Jul 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) To continue making smartphones, laptops, and other devices more powerful and energy efficient, industry is intensely focused on identifying promising next-generation designs and materials for the principal building blocks of modern electronics: the tiny electrical on-off switches known as field-effect transistors (FETs). When deciding how...
Robots help farmers say goodbye to repetitive tasks
Jul 31, 2022 (Nanowerk News) We do not often think about the labour that goes into bringing our favourite fruits and vegetables to our table. For farmers, growing healthy crops involves repetitive tasks such as weeding and spraying while the crop is growing. These tasks are not only repetitive, they...
Applying quantum speed limits to macroscopic systems
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) An expression for the maximum speed at which changes in macroscopic systems can occur has been derived by a theoretical physicist at RIKEN (PRX Quantum, "Speed Limits for Macroscopic Transitions"). This will deepen our understanding of quantum phenomena in systems that are not in equilibrium....
Hybrid semiconductors perform under pressure
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Supported by high-pressure studies at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), researchers found that compressing hybrid (organicâinorganic) semiconductors significantly boosts their conductivity (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, "Charge Reservoirs in an Expanded Halide Perovskite Analog: Enhancing High-Pressure Conductivity through Redox-Active Molecules"). The work demonstrates a novel doping...
A system for stable simultaneous communication among thousands of IoT devices?
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A research team led by Professor Song Min Kim of the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering developed a system that can support concurrent communications for tens of millions of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices using backscattering millimeter-level waves (mmWave). With their mmWave backscatter method, the research team...
‘Zip codes’ tell RNA where to go
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) They say that life comes without an instruction manual, but that’s not entirely true. Each cell in our body lives according to instructions issued by its DNA in the form of RNA molecules. RNA was recently thrust into the limelight as the basis of innovative...
Smart chip senses, stores, computes and secures data in one low-power platform
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Digital information is everywhere in the era of smart technology, where data is continuously generated by and communicated among cell phones, smart watches, cameras, smart speakers and other devices. Securing digital data on handheld devices requires massive amounts of energy, according to an interdisciplinary group...
Open-source software gives a leg up to robot research (w/video)
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) It would be awesome to have robots that can help us do important things, like aid disaster recovery efforts or monitor the environment. In the case of quadrupeds, robots that walk on four legs, their mobility requires many software components to work together seamlessly. It’s...
AI tackles the challenge of materials structure prediction
Jul 30, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers have designed a machine learning method that can predict the structure of new materials with five times the efficiency of the current standard, removing a key roadblock in developing advanced materials for applications such as energy storage and photovoltaics. The researchers, from Cambridge and...
Helium-ion-beam nanofabrication: Extreme processes and applications
Jul 29, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Helium ion beam (HIB) technology plays an important role in the extreme fields of nanofabrication. Due to high resolution and sensitivity, HIB nanofabrication technology is widely used to pattern nanostructures into components, devices, or systems in integrated circuits, materials sciences, nano-optics, and bio-sciences applications. HIB-based...