Recent News
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
An asteroid smashing into the earth and a laser pulsing through optical glass are very different phenomena, but both produce the extreme heat and pressures that instantaneously fuse silicon dioxide – the compound found in sand and glass -- into the hard, dense and rare crystal known as stishovite....
Thursday, December 3, 2015
The Precourt Institute for Energy and the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford have awarded 12 faculty seed grants totaling $2.1 million for groundbreaking research on clean energy. Launched in 2010, the seed-grant program funds faculty research with the potential for high impact on...
Thursday, December 3, 2015
A solar cell is basically a semiconductor, which converts sunlight into electricity, sandwiched between metal contacts that carry the electrical current.
But this widely used design has a flaw: The critical but shiny metal on top of the cell reflects sunlight away from the semiconductor where...
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Stanford engineers have developed solar cells that can function under water. Instead of pumping electricity into the grid, though, the power these cells produce would be used to spur chemical reactions to convert captured greenhouse gases into fuel.
This new work, published in Nature Materials, was...
Monday, November 16, 2015
In the future, the wings of jets could be as light as balsa wood, yet stronger than the toughest metal alloys. That's the promise of nanocomposite materials.
Nanocomposites are a true example of nanotechnology. They are a special class of materials made from components smaller than one-thousandth...
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Stanford was among 30 teams from around the world that competed in the Challenger Class, single-passenger cars built for sustained endurance and total energy efficiency. Other U.S. competitors came from MIT, the University of Michigan and Principia College.
Here are the top six finalists:
Thursday, October 1, 2015
A Stanford undergraduate has contributed to a discovery that confounds the conventional wisdom in lithium-ion battery design, pointing the way toward storage devices with more power, greater capacity, and faster charge and discharge capabilities.
The undergraduate was part of a 10-person research...
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Miniature ultrasound sensors embedded in windmill blades could help avoid catastrophic failures and reduce wind power costs by replacing field inspections with online monitoring.
Stanford Engineering students Alex Guo and Kevin Zheng have set out to show that their sensor system, developed in the...
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Hydrogen fuel cells promise clean cars that emit only water. Several major car manufacturers have recently announced their investments to increase the availability of fueling stations, while others are currently rolling out new models and prototypes. However, challenges remain, including the...
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Stanford University scientists have invented a low-cost water splitter that uses a single catalyst to produce both hydrogen and oxygen gas 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The device, described in a study published June 23 in Nature Communications, could provide a renewable source of clean-...
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