Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Store Electricity In Paper - Next Stop, E-Paper!
Power Paper! That's the latest from researchers at Linköping University’s Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Sweden. It's just the sort of enabling technology that science fiction writers need to make their ideas true in reality.
(Store electricity in paper)
One sheet, 15 centimetres in diameter and a few tenths of a millimetre thick can store as much as 1 F, which is similar to the supercapacitors currently on the market. The material can be recharged hundreds of times and each charge only takes a few seconds.“Thin films that function as capacitors have existed for some time. What we have done is to produce the material in three dimensions. We can produce thick sheets,” says Xavier Crispin, professor of organic electronics and co-author to the article just published in Advanced Science.
The material, power paper, looks and feels like a slightly plasticky paper and the researchers have amused themselves by using one piece to make an origami swan — which gives an indication of its strength.
The structural foundation of the material is nanocellulose, which is cellulose fibres which, using high-pressure water, are broken down into fibres as thin as 20 nm in diameter. With the cellulose fibres in a solution of water, an electrically charged polymer (PEDOT:PSS), also in a water solution, is added. The polymer then forms a thin coating around the fibres.
SF fans have been waiting patiently for their color e-paper, and you can't have a sheet of e-paper that doesn't have a power source, can you? Check out the mediatron from Neal Stephenson's 1995 novel The Diamond Age:
Bud took a seat and skimmed a mediatron from the coffee table; it looked exactly like a dirty, wrinkled, blank sheet of paper. "'Annals of Self-Protection,'" he said, loud enough for everyone else in the place to hear him. The logo of his favorite meedfeed coalesced on the page. Mediaglyphics, mostly the cool animated ones, arranged themselves in a grid.
(Read more about Stephenson's mediatron)
Via DeepStuff; thanks to Thanks to Winchell Chung (@nyrath at Project Rho) for mentioning this.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/28/2015)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.' - Don Wilcox, 1939.
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.' - Fritz Leiber, 1958.
Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics
'JOAN strapped on her power-skis...' - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1964.
Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...' - RH Roman, 1929.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
