50 Most-Read Industry News Stories of 2014: 30 to 21

30: New Class of Iron-Arsenides may lead to High-Temperature Superconductivity

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides. This sheds light on a debate over the interactions between atoms and electrons that are responsible for their unusual superconductivity. Researchers hope that by figuring out the theory behind these superconductors, we could raise the temperature at which they work and harness their power for a wide range of new technologies. more

29: Flexible Supercapacitor could be Woven into Clothing to Power Wearable Devices

Scientists have taken a step toward making a fiber-like energy storage device that can be woven into clothing and power wearable medical monitors, communications equipment or other small electronics. The device is a supercapacitor—a cousin to the battery. This one packs an interconnected network of graphene and carbon nanotubes so tightly that it stores energy comparable to some thin-film lithium batteries—an area where batteries have traditionally held a large advantage. The device's developers, engineers and scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, Tsinghua University in China, and Case Western Reserve University in the United States, believe the storage capacity by volume (called volumetric energy density) is the highest reported for carbon-based microscale supercapacitors to date: 6.3 microwatt hours per cubic millimeter. more

28: Integrated Microwave-Controlled Ultra Compact GaN Motor Drive

Panasonic Corporation has developed an all-integrated power converter that allows the power switches to be controlled by microwave signals. The world's first microwave-controlled power converter consists of an integrated matrix-converter power switching chip that directly converts ac power to ac of the desired frequency and amplitude, and a gate drive transmitter chip that controls the power switching chip. As a result, the new converter, which is one-hundredth of the size of conventional power converters, realizes reduction of conversion power loss. more

27: Multilayer Liquid-Metal Stretchable Power Inductors

Highly-stretchable versions of two multilayer inductor topologies, the double planar coil and solenoid, were successfully demonstrated using liquid galinstan in fluidic channels. The research team led by Dr. Nathan Lazarus with the Oak Ridge Associated Universities Fellowship Program, US Army Research Laboratory modeled the electrical behavior upon the application mechanical strain for the inductor topologies and compared with measured results extracted from strain testing of each inductor. Liquid metals are ideally-suited for creating low-resistance traces able to undergo large mechanical strains. In this work, multilayer fluidic channels in soft silicone were used to create two inductor topologies, a solenoid and a double planar coil, based on the liquid metal galinstan, an alloy of gallium, indium and tin. Electromechanical models were developed for the inductance upon stretching for each inductor, finding that the double planar coil has lower strain sensitivity in each direction than the solenoid. more

26: Tiny 'LEGO brick' -style Studs can make Solar Panels 22% More Efficient

Researchers at Imperial College London together with international collaborators in Belgium, China and Japan have demonstrated that the efficiency of all solar panel designs could be improved by up to 22 per cent by covering their surface with aluminum studs that bend and trap light inside the absorbing layer. At the microscopic level, the studs make the surface of the solar panels look similar to the interlocking building bricks played with by children across the world. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports and reported by Simon Levey with the Communications and Public Affairs office of Imperial College London. Most solar cells used in homes and industry are made using thick layers of material to absorb sunlight, but have been limited in the past by relatively high costs. Many new, lower cost designs are limited as their layer of light-absorbing material is too thin to extract enough energy. more

25: Murata and Ericsson to Collaborate on Digital Power

Murata Power Solutions and Ericsson Power Modules AB announced that they have entered into a technical collaboration agreement with the goal of accelerating the adoption of digital power products. Under the terms of this agreement each company will introduce a range of standardized digital power modules. This will result in the availability of multiple product sources to manufacturers that are considering migrating designs from analog to digitally monitored and controlled units. more

24: Research Could Produce 20 Percent Cuts in Energy Consumption in Buildings

Li Song, University of Oklahoma assistant professor in the College of Engineering's School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, along with her research colleagues, Gang Wang, University of Miami assistant professor, and Mike Brambley, staff scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, have invented a method that overcomes these barriers to significantly reduce building operating costs as well as energy consumption. Nearly 95 percent of all U.S. companies don't monitor their building energy efficiency due to a lack of awareness, existing infrastructure restrictions or the prohibitive cost of commercial monitors. more

23: Transphorm Claims Landmark Patents for GaN Power Conversion

Transphorm Inc. announced that it has secured fundamental patents in the area of Gallium Nitride (GaN) power conversion. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent number 8,816,751 titled "Inductive Load Power Switching Circuits" was granted August 26, 2014 and the patent application number 13/887,204 titled "Bridge Circuits and Their Components" was allowed by the USPTO on August 27, 2014. Both are directed towards the operation and use of GaN transistors in a multitude of applications including half bridges, the basic building blocks of a variety of power conversion circuits. Counterparts of these patents have also issued in China, Taiwan and are pending in several other countries. more

22: Embedded MEMS Windmills could Recharge Portable Electronics

A University of Texas, Arlington, research associate and electrical engineering professor have designed a micro-windmill that generates wind energy and may become an innovative solution to cell phone batteries constantly in need of recharging and home energy generation where large windmills are not preferred. Smitha Rao and J.C. Chiao designed and built the device that is about 1.8 mm at its widest point. A single grain of rice could hold about 10 of these tiny windmills. Hundreds of the windmills could be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone. Wind, created by waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, would generate the electricity that could be collected by the cell phone's battery. more

21: Heat-Conducting Polymer Cools Hot Electronic Devices at 200 Degrees C

Polymer materials are usually thermal insulators. But by harnessing an electropolymerization process to produce aligned arrays of polymer nanofibers, researchers have developed a thermal interface material able to conduct heat 20 times better than the original polymer. The modified material can reliably operate at temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius. The new thermal interface material could be used to draw heat away from electronic devices in servers, automobiles, high-brightness LEDs and certain mobile devices. The material is fabricated on heat sinks and heat spreaders and adheres well to devices, potentially avoiding the reliability challenges caused by differential expansion in other thermally-conducting materials. more