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A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. STM senses the surface by using an extremely sharp conducting tip that can distinguish features smaller than 0.1 nm with a 0.01 nm depth resolution. This means that individual atoms can routinely be imaged and manipulated. Most microscopes are built for use in ultra-high vacuum at temperatures approaching zero kelvin, but variants exist for studies in air, water and other environments, and for temperatures over 1000 °C.
Digital microfluidics (DMF) is a platform for lab-on-a-chip systems that is based upon the manipulation of microdroplets. Droplets are dispensed, moved, stored, mixed, reacted, or analyzed on a platform with a set of insulated electrodes. Digital microfluidics can be used together with analytical analysis procedures such as mass spectrometry, colorimetry, electrochemical, and electrochemiluminescense.
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest.
Galinstan is a brand name for a eutectic alloy composed of gallium, indium, and tin which melts at −19 °C (−2 °F) and is thus liquid at room temperature. More loosely, galinstan is also used as a common name for various similar alloys which typically melt at +11 °C (52 °F).
Electrorheological (ER) fluids are suspensions of extremely fine non-conducting but electrically active particles in an electrically insulating fluid. The apparent viscosity of these fluids changes reversibly by an order of up to 100,000 in response to an electric field. For example, a typical ER fluid can go from the consistency of a liquid to that of a gel, and back, with response times on the order of milliseconds. The effect is sometimes called the Winslow effect after its discoverer, the American inventor Willis Winslow, who obtained a US patent on the effect in 1947 and wrote an article published in 1949.
Comb-drives are microelectromechanical actuators, often used as linear actuators, which utilize electrostatic forces that act between two electrically conductive combs. Comb drive actuators typically operate at the micro- or nanometer scale and are generally manufactured by bulk micromachining or surface micromachining a silicon wafer substrate.
Surface charge is a two-dimensional surface with non-zero electric charge. These electric charges are constrained on this 2-D surface, and surface charge density, measured in coulombs per square meter (C•m−2), is used to describe the charge distribution on the surface. The electric potential is continuous across a surface charge and the electric field is discontinuous, but not infinite; this is unless the surface charge consists of a dipole layer. In comparison, the potential and electric field both diverge at any point charge or linear charge.
The name electrospray is used for an apparatus that employs electricity to disperse a liquid or for the fine aerosol resulting from this process. High voltage is applied to a liquid supplied through an emitter. Ideally the liquid reaching the emitter tip forms a Taylor cone, which emits a liquid jet through its apex. Varicose waves on the surface of the jet lead to the formation of small and highly charged liquid droplets, which are radially dispersed due to Coulomb repulsion.
Dielectric elastomers (DEs) are smart material systems that produce large strains. They belong to the group of electroactive polymers (EAP). DE actuators (DEA) transform electric energy into mechanical work. They are lightweight and have a high elastic energy density. They have been investigated since the late 1990s. Many prototype applications exist. Every year, conferences are held in the US and Europe.
A streaming current and streaming potential are two interrelated electrokinetic phenomena studied in the areas of surface chemistry and electrochemistry. They are an electric current or potential which originates when an electrolyte is driven by a pressure gradient through a channel or porous plug with charged walls.
A double layer is a structure that appears on the surface of an object when it is exposed to a fluid. The object might be a solid particle, a gas bubble, a liquid droplet, or a porous body. The DL refers to two parallel layers of charge surrounding the object. The first layer, the surface charge, consists of ions adsorbed onto the object due to chemical interactions. The second layer is composed of ions attracted to the surface charge via the Coulomb force, electrically screening the first layer. This second layer is loosely associated with the object. It is made of free ions that move in the fluid under the influence of electric attraction and thermal motion rather than being firmly anchored. It is thus called the "diffuse layer".
Optoelectrofluidics, also known as optically induced electrohydrodynamics, refers to the study of the motions of particles or molecules and their interactions with optically-induced electric field and the surrounding fluid.
In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot.
Nanofluidic circuitry is a nanotechnology aiming for control of fluids in nanometer scale. Due to the effect of an electrical double layer within the fluid channel, the behavior of nanofluid is observed to be significantly different compared with its microfluidic counterparts. Its typical characteristic dimensions fall within the range of 1–100 nm. At least one dimension of the structure is in nanoscopic scale. Phenomena of fluids in nano-scale structure are discovered to be of different properties in electrochemistry and fluid dynamics.
A Nanogenerator is a type of technology that converts mechanical/thermal energy as produced by small-scale physical change into electricity. A Nanogenerator has three typical approaches: piezoelectric, triboelectric, and pyroelectric nanogenerators. Both the piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators can convert mechanical energy into electricity. However, pyroelectric nanogenerators can be used to harvest thermal energy from a time-dependent temperature fluctuation.
Photoconductive atomic force microscopy (PC-AFM) is a variant of atomic force microscopy that measures photoconductivity in addition to surface forces.
A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, is a high-capacity capacitor with a capacitance value much higher than other capacitors, but with lower voltage limits, that bridges the gap between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries. It typically stores 10 to 100 times more energy per unit volume or mass than electrolytic capacitors, can accept and deliver charge much faster than batteries, and tolerates many more charge and discharge cycles than rechargeable batteries.
Dyakonov surface waves (DSWs) are surface electromagnetic waves that travel along the interface in between an isotropic and an uniaxial-birefringent medium. They were theoretically predicted in 1988 by the Russian physicist Mikhail Dyakonov. Unlike other types of acoustic and electromagnetic surface waves, the DSW's existence is due to the difference in symmetry of materials forming the interface. He considered the interface between an isotropic transmitting medium and an anisotropic uniaxial crystal, and showed that under certain conditions waves localized at the interface should exist. Later, similar waves were predicted to exist at the interface between two identical uniaxial crystals with different orientations. The previously known electromagnetic surface waves, surface plasmons and surface plasmon polaritons, exist under the condition that the permittivity of one of the materials forming the interface is negative, while the other one is positive. In contrast, the DSW can propagate when both materials are transparent; hence they are virtually lossless, which is their most fascinating property.
A chemiresistor is a material that changes its electrical resistance in response to changes in the nearby chemical environment. Chemiresistors are a class of chemical sensors that rely on the direct chemical interaction between the sensing material and the analyte. The sensing material and the analyte can interact by covalent bonding, hydrogen bonding, or molecular recognition. Several different materials have chemiresistor properties: metal-oxide semiconductors, some conductive polymers, and nanomaterials like graphene, carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles. Typically these materials are used as partially selective sensors in devices like electronic tongues or electronic noses.
A. G. Unil Perera is a Sri Lankan-born American physicist with an assortment of research interests in experimental condensed matter physics, especially semiconductor infrared detectors and applications. He has authored over 200 publications covering a variety of disciplines inside. He is a Regents’ Professor of Physics at Georgia State University, in Atlanta, Georgia. After his basic Education in Sri Lanka, he obtained his doctoral degree in (applied) physics from the University of Pittsburgh under the supervision of Darry D. Coon. During his graduate research, he developed a detector, which can detect infrared (IR) radiation without the use of any amplifiers. (Solid State Electronics, 29, 929,. Then he introduced the concept of a two-terminal artificial neuron (International Journal of Electronics, 63, 61, , a parallel asynchronous processing based on artificial neurons , Neural Networks 2, 143, .( Phys. Rev. Lett., 58, 1139, .
References
- ↑ "Electroadhesive Surface-Climbing Robots". SRI International . Retrieved 2013-07-01.
- ↑ "Electroadhesion". SRI International . Retrieved 2014-05-08.
- ↑ "A brief history of Electroadhesion" (PDF). mechatronics.org . Retrieved 2014-01-06.