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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current. “An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,” said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead researcher in the discovery.The findings, titled "Fluctuation-induced current from freestanding graphene," and published in the journal Physical Review E, are proof of a theory the physicists developed at the U of A three years ago that freestanding graphene — a single...

A group of researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a new battery breakthrough that could have a big impact on runtimes for the gadgets. The researchers have developed new material that can address the two chief complaints of batteries used in electronic devices now: relatively runtimes life and unwanted heat production. The team has applied for a patent for a magnetic material that has a unique honeycomb lattice structure that offers distinct electronical properties. “Semiconductor diodes and amplifiers, which often are made of silicon or germanium, are key elements in modern electronic devices,” said Deepak K. Singh, head...

Researchers from the US and Russia have shown how it is possible to measure the diode properties of a single molecule and how the orientation of the molecule between two electrodes can be controlled. The findings are a significant advance in the expanding field of molecular electronics, which seeks to construct electronic circuits from molecular-scale components, opening the prospect of a new generation of devices that are immensely powerful and efficient yet tiny.Diodes act as electronic 'check valves' in a circuit, permitting current to flow in one direction only through a process known as rectification. In a molecular circuit, single molecules acting...