Category Physics

Researchers develop All-Optical Approach to Pumping Chip-Based Nanolasers

Caption: Researchers have developed a new all-optical method for driving multiple high density nanolaser arrays using light traveling down a single optical fiber. The optical driver creates programmable patterns of light via interference.
Image Credit: Myung-Ki Kim, Korea University

New technology could aid in meeting the ever-growing need to move more data faster. Researchers have developed a new all-optical method for driving multiple highly dense nanolaser arrays. The approach could enable chip-based optical communication links that process and move data faster than today’s electronic-based devices.

“The development of optical interconnects equipped with high-density nanolasers would improve information processing in the data centers that move information across the internet,” sai...

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Quadruped Robot with Magnetized Feet can Climb on Metal Buildings and Structures

Quadruped robot with magnetized feet can climb on metal buildings and structures
MARVEL description. (A) MARVEL clinging to a steel storage tank. (B) MARVEL electronic architecture. (C) Mechanical and electronic components of MARVEL. Credit: Science Robotics (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.add1017

A trio of researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, working with a colleague at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has designed and built a working quadruped robot with magnetized feet that can climb on the walls and ceilings of metal buildings and structures.

In their paper published in in the journal Science Robotics, Seungwoo Hong, Yong Um, Hae-Won Park and Jaejun Park describe their robot and how well it worked when tested under real world conditions.

As the technology used to build robots improves, engineers find more ways...

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Producing ‘Green’ Energy – literally – from Living Plant ‘Bio-Solar Cells’

Leaves of a succulent plant. Two pieces of metal marked “anode” and “cathode” are inserted into one leaf and connected to electrical wires.
The ice plant succulent shown here can become a living solar cell and power a circuit using photosynthesis.
Credit: Adapted from ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2022, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c15123

Though plants can serve as a source of food, oxygen and décor, they’re not often considered to be a good source of electricity. But by collecting electrons naturally transported within plant cells, scientists can generate electricity as part of a “green,” biological solar cell. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have, for the first time, used a succulent plant to create a living “bio-solar cell” that runs on photosynthesis.

In all living cells, from bacteria and fungi to plants and animals, electrons are shuttled around as part of natural, biochemical proces...

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Light Years Ahead: The Advanced Chip Shaping an Ultrafast Tech Future

Research led by Monash University, RMIT and the University of Adelaide has developed an accurate method of controlling optical circuits on fingernail-sized photonic integrated circuits.

The development, published in the journal Optica builds on the work by the same team who recently created the world’s first self-calibrated photonic chip.

Photonics, or the use of light particles to store and transmit information, is a burgeoning field, supporting our need to create faster, better, more efficient and more sustainable technology.

Programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs), offer diverse signal processing functions within a single chip, and present promising solutions for applications ranging from optical communications to artificial intelligence.

Whether it’s downloadi...

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