The e-bike market is booming. Thanks to electric support, cyclists can choose their routes more freely, elderly people can stay mobile, and commuters reach their workplace stress-free. This makes many people use bicycles instead of cars. Presently, charging of the battery takes about two to four hours. To shorten charging time of e-bikes in particular…
Augmented Reality Helps Build Aircraft Tanks
Walking through an unfamiliar city, getting directions or simulations of buildings that no longer exist – augmented reality is where virtual content and the real world come together. Scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing an assistance system based on this technology which supports engineers in building and maintaining aircraft tanks. The system…
Moving Toward Fast Internet On The Plane
Streaming films and music or accessing business data in the cloud when flying to the holiday destination or to business meetings – this is the dream of passengers as well as airlines. So far, however, fast internet on the plane has failed due to the lacking capacity of data connections between the plane and the…
3-D Nanoprinting Facilitates Communication With Light
At Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), researchers have developed a flexible and efficient concept to combine optical components in compact systems. They use a high-resolution 3-D printing process to produce tiny beam-shaping elements directly on optical microchips or fibers and, hence, enable low-loss coupling. This approach replaces complicated positioning processes that represent a high obstacle…
3-D Microprinting—Security For Products, Passports, And Money
Security features are to protect bank notes, documents, and branded products against counterfeiting. Losses caused by product forgery and counterfeiting may be enormous. According to the German Engineering Association, the damage caused in 2016 in its branch alone amounted to EUR 7.3 billion. In the Advanced Materials Technologies journal, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and…
When Robots Help With Shopping
Today, the desired book, toy or household appliance can be purchased by a click only — thanks to online mail order business and smart logistics. The bottleneck in logistics, however, is the high-bay store, where many picking and detection processes cannot yet be executed automatically by robots. At the Amazon Robotics Challenge in Nagoya, Japan,…
Erasable Ink For 3D Printing
3D printing by direct laser writing produces micrometer-sized structures with precisely defined properties. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed a method to erase the ink used for 3D printing. In this way, the small structures of up to 100 nm in size can be erased and rewritten repeatedly. One nanometer corresponds…
Smart Buoy for Measuring Water Pollutants
All over the world, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters are threatened by high nutrient inputs. Nitrate or phosphates from waste-waters or fertilizers causes eutrophication. The consequence: Algae, in particular cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), grow uncontrollably and may release toxic substances. Hence, extensive water monitoring is indispensable for drinking water supply and water protection. Researchers of Karlsruhe…
‘Flower Power’: Photovoltaic Cells Replicate Rose Petals
With a surface resembling that of plants, solar cells improve light-harvesting and thus generate more power. Scientists of KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) reproduced the epidermal cells of rose petals that have particularly good antireflection properties and integrated the transparent replicas into an organic solar cell. This resulted in a relative efficiency gain of twelve…
Light Source for Quicker Computer Chips
Worldwide growing data volumes make conventional electronic processing reach its limits. Future information technology is therefore expected to use light as a medium for quick data transmission also within computer chips. Researchers under the direction of KIT have now demonstrated that carbon nanotubes are suited for use as on-chip light source for tomorrow’s information technology,…
Tool Chain for Real-Time Programming
In aerospace, automation, and automotive technologies, smart electronic computer systems have to meet a number of security and real-time requirements. In case of critical incidents, for instance, the software’s response time has to be very short. Programming of the corresponding applications is time- and cost-consuming. Partners of industry and research are now developing a tool…
KIT Researchers Build Optical Invisibility Cloak
Real invisibility cloaks are rather complex and work in certain situations only. The laws of physics prevent an optical invisibility cloak from making objects in air invisible for any directions, colors, and polarizations. If the medium is changed, however, it becomes much easier to hide objects. Read: Inverse Design: New Route to Design a Practical…
Smallest Vibration Sensor in the Quantum World
Carbon nanotubes and magnetic molecules are considered building blocks of future nanoelectronic systems. Their electric and mechanical properties play an important role. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and French colleagues from Grenoble and Strasbourg have now found a way to combine both components on the atomic level and to build a quantum mechanical system…
3D Printing on the Micrometer Scale
At the Photonics West Nanoscribe GmbH, a spin-off of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), presents the world’s fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures. With this printer, smallest three-dimensional objects, often smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be manufactured with minimum time consumption and maximum resolution. The printer is based on a…