Pump Works Without Moving Parts, Electrical Contacts

Even the smallest mechanical pumps have limitations, from the complex microfabrication techniques required to make them to the fact that there are limits on how small they can be. Researchers have announced a potential solution – a laser-driven photoacoustic microfluidic pump, capable of moving fluids in any direction without moving parts or electrical contacts.

UH Researchers Generate a Liquid Stream with a Pulsed Laser

Researchers at the University of Houston were studying the nonlinear transmission of light through an aqueous suspension of gold nanoparticles when they noticed something unexpected. A pulse laser appeared to have forced the movement of a stream of liquid in a glass laboratory cuvette.

In 2010 graphene took center stage when the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two scientists in the UK "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." At the UH Cullen College of Engineering, that same passion over pencil lead is shared by Jiming Bao, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, but he’s taken it to a whole new dimension,

When a material known as graphene was first produced inside of a lab in 2004, the science and technology community buzzed with predictions that it would become the “next big thing” for the semiconductor industry. Graphene is essentially a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon which conducts heat and electricity with incredible efficiency, making it a homerun material for the semiconductor and electronic device manufacturing industries.

Smart phones are capable of giving us directions when we’re lost, sending photos and videos to our friends in mere seconds, and even helping us find the best burger joint in a three-mile radius. But thanks to UH Cullen College of Engineering researchers, smart phones may soon be boasting another very important function: diagnosing diseases in real time.

Nanotechnology researchers at the University of Houston will soon be able to work faster than ever thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The UH Cullen College of Engineering has won its fifth National Science Foundation CAREER Award of 2012. Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Jacinta Conrad received the five-year, $400,000 grant to develop surfaces that limit bacterial motility, or movement.

Gila Stein, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has won a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award, valued at up to $500,000 over five years, to characterize and improve polymer-based solar cells.