Emerging Innovations

  • ASTRALite's 2-in-1 Topo-Bathy LiDAR
    ASTRALite developed the first ever 2-in-1 scanning topo-bathy LIDAR on a UAV that can seamlessly survey and map with a single survey. This system provides previously unavailable and highly desired 3D data from a platform capable of reaching inaccessible and hard to map areas. In addition, the output can be viewed in real-time giving the customer immediate visibility of cracking, misalignment, settlement, erosion and undermining of slabs and foundation elements to a revolutionary 1 cm accuracy or better.
  • Using a unique assay, Dr. Min Han's team has discovered an unexpected and striking role of Enterobactin (Ent) in supporting growth and the labile iron pool in C. elegans. Ent, a compound with high affinity for iron (Fe3+), is produced and used by certain bacteria (including gut microbes) to acquire iron from the environment. This new work has demonstrated that ferric-Ent is taken up by the host and is bioavailable.
  • Kelvin Thermal logo
    Researchers at Kelvin Thermal Technologies, Inc. have developed the world’s thinnest vapor chambers for cooling smartphones, using technologies originally developed at CU Boulder. With thickness less than 0.15 mm, these vapor chambers can spread 15 Watts from a chip to a 10cm x 5cm area with only 2oC difference.
  • Prof. Christopher Bowman's group has designed a novel thioester monomer system that can be seamlessly incorporated into existing polymerization procedures and allows for extremely rapid, room-temperature plasticity under ambient conditions, offering a route towards recycling and remolding.
  • Researchers working at CU Boulder and NIST have developed an electroplated rhenium film that is superconducting at relatively high critical temperatures of up to 6K, which is well above the boiling point of liquid helium, making the critical temperature easy to obtain.
  • Researchers working at CU Boulder and Immodulon Therapeutics Limited have discovered novel, mycobacterially-derived lipid compounds that have potent anti-inflammatory effects and could be useful in the treatment and prevention of sepsis and post-sepsis syndrome.
  • Prof. Dejan Filipovic’s team has developed an effective new configuration for a Simultaneous Transmit and Receive (STAR) antenna system that makes it a unique candidate for military and civilian applications.
  • Dr. Amy Palmer's team is developing Riboglow, a versatile riboswitch-based RNA imaging system. The short size of the RNA tag used in the system enabled the visualization of U1 snRNA in live cells for the first time.
  • Innovative actuators enable "soft" robots
    Dr. Christoph Keplinger and his lab team have developed breakthrough actuators for robots: soft, self-healing “artificial muscles” that mimic the strength, speed and diversity of motion of real muscle, capable of grasping delicate objects and more.
  • CU Boulder researchers have designed a micro-chip scale circulator that allows simultaneous transmission and reception in a single channel, doubling the bandwidth of communication systems without magnets.
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