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materials

This Material Is SiC! Wonder Compound Makes The Jump From Skateboards To Next-Gen Military Tech

Fred Guterl
January 14, 2019

It would be hard to imagine a happier success story than silicon-based electronics. In the six decades since Morris Tanenbaum built the first silicon transistor at Bell Labs, engineers have been able to shrink the size of the transistors they put on a silicon chip from microns to nanometers, and increase the density of circuit elements a millionfold. But silicon has an Achilles' heel: When it gets hot, its electrical properties degrade, and chips made from the material fail faster.

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Solar

Solar Power Is Becoming Cheap Enough To Compete With Fossil Fuels In The Gulf

October 08, 2017
Dubai has so many sunny days—more than 300 on average every year—it seems like a no-brainer for the city to use some of those rays to power its many glittering skyscrapers, massive malls and luxurious hotels. But that hasn’t been the case. Until recently, it was still cheaper to generate a kilowatt from oil or natural gas here.
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Solar

Like A Diamond In The Rough, This Abrasive Material Finds Its Place In The Sun

September 27, 2016
In 1891, Edward Acheson was working at Thomas Edison’s famed Menlo Park laboratory, trying to make artificial diamonds by heating clay and powdered coke in an iron bowl with a carbon arc light. The result wasn’t pretty. Instead of diamonds, he created silicon carbide—a hard and rough compound used for decades mostly as an abrasive in industrial sandpaper, grinding wheels and cutting tools, and later a grip tape for skateboard decks.
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materials-science

The Odd Couple: Silicon and Carbon Don’t Love Each Other. But When They Iron Out Differences, Their Marriage Can Be Revolutionary

October 14, 2015
Silicon and carbon are reluctant partners. Although the two elements are among the most abundant on Earth, they almost never bond in nature and it takes a lot of heat and pressure in the lab to coax them into working with each other. But when they do stick together and form a material called silicon carbide (SiC), it’s something to see.
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Rise and Shine: This Diamond-like Material is Helping Solar Power Cast a Bigger Shadow

July 28, 2015
The energy usage curves of most industrial countries – or load curves - have long resembled a crumpled fedora hat. They rise sharply at daybreak as people start brewing coffee and companies switch on machines, then peak twice – in the morning and the late afternoon, before dropping off after dinner. Utilities usually crank up their turbines and bring extra power plants online to cover the “peak” demand.
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Pure Grit: Material With Skateboarding Heritage Could Make Planes, Trains and Automobiles Use Less Power

April 08, 2015
Power management chips are like second-born kids. They do a lot of hard work, but don’t always get the recognition they deserve.
Like microchips inside computers and laptops, power management chips are pieces of semiconductor as small as a cornflake. But they move electricity (watts), not data (bytes). Their circuits help extend battery life and reduce power consumption for a broad range of devices: from smartphones and tablets to brain scanners and jet engines. They can make machines smaller, lighter, and more efficient.
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