Category Physics

Yanliang Zhang, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame, and collaborators Alexander Dowling and Tengfei Luo have developed a machine-learning assisted superfast new way to create high-performance, energy-saving thermoelectric devices.

The novel process uses intense pulsed light to sinter thermoelectric material in less than a second (conventional sintering in thermal ovens can take hours). The team sped up this method of turning nanoparticle inks into flexible devices by using machine learning to determine the optimum conditions for the ultrafast but complex sintering process.

The achievement was just published in the journal Energy and Environmental Scie...

First artificial synapse that reproduces learning during sleep. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona researchers have developed a magnetic material capable of imitating the way the brain stores information. The material makes it possible to emulate the synapses of neurons and mimic, for the first time, the learning that occurs during deep sleep.

Neuromorphic computing is a new computing paradigm in which the behavior of the brain is emulated by mimicking the main synaptic functions of neurons. Among these functions is neuronal plasticity: the ability to store information or forget it depending on the duration and repetition of the electrical impulses that stimulate neurons, a plasticity that would be linked to learning and memory.

Among the materials that mimic neuron synapses, me...

With the advance of quantum technologies, new microscopy modalities are becoming possible – ones that can see electric currents, detect fluctuating magnetic fields, and even see single molecules on a surface. A prototype of such a microscope, demonstrating high resolution sensitivity, has been developed by an Australian research team.

While quantum computing seems like the big-ticket item among the developing technologies based on the behaviour of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level, another direction promises to open a new door for scientific research itself — quantum microscopy.

With the advance of quantum technologies, new ...