pentacene
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NPL, Imperial College create room-temperature maser, promise more sensitive beams
Masers, or microwave lasers, have rarely been as viable as their regular counterparts; they need temperatures near absolute zero, exotic vacuum chambers or strong magnets just to run at all, which safely rules out carrying a maser as a pocket pointer. The National Physical Laboratory and Imperial College London might put that gap in practicality to bed after developing a maser that can run at room temperatures. Instead of using ruby to boost the microwave strength, the scientists rely on a less pronounceable p-terphenyl crystal treated with pentacene that can handle ordinary amounts of heat. There's still much work left in refining the technology: it has yet to stay active for sustained periods, only works in a narrow bandwidth and chews through an ample amount of power. Once it's given the appropriate polish, however, the extra sensitivity of the improved maser could be a boon for medical scanning, bomb disposal or even future space communication that could punch through the atmosphere.
IMEC creates flexible microprocessor with organic semiconductors -- computational clothing right around the corner
Organic semiconductors have been teasing us with the possibility of computationally-inclined clothing for years, but until now we could only dream about our pants being the computer. That dream is closer to reality than ever, as researchers from IMEC have created a cheap (potentially 1/10th the cost of silicon chips), bendable microprocessor by layering a plastic substrate, gold circuits, organic dielectric, and a pentacene organic semiconductor to create an 8-bit logic circuit with 4000 transistors. Executing 6 instructions per second, these things won't be challenging Watson any time soon, but the chips should prove useful in creating cheaper flexible displays and sensors to tell us whether that week-old chicken in the fridge has gone bad. The trick was to overcome individual organic transistors' variable switching voltage thresholds -- as opposed to silicon's predictable nature -- that eliminated the possibility of organic-based logic circuits previously. But by adding a second gate to each transistor, IMEC was able to control the electrical field in each to prevent unwanted switching and usher in the dawn of plastic processors. The zenith of nerd fashion can't be far behind.
"Organic semiconductors" help researchers monitor your heart
Have you ever been halfway through a heart attack and thought "If only my shirt had been laced with wireless sensors that monitored respiration and body temperature, this cheese-stick-related incident might have been prevented"? Well now, next time you have one-too-many wings while tailgating, a fabric developed by researchers at the University of Arkansas might be able to alert medical professionals to your condition before you go code red. The technology, based around an "organic semiconductor" called pentacene (a hydrocarbon molecule) and a comparative instrument known as a Wheatstone bridge, can be embedded in fabrics such as undershirts and coupled with wireless transmitters. In the garments, body temperature is monitored through a thin-film transistor, while respiration is gauged using electrical resistance, but both technologies employ the pentacene as a sensing layer. Researchers hope to further develop the technology so that doctors can get to you long before you eat a fatal piece of cheesecake.[Via Medlaunches, thanks, Geetu]
