Category Technology/Electronics

Sunshine streaming through a window could be directly harnessed for wireless data transmission to electronic devices. KAUST researchers have designed a smart glass system that can modulate the sunlight passing through it, encoding data into the light that can be detected and decoded by devices in the room. The use of sunlight to send data would offer a greener mode of communication compared to conventional Wi-Fi or cellular data transmission.

Basem Shihada had been exploring data encoding into an artificial light source when he had the lightbulb moment to use sunshine...

Mesoscopic dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) were invented in 1990s by Brian O’Regan and Michael Grätzel, taking on the latter’s name – the world-famous Grätzel cells. DSCs convert light into electricity through photosensitizers – dye compounds that absorb light and inject electrons into an array of oxide nanocrystals which subsequently are collected as electric current.

In DSCs, photosensitizers are attached (“adsorbed”) to the surface of nanocrystalline mesoporous titanium dioxide films that are imbibed with redox active electrolytes or a solid charge-transport material – the entire design aims...

For the first time, physicists have observed novel quantum effects in a topological insulator at room temperature. This breakthrough, published as the cover article of the October issue of Nature Materials, came when Princeton scientists explored a topological material based on the element bismuth.

The scientists have used topological insulators to demonstrate quantum effects for more than a decade, but this experiment is the first time these effects have been observed at room temperature. Typically, inducing and observing quantum states in topological insulators requires temperatures around absolute zero, which is equal to -459 degrees Fahrenheit (or -273 degrees Celsius).

This finding opens up a new range of possibilities for the development of efficient quantum technologies, ...

With scanning ultrafast electron microscopy, researchers unveil promising hot photocarrier transport properties of cubic boron arsenide. In a study that confirms its promise as the next-generation semiconductor material, UC Santa Barbara researchers have directly visualized the photocarrier transport properties of cubic boron arsenide single crystals.

“We were able to visualize how the charge moves in our sample,” said Bolin Liao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineeri...