David Ruth

Rice University

Rice University neuroengineers are leading an ambitious DARPA-funded project to develop MOANA, a nonsurgical device capable of both decoding neural activity in one person's visual cortex and recreating it in another's in less than one twentieth of a second.

Headset Links Brain to Machines

Sharing visual images between two brains may sound like science fiction, but recent technological breakthroughs will make the idea feasible.

A face made of a unique polymer at Rice University takes shape when cooled and flattens when heated. The material may be useful in the creation of soft robots and for biomedical applications.

Shape-Shifting Face

Some have even called this morphing material 'mighty'.

Rice University graduate student Gladys López-Silva holds a lithium metal anode with a film of carbon nanotubes. Once the film is attached, it becomes infiltrated by lithium ions and turns red.

Nanotubes Could Give World Better Batteries

Thin nanotube films effectively stop dendrites that grow naturally from unprotected lithium metal anodes in batteries.

Laser-induced graphene is a highly conductive addition to a piece of bread. A Rice University lab is using an industrial laser to write graphene patterns on everyday objects, including food, cloth, cardboard and wood.

Do You Take Graphene With Your Toast?

Researchers create patterned graphene onto food, paper, cloth, cardboard.

Rice University researchers led by graduate student Dylan Losey want to help humans and robots collaborate by enabling interactive tasks like rehabilitation, surgery and training programs in which environments are less predictable. In early studies, Losey and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, used gentle feedback to train a robot arm to manipulate a coffee cup in real time.

Engineers Refine Collaborative Robots

Like toddlers, robots can use a little help as they learn to function in the physical world.

Indented tobermorite, a natural analog to the calcium-silicate-hydrate mix in cement, responds differently than bulk tobermorite, depending on the size of the indentation and the force. Layers that bond through indentation remain that way after the force is removed, according to Rice University engineers.

Unique Properties Found in Indented Cement

How tiny indentations can benefit the crystals in concrete.

Rice University engineers have built a lab prototype of a flat microscope they are developing as part of DARPA's Neural Engineering System Design project. The microscope will sit on the surface of the brain, where it will detect optical signals from neurons in the cortex. The goal is to provide an alternate path for sight and sound to be delivered directly to the brain.

Team Develops Microscope for Your Brain

They want to design a new way for sight and sound to be delivered directly to the brain.

The internal components of a battery-less pacemaker introduced this week by Rice University and the Texas Heart Institute. The pacemaker can be inserted into the heart and powered by a battery pack outside the body, eliminating the need for wire leads and surgeries to occasionally replace the battery.

Team Debuts Battery-Less Pacemaker

It harvests energy wirelessly from radio frequency radiation transmitted by an external battery pack.

Lithium metal coats the hybrid graphene and carbon nanotube anode in a battery created at Rice University. The lithium metal coats the three-dimensional structure of the anode and avoids forming dendrites.

Graphene-Nanotube Hybrid Boots Batteries

These new prototypes store three times the energy of lithium-ion batteries.

Molecules that alight on a surface used to test nanocars look more like obstacles, according to researchers at Rice University and North Carolina State University testing the mobility of single-molecule cars in open air.

Nanocars Taken for a Rough Ride

If you're driving a nanocar on the open road, things are bound to get sticky.

Test samples show a graphene nanoribbon-based film developed at Rice University with both passive and active de-icing properties. When the film at left is heated without an application of lubricants, ice melts but water droplets remain on the surface. With lubricants, at right, ice begins to melt and slides off. The material may be suitable for de-icing and anti-icing applications in extreme environments.

Graphene De-icer for Aircraft

The new material still melts ice from wings and wires when conditions get too cold, but if it's +7°F, ice won't form at all.

A toothpaste-like composite with hexagonal boron nitride developed at Rice University is an effective electrolyte and separator in lithium-ion batteries intended for high-temperature applications.

Compound Helps Lithium Batteries

New ‘white graphene’ allows lithium-ion batteries to set one of the widest temperature ranges ever reported.