Category Technology/Electronics

Breakthrough could launch organic electronics beyond cell phone screens Researchers used ultraviolet light to excite molecules in a semiconductor, triggering reactions that split up and activated a dopant Credit: Jing Wang and Xin Lin

A discovery by Princeton University, Georgia Institute of Technology and Humboldt University in Berlin points the way to more widespread use of an advanced technology known as organic electronics. The research focuses on organic semiconductors, a class of materials prized for their applications in emerging technologies such as flexible electronics, solar energy conversion, and high-quality color displays for smartphones and televisions...

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering doctoral candidate Joshua DeGraff developed an advanced class of scalable motion sensors using silver ink electrodes and sheets of pure carbon nanotube buckypaper. Credit: FSU Photography Services

Researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering have developed a class of breakthrough motion sensors that could herald a near future of ubiquitous, fully integrated and affordable wearable technology...

An IBM cryostat wired for a 50 qubit system. Credit: IBM

IBM has announced a milestone in its race against Google and other big tech firms to build a powerful quantum computer. Dario Gil, who leads IBM’s quantum computing and artificial intelligence research division, said it’s scientists have successfully built and measured a processor prototype with 50 qubits. Gil says it’s the first time any company has built a quantum computer at this scale.

This new processor expands upon the 20 qubit architecture and will be made available in the next generation IBM Q systems. Clients will have online access to the computing power of the first IBM Q systems by the end of 2017, with a series of planned upgrades during 2018...

Light on a CMOS chip. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Twente

Electronics and light don’t go well together on a standard ‘CMOS’ chip. Researcher Satadal Dutta of the University of Twente succeeded in introducing a light connection into the heart of a semiconductor chip. In this way, two circuits can communicate. Or: the worlds of electronics and photonics are connected.

What is particularly attractive about Dutta’s solution is that no special materials or manufacturing processes are needed: the light comes from silicon. The light source, detector and the light channel can be made using the technology that is used to make the electronic circuits...