Photonics has long held the promise of microchips that operate faster and consume less energy than their electronic counterparts. However, developing such circuitry has proven challenging over the years. One of the primary difficulties involves providing enough output power to yield a strong enough signal. However, researchers have now developed a chip-scale power booster for […]
Future microchips that require far less energy than present-day devices may rely on exotic materials known as topological insulators, in which electricity flows across only surfaces and edges, with virtually no dissipation of energy. However, it can prove tricky developing such materials for real-world applications. Now a new study reveals that simply incorporating hydrogen into […]
Just as solar cells generate electricity from sunlight, thermophotovoltaic cells do so from infrared light. Now, in a new study, scientists have revealed thermophotovoltaic cells with a record-high conversion efficiency of more than 40 percent, better than the average turbines used to generate power in the United States. These findings could help enable grid-scale thermal […]
For the first time, scientists have invented a noninvasive way to control the brain circuits—the clusters of neurons in the brain that collectively perform a specific task—of freely moving lab animals from a distance. The new technique, which beams near-infrared light into the brain, may help researchers analyze how the brain works during normal behavior, […]
Deep neural networks are increasingly helping to design microchips, predict how proteins fold, and outperform people at complex games. However, researchers have now discovered there are fundamental theoretical limits to how stable and accurate these AI systems can actually get. These findings might help shed light on what is and is not actually possible with […]
Conventional hydrogen fuel cells hold great promise as clean, efficient sources of energy for vehicles and other applications, but they rely on precious-metal catalysts that drive up their cost. Now scientists have created a precious-metal-free hydrogen fuel cell with a record-high performance and durability and virtually negligible catalyst costs. Hydrogen, the most common element in […]
For decades, silicon transistors become smaller and smaller, but they are fast approaching the point at which they can no longer shrink the lengths of their gates—that is, how far current must travel in these devices. Now, by using atomically thin materials, scientists in China have created a transistor with a record-breaking gate length of […]
Lidar is increasingly giving 3-D scanning capabilities to autonomous cars, drones and robots, as well as smartphones, but it typically employs moving parts that limit how much it can shrink. Now scientists have developed a solid-state lidar chip the size of a fingertip that could one day lead to ubiquitous 3-D sensors, a new study […]
Quantum physics can often make an object behave in seemingly impossible ways, such as tunneling through barriers as if they were not there or seemingly existing in two or more places at the same time. Now scientists have used quantum physics to create a battery capable of “superabsorption,” meaning it absorbs energy more quickly the […]
A new quantum-mechanical holography technique can generate holograms of items without scientists ever directly capturing any light from those objects, a new study finds. This novel and surprising discovery already may have biomedical applications. A hologram is an image that, when illuminated, acts much like a 2D window looking onto a 3D scene. Conventional holography […]