"Rubber Chips" Spectacular Energy Sources

Chip

 Rubber Chips

Princeton University engineers can take advantage of the films (thin layer) of naturalrubber so sophisticated tools to power mobile phones and other electronic devices. Chips of rubber material, they also turn it into chips that are able to follow the movements of body flexibility, such as respiratory movements, walking, even into energy pacemakers.

Rubberchips are converted into material composed of ceramic nanoribbons and then implanted into a silicon rubber sheet and capable of generating electrical energy when flexed and highly efficient in converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. Placed near the lungs, the sheet of material containing this energy can help the movement of respiratory or cardiac pacemakers. This will avoid the need for battery replacement after surgery.

A working paper studies the combined technologies of high-tech and natural materials have been published online May 26 and the site of Nano Letters. Princeton team of expert mechanics are the first team to successfully combine nanoribbons of silicon and plumbum zirconate titanate (PZT), ceramic materials, and piezoelectric. Mixture of elements that were generating high-voltage electrical energy when given the pressure on him.

From the results of intensive research for several years, it was found that all piezoelectric materials, PZT, the results are very efficient. The material is formed to convert mechanical energy to be 80 percent of electrical energy. "PZT materials were 100 times more efficient than quartz and other piezoelectric materials," said Michael Mc.Alpine, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton who led the development of these projects.

In a separate process, the band is implanted into a silicon rubber sheet. Created what they called the piezo-rubber chip. Because it is bio-compatible silicone which is used as a cosmetic and medical device implants, McAlpine said the new power source of the patent was found to be planted (implant) in the body to emit electrical energy continuously on medical devices. In addition to a power plant when bent, otherwise capable of producing the material flexes when an electric current radiating to her. "It's a miracle because of the energy emitted is very scalable," said Yi Qi, a postdoctoral researcher who worked with McAlpine.

Zhenqiang Ma, Professor of the University of Wisconsin Madison, who also worked on the circuit silicon rubber, said the new research on the rubber chip is an "important step" in the applied sciences. At the microscopic level, a wave of rubber chips have a structure that behaves like "accordion bellows". Wave geometry accordion bellows is attached to the rubber film. The overall structure can be stretched. Using a flexible material, the researchers were able to show off individual, flexible circuit components such as transistors.

The new work features a full rubber silicon chip, known as integrated circuit (IC), can be pulled in two directions at a more complex fashion. This thick hundreds of times thinner than conventional silicon circuits on a PC.