NEWS - ELECTRONICS

Engineered polymers hold promise for use in next generation technologies such as light-harvesting devices and implantable electronics that interact with the nervous system – but creating polymers with the right combination of chemical, physical and electronic properties poses a significant challenge. New research offers insights into how polymers can be engineered to fine-tune their electronic properties in order to meet the demands of such specific applications. To make elec

Understanding what happens inside a material when it is hit by ultrashort light pulses is one of the great challenges of matter physics and modern photonics. A new study published in Nature Photonics and led by Politecnico di Milano reveals a hitherto neglected but essential aspect, precisely the contribution of virtual charges, charge carriers that exist only during interaction with light, but which profoundly influence the material’s response. The research, conducted in par

When an electric current flows through a material in the presence of a magnetic field, its electrons experience a subtle sideways force which deflects their path. This effect of electron deflection is called the Hall effect—a phenomenon that lies at the heart of modern sensors and electronic devices. When this effect results from internal magnetization of the conducting material, it is called “anomalous Hall effect (AHE).” Scientists have long believed that the Hall effect on

Improved electron flow enables electrical conduction in nanoscale components – structures measured in billionths of a metre. In this way, a quantum scar can act as a nanoscale switch, akin to a novel type of transistor. This breakthrough opens the door to developing components for the small and energy-efficient microchips of the future. These findings pave the way for a new field dubbed ‘scartronics,’ where quantum scars guide the conductivity of nanoscale devices. Experiment

For the first time, chemists at ETH Zurich have successfully used extremely short, rotating flashes of light to measure and manipulate the different movements of electrons in mirror-image molecules. They showed that chirality of molecules is not just a structural but also an electronic phenomenon...

Caltech team led by Alireza Marandi, a professor of electrical engineering and applied physics at Caltech, has created a tiny device capable of producing an unusually wide range of laser-light frequencies with ultra-high efficiency—all on a microchip.

With NSF support, WashU physicists create quantum sensors that track stress and magnetism at pressures exceeding 30,000 times Earth’s atmosphere

Graphene is an extraordinary material – a sheet of interlocking carbon atoms just one atom thick that is stable and extremely conductive. This makes it useful in a range of areas, such as flexible electronic displays, highly precise sensors, powerful batteries, and efficient solar cells. A new study – led by the University of Göttingen, working together with colleagues from Braunschweig and Bremen in Germany, and Fribourg in Switzerland – now takes graphene’s potential to a w

Spintronics, or spin-electronics, is a revolutionary approach to information processing that utilizes the intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of electrons, rather than solely relying on electric charge flow. This technology promises faster, more energy-efficient data storage and logic devices. A central challenge in fully realizing spintronics has been the development of materials that can precisely control electron spin direction. In a groundbreaking development for spin-nanot

Addressing a major roadblock in next-generation photonic computing and signal processing systems, researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a device that can bridge digital electronic signals and analog light signals in one fluid step. Built on chips made out of lithium niobate, the workhorse material of optoelectronics, the new device offers a potential replacement for the ubiquitous but energy-intensive digital

Researchers investigating atomic-scale phenomena impacting next-generation electronic and quantum devices have captured the first microscopy images of atomic thermal vibrations, revealing a new type of motion that could reshape the design of quantum technologies and ultrathin electronics.

The chip, as thin as a strand of hair, uses two pairs of microring modulators to achieve unprecedented performance levels.