Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 17


Speeding up optical networks A tunable filter for high-capacity optical networks that can be integrated onto a photonic chip has been designed by researchers at the Université Laval in Québec, Canada. The device's performance is comparable to the best bench-top systems, according to the reasearchers, but at a fraction of the size and cost. The filter's tuning span, which is a measure of... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 22


Scaling up production of thin electronic materials With potential application in future spintronics applications, among other things, a team led by MIT researchers have developed a way to make large sheets of molybdenum telluride (MoTe2) and other materials like graphene that hold promise for electronic, optical, and other high-tech applications. The team — which includes MIT postdoc Lin ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 21


Graphene metrology Harvard University, Monash University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new technique that provides atomic-scale images of colloidal nanoparticles. The technique, dubbed SINGLE, stands for 3D Structure Identification of Nanoparticles by Graphene Liquid Cell Electron Microscopy. Using the technology, researchers ha... » read more

System Bits: May 26


Microfluidic cell-squeezing MIT researchers have shown it is possible to use a microfluidic cell-squeezing device to introduce specific antigens inside the immune system’s B cells, providing a new approach to developing and implementing antigen-presenting cell vaccines. These types of vaccines are created by reprogramming a patient’s own immune cells to fight invaders, and are believed ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 24


Simulating ultrafast phenomena Interesting phenomena can happen when electronic states in materials are excited during dynamic processes. As an example, electrical charge transfer can take place on quadrillionth-of-a-second, or femtosecond, timescales. Numerical simulations in real-time provide the best way to study these processes. Such simulations, however, can be extremely expensive. R... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 17


What can snails teach us about creating batteries? Evgenia Barannikova, a graduate student at University of Maryland, Baltimore County presented the current state of research in using biology to improve the properties of lithium ion batteries at the 59th annual meeting of the Biophysical Society, held Feb. 7-11 in Baltimore, Maryland. One of the inspirations for her research was the way t... » read more

System Bits: May 6


Nonlinear optical resonance The drive to develop ultrasmall and ultrafast electronic devices using a single atomic layer of semiconductors, such as transition metal dichalcogenides, has received a significant boost. Researchers with Berkeley Lab have recorded the first observations of a strong nonlinear optical resonance along the edges of a single layer of molybdenum disulfide. The existence ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 28


E-whiskers From the world of nanotechnology, researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley are on the verge of electronic whiskers -- tactile sensors from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles similar to the highly sensitive whiskers of cats and rats. These new e-whiskers respond to pressure as slight as a single Pascal, which is about the amount of pressure exerted o... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 14


MoS2 FETs Two-dimensional materials are gaining steam in the R&D labs. The 2D materials include graphene, boron nitride (BN) and the transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). One TMD, molybdenum diselenide (MoS2), is an attractive material for use in future field-effect transistors (FETs). MoS2 has several properties, including a non-zero band gap, atomic scale thickness and pristine int... » read more

System Bits: Jan. 7


Vanadium’s wonders Already prized for its extraordinary ability to change size, shape and physical identity, vanadium dioxide can now add muscle power to its attributes, researchers with Berkeley Lab reported. They have demonstrated a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium dioxide that for its size is a thousand times more powerful than a human muscle, able to catapult... » read more

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