Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 16


On-chip modulator Researchers at Harvard SEAS and Nokia Bell Labs boosted shrunk down an important component of optoelectronics with an on-chip modulator that is 100 times smaller and 20 times more efficient than current lithium niobite (LN) modulators. Lithium niobate modulators form the basis of modern telecommunications, converting electronic data to optical information in fiber optic ca... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Mar. 13


Wireless charging Engineers at the University of Washington developed a method to safely charge a smartphone wirelessly using a laser, potentially as quickly as a standard USB cable. Safety features of the system include a reflector-based mechanism to shut off the laser and heatsinks. The charging beam is generated by a laser emitter that the team configured to produce a focused beam in the... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 24


Molecular storage Chemists at the Institut Charles Sadron and Aix-Marseille University used mass spectrometry to read several bytes of data recorded on the molecular scale with synthetic polymers, setting a new benchmark for the amount of data stored as a sequence of molecular units (monomers) that can be read. Polymers have great potential since, to record a bit, their component monomers r... » read more