Category Technology/Electronics

Researchers for the first time apply catalytic chemical reactions to 2D sheets to generate flows that transform these sheets into mobile, 3D objects. The “magic carpet” featured in tales from “One Thousand and One Nights” to Disney’s “Aladdin” captures the imagination not only because it can fly, but because it can also wave, flap, and alter its shape to serve its riders...

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology proposed new quasi-1D materials for potential spintronic applications, an upcoming technology that exploits the spin of electrons. They performed simulations to demonstrate the spin properties of these materials and explained the mechanisms behind their behavior.

Conventional electronics is based on the movement of electrons and mainly concerns their electric charge; unfortunately, we are close to reaching the physical limits for improving electronic devices...

Engineers have succeeded in fabricating topological LC circuits arranged in a honeycomb pattern where electromagnetic (EM) waves can propagate without backscattering even when pathways turn sharply. These circuits may be suitable for use as high-frequency electromagnetic waveguides, which would allow miniaturization and high integration in various electronics devices, such as mobile phones.

There has been a surge in searching for materials with topological properties, whose functions are not influenced even if the sample shapes are changed...

Progress in the development of highly reliable and sensitive diamond MEMS sensors. A NIMS-led research group succeeded in developing a high-quality diamond cantilever with among the highest quality (Q) factor values at room temperature ever achieved. The group also succeeded for the first time in the world in developing a single crystal diamond microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor chip that can be actuated and sensed by electrical signals. These achievements may popularize research on diamond MEMS with significantly higher sensitivity and greater reliability than existing silicon MEMS.

MEMS sensors – in which microscopic cantilevers (projecting beams fixed at only one end) and electronic circuits are int...