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Millennium Prize - Professor Graetzel

Millennium Prize - News.

The Winner of the 2010 Millennium Technology Prize is Professor Michael Grätzel from Switzerland for his third generation, low cost, dye-sensitized solar cells. President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen handed the EUR 800,000 Grand Prize and the prize trophy "Peak" to Professor Grätzel today at the Grand Award Ceremony at the Finnish National Opera, Helsinki.

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The price/performance ratio of Grätzel's dye-sensitized solar cells is excellent. The technology often described as "artificial photosynthesis" is a promising alternative to standard silicon photovoltaics. It is made of low-cost materials and does not need an elaborate apparatus to manufacture. Though Grätzel cells are still in relatively early stages of development, they show great promise as an inexpensive alternative to costly silicon solar cells and as an attractive candidate as a new renewable energy source.

The February 2009 issue of BioInspired! included an overview of the technology.

Thanks to Technology Review for the pointer.

Technology Review: New Color Screen Combines Beauty, Readability

Technology Review: New Color Screen Combines Beauty, Readability.

At the Society for Information Display's annual conference this week in Seattle, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies is demonstrating prototypes of a screen that ... shows video in color, and under full sunlight, but without draining the battery. The display will be in products by the end of the year.

These displays generate color by harnessing the interference effects that occur when light bounces off certain structures.

Displays based on 'structural color' have lower power consumption through eliminating the need for a backlight (also improves visibility in bright light) as compared to LCD devices like the iPad, and fast response as compared to the E-Ink displays.

Mirasol displays are currently being produced for a limited number of monochrome devices. 

Biomimicry of butterfly wing scale structure could cut bank fraud

Biomimicry of butterfly wing scale structure could cut bank fraud | robaid.com - Rob Aid presents robots, gadgets. tech and bionics.

Mathias Kolle, working with Professor Ullrich Steiner and Professor Jeremy Baumberg of the University of Cambridge, studied the Indonesian Peacock or Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio blumei), whose wing scales are composed of complex microscopic structures that resemble the inside of an egg carton. Because of their shape and the fact that they are made up of alternate layers of cuticle and air, these structures produce intense colors.

By using a combination of nanofabrication procedures (including self-assembly and atomic layer deposition), Kolle and his colleagues made structurally identical copies of the butterfly scales, and these copies produced the same vivid colors as the butterflies’ wings.

The research led the team to a greater understanding of not only the physics behind the color of butterfly wings but also how butterflies may use structural color to change how they are seen by predators as compared to their own species. 

Kolle believes the technology may be useful in increasing the security of printed material, such as bank notes.