Latest James Tour Stories
Rice University develops indium-free transparent, flexible electrodesFlexible, transparent electronics are closer to reality with the creation of graphene-based electrodes at Rice University.The lab of Rice chemist James Tour lab has created thin films that could revolutionize touch-screen displays, solar panels and LED lighting. The research was reported in the online edition of ACS Nano.Flexible, see-through video screens may be the "killer app" that finally puts graphene -- the...
Rice University lab finds table sugar, metallic sheets produce pristine graphene in one stepFuture computers may run a little sweeter, thanks to a refinement in the manufacture of graphene at Rice University.Rice researchers have learned to make pristine sheets of graphene, the one-atom-thick form of carbon, from plain table sugar and other carbon-based substances. They do so in a one-step process at temperatures low enough to make graphene easy to manufacture.The lab of Rice chemist James...
Rice University think tank will strategize on environmentally sound policies on oil, gas, coalRice University has created a Green Carbon Center to bring the benefits offered by oil, gas, coal, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other energy sources together in a way that will not only help ensure the world's energy future but also provide a means to recycle carbon dioxide into useful products.Whether or not one believes in anthropogenic climate change, the fact is humans are throwing away a...
Rice University graduate student Jun Yao's research with silicon-oxide circuits could be a game-changer in nanoelectronicsTenacity, audacity, intuition, patience, a lot of talent and a little luck are healthy qualities for a young scientist. Jun Yao has them all.The fifth-year graduate student at Rice University believed so strongly in his discovery two years ago that he went to the mat for it.What Yao found could be a game-changer in the budding field of nanoelectronics. While working on a...
Nanocrystal conductors could lead to massive, robust 3-D storageRice University scientists have created the first two-terminal memory chips that use only silicon, one of the most common substances on the planet, in a way that should be easily adaptable to nanoelectronic manufacturing techniques and promises to extend the limits of miniaturization subject to Moore's Law.Last year, researchers in the lab of Rice Professor James Tour showed how electrical current could repeatedly break and...
Rice researchers show environmentally friendly ways to make it in bulk, break it down"We can make you and we can break you." If Rice University scientists wrote country songs, their ode to graphene oxide would start something like that. But this song wouldn't break anybody's heart.A new paper from the lab of Rice chemist James Tour demonstrates an environmentally friendly way to make bulk quantities of graphene oxide (GO), an insulating version of single-atom-thick graphene expected...
Rice, Korean collaboration produces printable tagLong lines at store checkouts could be history if a new technology created in part at Rice University comes to pass.Rice researchers, in collaboration with a team led by Gyou-jin Cho at Sunchon National University in Korea, have come up with an inexpensive, printable transmitter that can be invisibly embedded in packaging. It would allow a customer to walk a cart full of groceries or other goods past a scanner on the way to the car; the scanner...
Researchers simplify fabrication of nano storage, chip-design toolsAdvances by the Rice University lab of James Tour have brought graphite's potential as a mass data storage medium a step closer to reality and created the potential for reprogrammable gate arrays that could bring about a revolution in integrated circuit logic design.In a paper published in the online journal ACS Nano, Tour and postdoctoral associate Alexander Sinitskii show how they've used industry-standard lithographic...
Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method of attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon that may help manufacturers reach beyond the current limits of Moore's Law as they make microprocessors both smaller and more powerful.Their findings are published this month by the Journal of the American Chemical Society.Moore's Law, suggested by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, said the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit...
Scientists at Rice University have found a simple way to create basic elements for aircraft, flat-screen TVs, electronics and other products that incorporate sheets of tough, electrically conductive material.And the process begins with a zipper.Research by the Rice University lab of Professor James Tour, featured on the cover of the April 16 issue of the journal Nature, has uncovered a room-temperature chemical process that splits, or unzips, carbon nanotubes to make flat nanoribbons. The...
