Category Technology/Electronics

Strong lowering of ionization energy of metallic clusters by organic ligands without changing shell filling. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04799-0

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have discovered a novel strategy for creating superatoms – combinations of atoms that can mimic the properties of more than one group of elements of the periodic table. These superatoms could be used to create new materials, including more efficient batteries and better semiconductors; a core component of microchips, transistors and most computerized devices.

Batteries and semiconductors rely on the movement of charges from one group of atoms to another. During this process, electrons are transferred from donor atoms to acceptor atoms...

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in printing microelectrode arrays directly onto several soft substrates. Soft materials are better suited for devices that directly measure electrical signals from organs like the brain or heart. Credit: Copyright N. Adly / TUM

Printing microelectrode arrays on gelatin and other soft materials could pave the way for new medical diagnostics tools. Microelectrodes can be used for direct measurement of electrical signals in the brain or heart. These applications require soft materials, however. With existing methods, attaching electrodes to such materials poses significant challenges. A team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now succeeded in printing electrodes directly onto several soft substrates.

Researc...

Hugo Dil and Juraj Krempasky with the experimental set-up at the Paul Scherrer Institut. Credit: Hugo Dil/EPFL

Physicists have found a way to reverse electron spins using electric fields for the first time, paving the way for programmable spintronics technologies. Spintronics is a field of physics that studies the spin of electrons, an intrinsic type of magnetism that many elementary particles have. The field of spintronics has given rise to technological concepts of “spintronic devices,” which would run on electron spins, rather than their charge, used by traditional electronics.

In order to build programmable spintronic devices we first need to be able to manipulate spins in certain materials...

For the first time, the quantum state of a superconducting qubit was transferred with a coaxial cable to another qubit. Credit: Copyright ETH Zurich /M. Pechal, T. Walter, P. Kurpiers

In the new quantum information technologies, fragile quantum states have to be transferred between distant quantum bits. Researchers have now realized such a quantum transmission between two solid-state qubits at the push of a button. At the ETH in Zurich, a team of physicists led by Andreas Wallraff of the Laboratory for Solid State Physics has now succeeded in transmitting quantum information, at the push of button and with high fidelity, between two quantum bits roughly a metre apart.

The main peculiarity of quantum information technologies, such as quantum computers and quantum cryptography, is the use of...