Category Technology/Electronics

Columbia Engineering researchers report that they have demonstrated a nearly ideal transistor made from a 2D material stack – with only a two-atom-thick semiconducting layer – by developing a completely clean and damage-free fabrication process. Their method shows vastly improved performance compared to 2D semiconductors fabricated with a conventional process, and could provide a scalable platform for creating ultra-clean devices in the future.

Researchers at Columbia Engineering repo...

The invention uses magnets to record computer data which consume virtually zero energy, solving the dilemma of how to create faster data processing speeds without the accompanying high energy costs. Today’s data centre servers consume between 2 to 5% of global electricity consumption, producing heat which in turn requires more power to cool the servers.

The problem is so acute that Microsoft has even submerged hundreds of its data centre services in the ocean in an effort to keep them cool and cut costs. Most data are encoded as binary information (0 or 1 respectively) through the orientation of tiny magnets, called spins, in magnetic hard-drives...

Coating provides extra layer of protection for battery cathodes. Scientists have developed a new cathode coating by using an oxidative chemical vapor deposition technique. It can keep a battery’s cathode electrically and ionically conductive and ensures that the battery stays safe after many cycles. “The coating we’ve discovered really hits five or six birds with one stone.” Khalil Amine, Argonne distinguished fellow and battery scientist.

In the research, Amine and his fellow researchers took particles of Argonne’s pioneering nickel-mangan...

Collaborating scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Princeton University have discovered a new layered ferromagnetic semiconductor, a rare type of material that holds great promise for next-generation electronic technologies.

As the name implies, semiconductors are the Goldilocks of electrically conductive materials— not a metal, and not an insulator, but a “just-right” in-between whose conducting properties can be altered and customized in ways that create the basis for the world’s modern electronic capabilities. Especially rare are the ones closer to an insulator than to a metal.

The recent discovery o...