Heat sssssensorsss A large-eyed green pit viper. The pit organs are small depressions between the snake's nostrils and eyes. (Courtesy: iStock_TommyIX) Vipers, pythons and boa constrictors all use ...

Zinc oxide is potentially a useful material for ultraviolet detectors; however, a relatively long response time hinders practical implementation. Here by designing and fabricating a self-powered ...

Pyroelectric materials are able to convert any incident radiation into a signal, allowing them to sense wavelengths from UV through to THz. DLaTGS in particular is very sensitive, meaning a higher ...

Many peptides and proteins have an innate ability to assemble into long, slender fibers called fibrils and other shapes. Now, researchers have found a way to harness this property to create tubular ...

Pyroelectric catalysis (pyro-catalysis) can transform temperature fluctuations in the environment into clean chemical energy such as hydrogen. However, pyro-catalysis is ineffective when compared to ...

Converting heat into electricity is a property thought to be reserved only for stiff materials like crystals. However, researchers--inspired by the infrared (IR) vision of snakes--developed a ...

Deuterated Lanthanum α Alanine doped TriGlycine Sulphate, or DLaTGS for short is a crystalline structure that offers the strongest pyroelectric effect. Pyroelectric materials are able to convert any ...

Vintage computer hardware can fail in a variety of fascinating ways, with [Bits und Bolts] dealing with an interesting failure mode, in the form of degraded MLCC capacitors on Voodoo 2 graphics cards.

All ferroelectric materials are pyroelectric, however, not all pyroelectric materials are ferroelectric. Below a transition temperature called the Curie temperature ferroelectric and pyroelectric ...