Science Daily January 22, 2021 Researchers in Switzerland have developed metamaterial made of silicon and magnetic powder which has a complicated structure that allows mechanical properties to vary. Each cell within the structure behaves like an electrical switch. It is possible to activate and deactivate individual cells by applying a magnetic field which modifies the internal state of the metamaterial, and consequently its mechanical properties. The programmable material is analogous to computer devices like hard drives. The devices contain bits of data that can be written to and read from in real time. The cells in this programmable metamaterial, called […]
Storing information with light
Phys.org January 20, 2021 In the quest for energy efficient and fast memory elements, optically controlled ferroelectric memories are promising candidates. By taking advantage of the imprint electric field existing in the nanometric BaTiO3 films and their photovoltaic response at visible light, researchers in Spain have shown that the polarization of suitably written domains can be reversed under illumination. They used this effect to trigger and measure the associate change of resistance in tunnel devices. They showed that engineering the device structure by inserting an auxiliary dielectric layer, the electroresistance increases by a factor near 2 × 103%, and a robust electric […]
Using drones to create local quantum networks
Phys.org January 18, 2021 Researchers in China built a small laser-generating device and affixed it to one of the drones. As it fired, photons were split in two, creating entangled pairs. One of the paired photons was directed toward another drone while the other was directed to a ground station. The drone that received the entangled photon served only as a relay—after refocusing, the photon was forwarded to a third drone, which then sent it to a second ground station. Motorized devices were used on the drones to ensure transmitters and received lined up properly for transmission of the entangled […]
Using graphene, researchers increase optical data transmission speed by a factor of at least 10,000.
Nanowerk January 19, 2021 Conventional optical-fiber-based pulsed lasers have limits to increasing the number of pulses per second above the MHz level. Researchers in South Korea inserted an additional resonator containing graphene into a fiber-optic pulsed-laser oscillator that operates in the domain of femtoseconds (10-15 seconds). This increased data transmission and processing speeds significantly. They synthesized graphene, which has the characteristics of absorbing and eliminating weak light and amplifying the intensity by passing only strong light into the resonator. This allows the laser intensity change to be accurately controlled at a high rate, and thus the repetition rate of pulses […]
World’s largest lakes reveal climate change trends
Science Daily January 21, 2021 Researchers at Michigan Technological University studied the five Laurentian Great Lakes bordering the U.S. and Canada; the three African Great Lakes, Tanganyika, Victoria, and Malawi; Lake Baikal in Russia; and Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in Canada. These 11 lakes hold more than 50% of the surface freshwater that millions of people and countless other creatures rely on. The rate of carbon fixation, that is the rate at which the algae photosynthesize, indicates change in the whole lake and that has ramifications all the way up the food chain, from the zooplankton to the […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 15, 2021
01. Studying chaos with one of the world’s fastest cameras 02. Electrically switchable qubit can tune between storage and fast calculation modes 03. Nanosheet-based electronics could be one drop away 04. New state of matter in one-dimensional quantum gas 05. Researchers report quantum-limit-approaching chemical sensing chip 06. Scientists tame photon-magnon interaction 07. Trapping light without back reflections 08. Using electricity to increase the amount of data that can be stored by DNA 09. Bound-charge engineering: A new strategy to develop nanowire transistors 10. The changing paradigm of next-generation semiconductor memory development And others… 10 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for […]
10 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2021
IEEE Spectrum January 7, 2021 According to the IEEE Spectrum the following areas may make significant progress in 2021: A Shining Light – Care222 lamp modules, Quantum Networking, Wind power, Driverless Race Cars, Robots Below, Mars or Bust, Stopping Deep fakes, Faster Data, Your Next TV, Brain Scans Everywhere…read more.
Bound-charge engineering: A new strategy to develop nanowire transistors
Phys.org January 13, 2021 Low-dimensional materials can have a relatively small number of free charges and weak screening compared to 3-D materials. This screening is especially crucial for the development of tunnel field-effect transistors, which heavily rely on the quantum tunneling of electrons across junctions. By atomistic quantum transport simulations researchers in Canada show how bound charges can be engineered at interfaces of Si and low- oxides to strengthen screening. To avoid compromising gate control, low- and high- oxides are used in conjunction. They demonstrated that in Si nanowire tunnel field-effect transistors bound charge engineering increases the on-state current by […]
Calculations Show It’ll Be Impossible to Control a Super-Intelligent AI
Science Alert January 14, 2021 Superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. Considering recent advances in machine intelligence, several scientists, philosophers, and technologists predict potentially catastrophic risks entailed by such an entity. An international team of researchers (Spain, Germany, USA – UC San Diego, Chile) trace the origins and development of the neo-fear of superintelligence, and some of the major proposals for its containment. They argue that total containment is, in principle, impossible, due to fundamental limits inherent to computing itself. Assuming that superintelligence will contain a program […]
The changing paradigm of next-generation semiconductor memory development
Nanowerk January 12, 2021 It has been reported that spins are formed inside a nanomagnet if electric current is applied to the nanomagnet. There have been no studies on the physical results of these spins. Researchers in South Korea have established a theoretical system by developing a spin diffusion equation that describes the spin conductance in magnetic materials. They discovered that when the spins formed by electric current is emitted to the outside, only the sign is opposite to that of the spins injected from the outside, and the effects are the same. Therefore, the directions of the N pole […]