IEEE Spectrum August 6, 2018 To combine the advantages of ultrafast femtosecond nano-optics with an on-chip communication scheme, optical signals with a frequency of several hundreds of THz need to be down-converted to coherent electronic signals propagating on-chip. Researchers in Germany have demonstrated that 14 fs optical pulses in the near-infrared can drive electronic on-chip circuits with a prospective bandwidth up to 10 THz. The corresponding electronic pulses propagate in macroscopic striplines on a millimeter scale. They exploit femtosecond photoswitches based on asymmetric, nanoscale metal junctions to drive the pulses. The non-linear ultrafast response is based on a plasmonically enhanced, multiphoton […]
Tag Archives: Microelectronics
Switching with molecules for pioneering electro-optical devices
Science Daily May 24, 2018 An international team of researchers (Germany, Switzerland) developed a method that allowed them to create precise electrical contacts with molecules in strong optical fields and to control them using an applied voltage. At a potential difference of around one volt, the molecule becomes flat, conductive and scatters light. The molecules were arranged on a metal surface and contacted using the corner of a glass fragment with a very thin metal coating as a tip which serves as an electrical contact, light source and light collector, all in one. The researchers used the fragment to direct […]
Supersonic waves may help electronics beat the heat
Science Daily May 17, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, industry) has demonstrated supersonic channel for the propagation of lattice energy in fresnoite (Ba2TiSi2O8) using neutron scattering. Lattice energy propagates 2.8−4.3 times the speed of sound in the form of phasons, which are caused by an incommensurate modulation in the flexible framework structure of fresnoite. The phasons enhance the thermal conductivity by 20% at room temperature and carry lattice-energy signals at speeds beyond the limits of phonons. The discovery may dramatically improve heat transport in insulators and enable new strategies for heat management in […]
Engineers invent smart microchip that can self-start and operate when battery runs out
Science Daily May 3, 2018 Researchers in Singapore have designed a microchip called BATLESS that switches to the minimum-power mode and operates with a tiny power consumption of about half a nanoWatt when the battery is exhausted. The power management technique enables operations to be self-started, while being powered directly by the tiny on-chip solar cell, with no battery assistance. The chip’s ability to switch between minimum energy and minimum power mode translates into aggressive miniaturisation of batteries from centimetres down to a few millimetres… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
‘Valleytronics’ discovery could extend limits of Moore’s Law
Science Daily May 1, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Singapore, China) has shown that tin(II) sulfide is able to absorb different polarizations of light and then selectively reemit light of different colors at different polarizations. This is useful for concurrently accessing both the usual electronic and the material’s degrees of freedom. SnS possesses selectivity at room temperature without additional biases apart from the excitation light source. With this finding, researchers will be able to develop operational valleytronic devices, which may one day be integrated into electronic circuits. The unique coupling between […]
Water-repellent surfaces can efficiently boil water, keep electronics cool
Nanowerk April 30, 2018 Researchers at Purdue University first submerged the superhydrophobic surface and then heated the surrounding water, being careful to not boil directly from the surface itself. Doing so removed the layer of air that is normally trapped within the texture of the superhydrophobic surface, allowing water to penetrate the texture and fully wet it, as it would for a hydrophilic surface. This resulted in the “pinning” of small bubbles during boiling, making them depart without coalescing into a vapor blanket and help keep the surface wet with liquid water. Hydrophobic materials are also able to form many […]
Smaller and faster: The terahertz computer chip is now within reach
Science Daily March 25, 2018 Using a Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (MONOS) structure, researchers in Israel have designed a new integrated circuit that uses flash memory technology in microchips. If successful, this technology will enable standard 8-16 gigahertz computers to run 100 times faster and will bring all optic devices closer to the terahertz chip… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE