Category Technology/Electronics

In the race to make solar energy cheaper and more efficient, a team of UNSW Sydney scientists and engineers have found a way to push past one of the biggest limits in renewable technology.

Singlet fission is a process where a single particle of light—a photon—can be split into two packets of energy, effectively doubling the electrical output when applied to technologies harnessing the sun.

In a study appearing in ACS Energy Letters , the UNSW team—known as “Omega Silicon”—showed how this works on an organic material that could one day be mass-produced specifically for use with solar panels.

“A lot of the energy from light in...

Don’t be fooled by the fog machine, spooky lights and fake bats: the robotics lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute lab isn’t hosting a Halloween party.

Instead, it’s a testing ground for tiny drones that can be deployed in search and rescue missions even in dark, smoky or stormy conditions.

“We all know that when there’s an earthquake or a tsunami, the first thing that goes down is power lines. A lot of times, it’s at night, and you’re not going to wait until the next morning to go and rescue survivors,” said Nitin Sanket, assistant professor of robotics engineering...

Over the past decades, electronics engineers have developed a wide range of memory devices that can safely and efficiently store increasing amounts of data. However, the different types of devices developed to date come with their own trade-offs, which pose limits on their overall performance and restrict their possible applications.

Researchers at Université Grenoble Alpes (CEA-Leti, CEA List), Université de Bordeaux (CNRS) and Université Paris-Saclay (CNRS) recently developed a new memory device that combines two complementary components typically used individually, known as memristors and ferroelectric capacitors (FeCAPs)...

Over the past decade, deep learning has transformed how artificial intelligence (AI) agents perceive and act in digital environments, allowing them to master board games, control simulated robots and reliably tackle various other tasks...