Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology

The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology or Empa (German acronym for "Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt") is an interdisciplinary Swiss research and service institution for applied materials sciences and technology. As part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Domain ("ETH-Bereich") it is an institution of the Swiss federation. For the longest time since its foundation in 1880, it concentrated on classical materials testing. Since the late 1980s it has developed into a modern research and development institute.

Website
http://www.empa.ch/
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empa
Some content from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA

Engineering

Working toward a 3D-printed VR glove

Research sometimes needs a sacrifice. Empa researcher Patrick Danner has just made one—and filmed it. "When I applied a good 2,000 volts to the sample, it caught fire," he reports drily in the debriefing. The mishap is ...

Energy & Green Tech

Flexible solar cells with record efficiency of 22.2%

Empa researchers have, once again, improved the efficiency of CIGS flexible solar cells. Independently certified measurements revealed a power conversion efficiency of 22.2% to convert light into electricity, an improvement ...

Energy & Green Tech

A self-learning algorithm that helps save heating energy

A thermostat that predictively controls the indoor climate and thereby improves energy efficiency and comfort—Empa researchers Felix Bünning and Benjamin Huber came up with this idea while working in Empa's Urban Energy ...

Energy & Green Tech

On the way to climate-neutral road traffic in Switzerland

Road traffic is currently responsible for more than 30% of Switzerland's greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing these emissions is complex because the switch from fossil-based mobility to electricity-based mobility will only ...

Energy & Green Tech

How data processing can heat buildings

A click on the internet leaves traces behind. Not only in the web itself, but also in the form of a large ecological footprint. Because even though all our data is supposedly floating in the cloud, physical data centers are ...

Engineering

Aircraft security: Diagnosis during flight is possible

The pressurized cabins of commercial aircraft, as well as their wings and tail units, are inspected for cracks and damage at regular intervals. Every six to ten years, each jet has to undergo a D-check in a hangar for one ...

Energy & Green Tech

Operating truck fleets with lowest possible emissions

Converting truck fleets to renewable energy is a goal of many fleet operators worldwide. This has also been recognized by HERE, a global navigation software company; the company is a joint subsidiary of German automakers ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Shellac for printed circuits

More precise, faster, cheaper: Researchers all over the world have been working for years on producing electrical circuits using additive processes such as robotic 3D-printing (so-called robocasting) with great success, but ...

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