A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2 7 NEW MATERIAL THINKS FOR ITSELF Researchers from Penn State and the U.S. Air Force are developing engineered materials that can think, similar to how humans respond to touch. The work relies on a novel, reconfigurable alternative to integrated circuits. According to lead researcher Ryan Harne, his team’s discovery revealed the opportunity for nearly any material to act like its own integrated circuit—being able to “think” about what’s happening around it. “We have created the first example of an engineering material that can simultaneously sense, think, and act upon mechanical stress without requiring additional circuits to process such signals,” Harne says. “The soft polymer material acts like a brain that can receive digital strings of information that are then processed, resulting in new sequences of digital information that can control reactions.” The conductive mechanical material contains reconfigurable circuits that can realize combinational logic—when the material receives external stimuli, it translates the input into electrical information that is then processed to create output signals. The team demonstrated how the material could use mechanical force to compute complex arithmetic or to detect radio frequencies to communicate specific light signals, among other potential translation examples. According to the researchers, the possibilities are expansive, because integrated circuits can be programmed to do so much. Harne says the material has potential applications in autonomous search-and-rescue systems, infrastructure repairs, and even in bio-hybrid materials that can identify, isolate, and neutralize airborne pathogens. The researchers are now evolving the material to process visual information like it does physical signals. psu.edu. PHOTOVOLTAIC BATTERIES FOR WEARABLES Researchers from the University of Surrey, U.K., developed a renewable and rechargeable battery prototype that could boost the battery life of wearable electronics by tens of minutes with just 30 seconds EMERGING TECHNOLOGY Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, U.K., developed a degradable plastic film that destroys viruses that land on its surface with ordinary room light. The self-sterilizing film is low cost, can be easily scaled, and could be used in hospitals and food production facilities. The film is coated with a thin layer of particles that absorb UV light and produce reactive oxygen species to kill viruses. www.qub.ac.uk. BRIEF of sunlight exposure. The research team demonstrated how its new photo-rechargeable system, which merges zincion batteries with perovskite solar cells, could allow wearables like smartwatches to spring back to life without plug-in charging. The technology provides a promising strategy for efficient use of clean energy, the team says, and their prototype could represent a step forward to how we interact with wearables and other internet-of-things devices, such as remote real-time health monitors. The researchers’ ultrafast photo-rechargeable system is unique because of the elegant and well-matched structural design between its integrated battery and solar cell, allowing it to demonstrate high energy and volume density comparable to state-of-the-art micro-batteries and super capacitors. In addition to wearables, says the team, the battery could have applications in autonomous power systems and emergency electronics. www.surrey.ac.uk. Novel mechanical integrated circuit materials made from conductive and non-conductive rubber materials sense and react to how forces are applied to them. Courtesy of Charles El Helou/Penn State. Graphical depiction of the device. Courtesy of Energy Storage Materials, 2022, DOI: 10.1016/ j.ensm.2022.06.043.
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