The team argues that switching the voltage applied to these electrodes in a particular way should create a pattern of polarisation in the rod which moves superluminally, just like the charge distribution in the plasma surrounding a pulsar.

ECONOMIST: Physics

These companies rely on microscopic beads that change color when voltage is applied to them.

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When a voltage is applied, the electrostatic force that results either attracts the two mirrors together, or pushes them apart.

ECONOMIST: Displays: The fluttering of tiny pixels | The

When a voltage was applied at the ends of the yarns, these ions moved into the fibres, causing them to expand.

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When a voltage is applied across the coating, the window darkens, allowing less light to enter but still permitting a view.

ECONOMIST: Green homes

The resin within the carbon layers is laced with lithium ions, so that each layer acts like an electrode, causing the positively charged lithium ions to collect in one layer when a voltage is applied, and a current to flow when the sandwich is placed in a circuit.

ECONOMIST: Carbon-composite batteries

Each glass sheet has rows of conducting wires running across it, and the two sets of wires are at right angles, so that a voltage can be applied across the liquid crystal at any chosen intersection.

ECONOMIST: Just press print