Category Technology/Electronics

A research team led by Associate Professor Christian Nijhuis from the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science (second from right) has recently invented a novel “converter” that can harness the speed and small size of plasmons for high frequency data processing and transmission in nanoelectronics.

Invention bagged 4 patents and could potentially make microprocessor chips work 1000X faster. Advancement in nanoelectronics has been fueled by the ever-increasing need to shrink the size of electronic devices in a bid to produce smaller, faster and smarter gadgets such as computers, memory storage devices, displays and medical diagnostic tools.

While most advanced electronic devices are powered by photonics – which involves the use of photons to transmit information – photonic e...

This is the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarization. Credit: Thor Balkhed

Ferroelectric self-assembled molecular materials. Scientists have developed the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarization. Professor Martijn Kemerink of Linköping University has worked with colleagues in Spain and the Netherlands to develop the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarisation. The phenomenon can be used for small and flexible digital memories of the future, and for completely new types of solar cells.

The research group shows the phenomenon in action in three specially built molecules, and proposes a model ...

Metallosphaera sedula. Credit: University of Vienna

Scientists around Tetyana Milojevic from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna are in search of unique biosignatures, which are left on synthetic extraterrestrial minerals by microbial activity. The biochemist and astrobiologist investigates these signatures at her own miniaturized “Mars farm” where she can observe interactions between the archaeon Metallosphaera sedula and Mars-like rocks. These microbes are capable of oxidizing and integrating metals into their metabolism.

The team investigates interactions between Metallosphaera sedula, a microbe that inhabits extreme environments, and different minerals which contain nutrients in form of metals...

Contrary to classical bits, quantum bits can assume two states at the same time: Right and left, yellow and blue, zero and one.
Credit: KIT

Hurricanes, traffic jams, demographic development – to predict the effect of such events, computer simulations are required. Many processes in nature, however, are so complicated that conventional computers fail. Quantum simulators may solve this problem. One of the basic phenomena in nature is the interaction between light and matter in photosynthesis. Physicists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now made a big step towards quantum mechanics understanding of plant metabolism. This is reported in Nature Communications.

“A quantum simulator is the preliminary stage of a quantum computer...