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    Category Technology/Electronics

    Scientists Break Record for Highest-Temperature Superconductor

    May 24, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Lanthanum (periodic table symbol).
    Credit: © concept w / Adobe Stock

    Experiment produces new material that can conduct electricity perfectly. University of Chicago scientists are part of an international research team that has discovered superconductivity – the ability to conduct electricity perfectly – at the highest temperatures ever recorded.

    Using advanced technology at UChicago-affiliated Argonne National Laboratory, the team studied a class of materials in which they observed superconductivity at temperatures of about minus-23 degrees Celsius (minus-9 degrees Fahrenheit) – a jump of about 50 degrees compared to the previous confirmed record.

    Though the superconductivity happened under extremely high pressure, the result still represents a big step toward creating supercon...

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    ‘Spider-like Senses’ could help Autonomous Machines see Better

    May 21, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Hortense Le Ferrand, André R. Studart, Andres F. Arrieta. Filtered Mechanosensing Using Snapping Composites with Embedded Mechano-Electrical Transduction. ACS Nano, 2019; 13 (4): 4752 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.9b01095

    Researchers are building animal-inspired sensors into the shells of aircraft, cars. Researchers are building ‘spidey senses’ into the shells of autonomous cars and drones so that they could detect and avoid objects better.

    Better sensing capabilities would make it possible for drones to navigate in dangerous environments and for cars to prevent accidents caused by human error. Current state-of-the-art sensor technology doesn’t process data fast enough – but nature does.

    And researchers wouldn’t have to create a radioactive spider to give autonomous machines superhero...

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    New AI Sees Like a Human, Filling in the Blanks

    May 19, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    How an AI Takes a Few Glimpses and Infers the Whole
    A new AI agent developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin takes a few “glimpses” of its surroundings, representing less than 20 percent of the full 360 degree view, and infers the rest of the whole environment. What makes this system so effective is that it’s not just taking pictures in random directions but, after each glimpse, choosing the next shot that it predicts will add the most new information about the whole scene. Credit: David Steadman/Santhosh Ramakrishnan/University of Texas at Austin.

    Computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have taught an artificial intelligence agent how to do something that usually only humans can do – take a few quick glimpses around and infer its whole environment, a skill necessary for the development o...

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    Ultra-Clean Fabrication platform produces nearly ideal 2D Transistors

    May 19, 2019, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    An enhanced optical microscope image of a Hall-bar structure used to characterize transistor properties for devices made with ultraclean transferred contacts. The long radial lines, made from deposited gold, connect the small contacts at the center of the device to large probe pads for easy measurements.

    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...

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