Semiconductors
X-ray lens peers deeper into the nano realm
August 15, 2011 12:07 pm | by Louise Lerner | News | CommentsA team of researchers Argonne National Laboratory has built a multi-thousand-layer lens that focuses high-energy x-rays so tightly it can detect objects as small as 15 nm in size and is in principle capable of focusing to well below 10 nm.
Wanted: 2011's Top Technologies
August 15, 2011 6:12 am | Blogs | CommentsThe editors of R&D Magazine have opened the nominations for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards competition, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards. If your organization introduced a new product this year, or is planning to, you can begin the entry process now.
Taking inspiration from spilled milk
August 12, 2011 6:53 am | News | CommentsTwo Lehigh University physicists have developed an imaging technique that makes it possible to directly observe light-emitting excitons as they diffuse in a new material that is being explored for its extraordinary electronic properties. Called rubrene, it is one of a new generation of single-crystal organic semiconductors.
Power for Portability
August 11, 2011 5:38 am | by R&D Editors | Articles | CommentsAs demands grow for portable sensing equipment in the medical equipment and other sectors, instrument designers will demand better power efficiency from the electronic components they specify for their instruments. ON Semiconductor believes its Q32M210 family of mixed-signal microcontrollers will fill a niche for precision measurement and monitoring.
Optical grating freshens signal for silicon photonics
August 3, 2011 9:29 am | News | CommentsCheap and readily available, silicon is an attractive choice for integrated photonic circuits. However, silicon suffers high optical loss, so researchers in Singapore have built a new chip that integrates, in addition to a laser, an optical grating that provides gain and steady output wavelengths.
Laser writing transforms graphite into a supercapacitor
August 2, 2011 9:55 am | News | CommentsGraphite oxide has been a target for supercapacitor development for up to a decade, but prior to a recent breakthrough at Rice University nobody had been able to turn the material into a functional supercapacitor without adding chemicals. The researchers discovered a new phenomenon of GO, and were able to make the transition simply using heat.
Nanoplasmonic 'whispering gallery' breaks emission time record in semiconductors
July 25, 2011 8:03 am | News | CommentsRenaissance architects demonstrated their understanding of geometry and physics when they built whispering galleries into their cathedrals. These circular chambers were designed to amplify and direct sound waves so that, when standing in the right spot, a whisper could be heard from across the room. Now, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have applied the same principle on the nanoscale to reduce emission lifetime.
Study determines the cooling effect of solar panels
July 19, 2011 7:04 am | by Ioana Patringenaru | News | CommentsIt stands to reason that the photovoltaic panels on a rooftop are not only converting sunlight to electricity, they are keeping the building cooler by intercepting the solar rays. Until recent research, however, just how much of a cooling benefit they can provide was not known.
Conducting energy on a nano scale
July 15, 2011 6:07 am | News | CommentsResearchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University have demonstrated how semiconductor nanocrystals can be doped in order to change their electronic properties and be used as conductors, offering new possibilities for the design of small electronic and electro-optical devices.
Engineers build a nanoscale device for brain-inspired computing
July 13, 2011 6:01 am | by Andrew Myers | News | CommentsResearchers at the Stanford School of Engineering have made a nanoelectronic synapse that might drive a new class of microchips that can learn, adapt, and make probability-based decisions in complex environments. The device emulates synaptic plasticity using phase-change material, and makes a leap past two-state transistors by demonstrating the ability to convey at least 100 values from each synapse.
Breaking Kasha's rule
July 5, 2011 4:42 am | by Lynn Yarris | News | CommentsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers created tetrapod molecules of semiconductor nanocrystals and watched them break a fundamental principle of photoluminescence known as "Kasha’s rule." The discovery holds promise for multicolor light emission technologies, including LEDs.
Guitar hero? Sensor links instrument and player
July 1, 2011 9:12 am | News | CommentsGuitar virtuosos have to master all kinds of playing techniques. But how can the intricate process of playing the instrument be captured digitally? A special thin film on the tailpiece has the answer. Functioning as a sensor, it converts the tension on the string into digital control signals.
Printable nanotech solar cells developed
July 1, 2011 5:25 am | News | CommentsAustralian researchers have invented nanotech solar cells that are thin, flexible, and use one hundredth the materials of conventional solar cells.
'Sensing skin' could cheaply monitor the health of concrete
June 29, 2011 11:40 am | News | CommentsIn 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the quality of infrastructure in the U.S. a grade of "D", partly because evaluation and maintenance of structures was not up to par. Civil engineers at MIT, working with physicists in Germany, have invented an inexpensive flexible skin-like fabric with electrical properties that can be attached to concrete structures. The skin would sense cracks as they appear.
Team demonstrates subatomic quantum memory in diamond
June 27, 2011 12:34 pm | News | CommentsA collaboration of physicists working in California and Germany have coaxed the fragile quantum information contained within a single electron in diamond to move into an adjacent single nitrogen nucleus, and then back again using on-chip wiring. This ability is potentially useful to create an atomic-scale memory element in a quantum computer based on diamond.
Physicists observe campfire effect in blinking nanorod semiconductors
June 23, 2011 5:05 am | News | CommentsWhen semiconductor nanorods are exposed to light, they blink in a seemingly random pattern. By clustering nanorods together, physicists at the Univ. of Pennsylvania have shown that their combined "on" time is increased dramatically providing new insight into this mysterious blinking behavior.
Japan reclaims top ranking on list of world’s top supercomputers
June 20, 2011 12:24 pm | News | CommentsA supercomputer capable of performing more than 8 quadrillion calculations per second is the new number one system in the world, putting Japan back in the top spot for the first time since the Earth Simulator was dethroned in November 2004. The system, called the K Computer, is at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe.
IBM’s graphene circuit could shake up telecommunications
June 13, 2011 5:57 am | News | CommentsLate last week, the journal Science published IBM’s latest accomplishment in graphene science. Previously, the company’s research arm had built graphene transistors, but for the first time, their team has built a full circuit operating at up to 10 GHz. The wafer, which is the size of a grain of salt, is a frequency mixer that could greatly improve the radio performance of mobile devices like cell phones.
Ultrathin copper-oxide layers “lose control”, become quantum spin liquid
June 10, 2011 9:21 am | News | CommentsMagnetic studies of ultrathin copper-oxide materials reveal that at low temperatures, the thinnest layers lose their magnetic order. In a surprising discovery that could shed light on superconductivity emergence, Brookhaven Lab observed that these materials become “quantum spin liquid”, a novel state of matter where the orientations of electron spins fluctuate wildly.
Magma announces Silicon One initiative
June 7, 2011 8:22 am | News | CommentsMagma Design Automation has launched Silicon One, an initiative intended to bring focus to making silicon profitable for customers by providing differentiated solutions and technologies that address business imperatives facing semiconductor makers.
World’s first large-scale OLED sphere installed in Japan
June 1, 2011 1:02 pm | News | CommentsThe Geo-Cosmos is to be unveiled June 11 at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, Japan. Built by Mitsubishi Electric using 10,362 organic light-emitting diode panels, the giant 6-m globe will project clouds and other meteorological information obtained from satellites.
Invented quasiparticle makes next-generation nanoscale waveguides work
May 31, 2011 11:22 am | by Lynn Yarris | News | CommentsA Berkeley Lab team has recently demonstrated the first true nanoscale waveguides for next generation on-chip optical communication systems. The key to making their concept work was designing and creating a new quasiparticle called a hybrid plasmon polariton to shepherd light waves.
Bandwidth wizardry improves efficiency of multi-core chips
May 26, 2011 6:30 am | by Matt Shipman | News | CommentsResearchers from North Carolina State University have developed two new techniques related to common efficiency strategies like prefetching and bandwidth allocation to help maximize the performance of multi-core computer chips by allowing them to retrieve data more efficiently, which boosts chip performance by 10 to 40%.
Nanowire production template is fast, simple, reusable
May 23, 2011 7:40 am | News | CommentsScientists at Argonne National Lab and the Univ. of Wisconsin have discovered an electrochemical synthesis method for patterning metallic and semiconducting nanowires. The process, which does not require vacuum, relies on a non-sacrificial template made from ultrananocrystalline diamond.
Researchers develop high-performance bulk thermoelectrics
May 23, 2011 4:29 am | News | CommentsRecently, scientists have concocted a recipe for a thermoelectric material that might be able to operate off nothing more than the heat of a car's exhaust. In a paper, a team reported on a compound that shows high efficiency at less extreme temperatures.
