By Peter Weiss
Concrete slabs generally don’t do much except support structures and enclose space. If some researchers have it their way, however, those slabs may double as components in electronic circuits.
Materials scientists at the State University of New York at Buffalo have made crude electronic devices from Portland cement, the widely used gray powder that forms concrete when it’s mixed with sand, gravel, and water.
With minor modifications of the standard formula, Sihai Wen and Deborah D.L. Chung poured soap-bar-size blocks of cement that act as one-way electricity valves known as diodes. The blocks also function as heat-sensitive sources of electric current known as thermocouples, the team reports in the July Journal of Materials Research.