Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 20


Six-angstrom waveguide Engineers at the University of California San Diego, City University of New York, and Johns Hopkins University created the thinnest optical waveguide yet. At only three atoms thick, the team says the waveguide serves as a proof of concept for scaling down optical devices. The waveguide consists of a tungsten disulfide monolayer (made up of one layer of tungsten atoms ... » read more

System Bits: April 30


Future batteries could use a graphene sponge Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology devised a porous, sponge-like aerogel, made of reduced-graphene oxide, to serve as a freestanding electrode in the battery cell. This utilization has the potential to advance lithium sulfur batteries, which are said to possess a theoretical energy density about five times greater than lithi... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Lowe’s, the home improvement retailer, is giving up on the smart home market. The company is putting its Iris Smart Home business up for sale as part of a reorganization. The retailer made a big splash at CES 2015 with its Innovation Lab offerings, which included retail service robots and the Holoroom “home improvement simulator.” The Iris product line includes multipl... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: March 4


Photon glue Like a spring connecting two swings, light can act as photon glue that binds together the quantum mechanical properties of two vastly different materials and this effect could harness the most useful characteristics from each material for hybrid solar cells and high efficiency lighting, among other applications. To this end, researchers at the University of Michigan and Queens Coll... » read more