Category Technology/Electronics

Observation of D Coulomb drag between adjacent Quantum Spin Hall (QSH) Edges separated by an Air Gap

1D Coulomb drag in topological circuits. Credit: Du et al.

Two important factors limiting Moore’s Law are power consumption and Coulomb interactions. Coulomb interactions are interactions between electric charges that follow Coloumb’s law, an electrodynamics theory. These interactions can be a major challenge for the development of nanoelectronic circuits.

QSH insulators are particularly promising materials for the development of low-power electronics, yet so far the impact of Coulomb interactions on nanocircuits made by these materials have only been examined theoretically, rather than experimentally.

Researchers at Nanjing University and Peking University have recently observed one-dimensional (1D) Coulomb drag between adjacent QSH edges separated by an air gap...

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Novel Heat-Management material keeps Computers Running Cool

Schematic illustrating thermal management in electronics chip packaging
Schematic illustrating thermal management in electronics chip packaging

UCLA engineers have demonstrated successful integration of a novel semiconductor material into high-power computer chips to reduce heat on processors and improve their performance. The advance greatly increases energy efficiency in computers and enables heat removal beyond the best thermal-management devices currently available.

The research was led by Yongjie Hu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Nature Electronics recently published the finding in this article.

Computer processors have shrunk down to nanometer scales over the years, with billions of transistors sitting on a single computer chip...

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The First Commercially Scalable Integrated Laser and Microcomb on a Single Chip

Artist's concept illustration of electrically controlled optical frequency combs at wafer scale
Artist’s concept illustration of electrically controlled optical frequency combs at wafer scale
Photo Credit: 
ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN LONG

Fifteen years ago, UC Jim Sanchezta Barbara electrical and materials professor John Bowers pioneered a method for integrating a laser onto a silicon wafer. The technology has since been widely deployed in combination with other silicon photonics devices to replace the copper-wire interconnects that formerly linked servers at data centers, dramatically increasing energy efficiency — an important endeavor at a time when data traffic is growing by roughly 25% per year.

For several years, the Bowers group has collaborated with the group of Tobias J...

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Speedy Nanorobots could Someday Clean Up Soil and Water, Deliver Drugs

A schematic diagram showing the observation of particles moving through a generic porous material.
CREDIT
Haichao Wu

University of Colorado Boulder researchers have discovered that minuscule, self-propelled particles called “nanoswimmers” can escape from mazes as much as 20 times faster than other passive particles, paving the way for their use in everything from industrial clean-ups to medication delivery.

The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe how these tiny synthetic nanorobots are incredibly effective at escaping cavities within maze-like environments...

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