University of Massachusetts Lowell is part of a research team that is taking the technology of manipulating light in a new direction. The research led to breakthroughs such as super-high resolution imaging. Scientists have long known that synthetic materials – called metamaterials – can manipulate electromagnetic waves such as visible light to make them behave […]

A team of chemists at the University of California, Riverside have succeeded in “upconverting” photons in the visible and near-infrared regions of the solar spectrum. The innovation is an ingenious way to make solar energy conversion more efficient. The researchers report in Nano Letters about combining inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals with organic molecules. When installing solar […]

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers have identified the mechanism behind a plague of LED light bulbs.  The problem is called “efficiency droop” that causes LEDs to lose up to 20 percent of their efficiency as they are subjected to greater electrical currents. Efficiency droop, first reported in 1999, has been a key obstacle in the development […]

Researchers at the Institute of Photonic Science (ICFO), in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany, and Graphenea S.L. Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain have demonstrated graphene is able to convert a single photon such that when it’s absorbed it releases multiple freed electrons. This is a very promising discovery.  […]

Scientists from Wageningen University in the Netherlands have concluded that it is possible to develop plants that produce even more food and fuel by reducing the level of pigments. Its been known for well over half a century that the energy conversion efficiency of incident photons to chemical energy by leaves is wavelength dependent.  This […]

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