Power/Performance Bits: March 3


Optimizing fiber networks Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology are working towards reducing the energy consumption of fiber optic communications before the amount of electricity required by the Internet becomes too great to manage. To improve overall efficiency, the team tackled several aspects of fiber optic cables. One of the major energy drains the team identified was the err... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 26


Vitamin C chips Using vitamin C, Rice University has developed a process that turns gold nanorods into small gold nanowires. Nanorods are a type of structure, while nanowires are simply tiny wires. With the technology, Rice is able to produce nanowires with various lengths. These can be used in electronics as well as light-manipulating applications like plasmons. A “plasmon is a quantum o... » read more