Portable electricity, life-like prosthetics ...(rd and brittle and dont allow for a lot ...)

Date:11/16/2007

rd and brittle, and dont allow for a lot of movement, Sharma said. They take a lot of electrical energy for a lot of motion. Polymers are better for large forces of motion, but dont have a lot of strength. So, you can stretch adequately, but may not even be able to pick up an egg. Nature has given us some elements, and now were going beyond and designing materials from the ground up. We wanted to combine the best qualities of the two types of piezoelectrics, among other things.

Sharma has been working to refine his theoretical ideas for two years. His research team includes Ramanan Krishnamoorti of the UH Cullen College of Engineering, Boris Yakobson of Rice University and Zoubeida Ounaies of Texas A&M University. Krishanmoorit and Ounaies will begin putting the research to the test with the help of a $1.22 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The real applications of this technology are going to come from the fact that you dont have to depend on existing piezoelectrics, Sharma said. You can create materials, using certain nanoscale effects, that give higher energy conversion. These are basically piezoelectrics on steroids.

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Contact: Ann Holdsworth aholdsworth@uh.edu 713-743-8153 University of Houston Source:Eurekalert

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