide with energetic ions. Ion irradiation creates defects in materials, usually an unintended side effect. However, collaborator Carsten Ronning, a professor of solid state physics at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany, says the researchers’ advance capitalizes on those defects.
“The beauty in our approach is that we take advantage of the ‘unwanted’ defects,” he says.
Directing the ion beam at specific regions of a surface allowed the researchers to make nanoscale modifications to the material.
Page 2 of 3
Suggested Items
Material Insight: The Dielectric Constant of PCB Materials
05/17/2024 | Dr. Preeya Kuray -- Column: Material InsightIn the world of PCB design, miniaturization can be achieved by using low dielectric constant (Dk) materials. Low Dk materials can allow for a reduction in thickness while maintaining a given trace width, leading to lower transmission loss and higher density circuitry.
IPC APEX EXPO: Some Thoughts About Growth
05/16/2024 | Dan Feinberg, I-Connect007After two and a half days of wandering the aisles at IPC APEX EXPO 2024, for the first time, I almost felt like I was exploring CES. There were so many booths and exhibits that I could describe, but I’d like to focus on the growth and huge value of this event, which has expanded well beyond just the growing and impressive exhibit show floor.
The Shaughnessy Report: Unlock Your High-speed Material Constraints
05/15/2024 | Andy Shaughnessy -- Column: The Shaughnessy ReportThe world of PCB materials used to be a fairly simple one. It was divided into two groups: the “traditional” laminates, often called FR-4, and the high-speed laminates developed especially for high-speed PCBs. These were two worlds that usually didn’t collide. But then traditional laminates started getting better, and high-speed designers and design engineers took notice and started to reconsider what FR-4 could be used for.
Breaking High-speed Material Constraints: Design007 Magazine — May 2024
05/14/2024 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamDo you need specialty materials for your high-speed designs? Maybe not. Improvements in resins mean designers of high-speed boards can sometimes use traditional laminate systems instead of high-speed materials, saving time and money while streamlining the fab process. In the May 2024 issue of Design007 Magazine, our contributors explain how to avoid overconstraining your materials when working with high-speed boards.
Indium Experts to Present at Electronics in Harsh Environments SMTA Conference
05/13/2024 | Indium Corporationndium Corporation Technical Manager for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Karthik Vijay, will deliver a technical presentation and Indium Corporation Senior Technologist, Dr. Ronald Lasky, will deliver both a workshop and technical presentation at the Electronics in Harsh Environments SMTA Conference on May 14-16 in Copenhagen, Denmark.