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    Category Technology/Electronics

    Graphene teams up with 2D Crystals for Faster Data Communications

    October 6, 2015, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Graphene/WSe2 (2-D material)/graphene heterostructure. Credit: ICFO-Fabien Vialla

    Graphene/WSe2 (2-D material)/graphene heterostructure. Credit: ICFO-Fabien Vialla

    A 2D crystal, combined with graphene, has the capability to detect optical pulses with a response faster than 10 picoseconds, while maintaining a high efficiency, a new study demonstrates. Ultra-fast detection of light lies at the heart of optical communication systems nowadays. Driven by the internet of things and 5G, data communication bandwidth is growing exponentially, thus requiring even faster optical detectors that can be integrated into photonic circuits.

    Prof Frank Koppens’s team has shown that a 2D crystal, combined with graphene, has the capability to detect optical pulses with a response faster than 10 picoseconds, while maintaining a high efficiency...

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    Crucial Hurdle Overcome in Quantum Computing

    October 6, 2015, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    This image shows inside the laboratories at ANFF, where the researchers designed and built the world's first two-qubit logic gate. Credit: UNSW

    This image shows inside the laboratories at ANFF, where the researchers designed and built the world’s first two-qubit logic gate. Credit: UNSW

    Quantum logic gate in silicon built for the for the first time, making calculations between 2 qubits of information possible – and thereby clearing the final hurdle to making silicon quantum computers a reality. “What we have is a game changer,” said Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor and Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW. “Because we use essentially the same device technology as existing computer chips, we believe it will be much easier to manufacture a full-scale processor chip than for any of the leading designs, which rely on more exotic technologies.”

    In classical computers, data is rendered as binary bits, which ...

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    Molecular Nanoribbons as Electronic Highways

    October 5, 2015, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    One-dimensional (1D) zigzag [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) nanoribbons are produced by folding two-dimensional ultrathin PCBM nanosheets in a simple solvent process. The unique 1D PCBM nanostructures exhibit uniform width of 3.8 ± 0.3 nm, equivalent to four PCBM molecules, and lengths of 20–400 nm. These nanoribbons show well-defined crystalline structure, comprising PCBM molecules in a hexagonal arrangement without trapped solvent molecules. First-principle calculations and detailed experimental characterization provide an insight into the structure and formation mechanism of the 1D PCBM nanoribbons. Given their dimensions and physical properties, we foresee that these nanostructures should be ideal as acceptor material in organic solar cells.

    One-dimensional (1D) zigzag [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) nanoribbons are produced by folding two-dimensional ultrathin PCBM nanosheets in a simple solvent process. The unique 1D PCBM nanostructures exhibit uniform width of 3.8 ± 0.3 nm, equivalent to four PCBM molecules, and lengths of 20–400 nm. These nanoribbons show well-defined crystalline structure, comprising PCBM molecules in a hexagonal arrangement without trapped solvent molecules. First-principle calculations and detailed experimental characterization provide an insight into the structure and formation mechanism of the 1D PCBM nanoribbons. Given their dimensions and physical properties, we foresee that these nanostructures should be ideal as acceptor material in organic solar cells.

    Physicists have develope...

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    Light-Based Memory Chip is the 1st ever to Store Data Permanently

    October 5, 2015, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    A schematic of the device, showing its structure and the propagation of light through it. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford

    A schematic of the device, showing its structure and the propagation of light through it. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford

    The device, which makes use of materials used in CDs and DVDs, could help dramatically improve the speed of modern computing. Today’s computers are held back by the relatively slow transmission of electronic data between the processor and the memory. ‘There’s no point using faster processors if the limiting factor is the shuttling of information to-and-from the memory — the so-called von-Neumann bottleneck,’ explains Professor Harish Bhaskaran.

    Simply bridging the processor-memory gap with photons isn’t efficient, though, because of the need to convert them back into electronic signals at each end...

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