Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 3


Lithium-air batteries gain ground Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a working laboratory demonstration of a lithium-oxygen battery which has very high energy density, is more than 90% efficient, and can be recharged more than 2000 times. Their demonstrator relies on a highly porous, 'fluffy' carbon electrode made from graphene (comprising one-atom-thick sheets of ca... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 20


Automating big-data analysis Until now, big-data analysis consisted of searching for buried patterns that had some kind of predictive power but picking which “features” of the data to analyze usually required some human intuition. Now, however, MIT researchers are aiming to take the human element out of big-data analysis with a new system that they say not only searches for patterns but... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 18


Optical computing for big data Given the potential for optical electronics to be applied to big data processing tasks, alumni of the University of Cambridge, including from the Department of Engineering, have gone on to found Optalysys, a company with the goal of making computer processors that use light instead of electricity. The Cambridge spinout’s latest achievement is a functioning p... » read more

System Bits: July 21


White graphene can take the heat According to researchers at Rice University, 3D boron nitride structures excel at thermal management for electronics. Rice researchers Rouzbeh Shahsavari and Navid Sakhavand have completed the first theoretical analysis of how 3D boron nitride might be used as a tunable material to control heat flow in such devices. In its 2D form, hexagonal boron nitride... » read more

System Bits: April 14


Antennas on a chip In what is being called the missing piece of the puzzle of electromagnetic theory, a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge have figured out one of the mysteries of electromagnetism, that they believe could allow the design of antennas small enough to be integrated into a chip. These ultra-small antennas – the so-called ‘last frontier’ of semiconductor desi... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 16


Increasing optical storage capacity with holograms Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a new method for making multi-colored holograms from a thin film of silver nanoparticles, which they say could greatly increase the storage capabilities of typical optical storage devices. The interference produced by the interaction of light with the nanoparticles allows the holog... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 17


Nanotubes boost terahertz detectors Researchers at Rice University, Sandia National Laboratories and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed novel terahertz detectors based on carbon nanotubes that could improve medical imaging, airport passenger screening, food inspection and other applications. Unlike current terahertz detectors, the devices are flexible, sensitive to polarizatio... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 11


Low-power chip for cochlear implants without external hardware Existing versions of cochlear implants require that a disk-shaped transmitter about an inch in diameter be affixed to the skull, with a wire snaking down to a joint microphone and power source that looks like an oversized hearing aid around the patient’s ear...until now. Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory a... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 21


Spinning towards superconduction With spintronics widely believed to be the basis of a future revolution in computing, researchers at the University of Cambridge are reporting what they said is the first evidence that superconductors could be used as an energy-efficient source for so-called “spin-based” devices, which are already starting to appear in electronic devices. Spintronic devi... » read more

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