Search results for '6G'

Electronic Metadevices Break Barriers to Ultrafast Communications

© iStock/wragg
Samizadeh Nikoo, M., Matioli, E. Electronic metadevices for terahertz applications. Nature 614, 451–455 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05595-z

EPFL researchers have come up with a new approach to electronics that involves engineering metastructures at the sub-wavelength scale. It could launch the next generation of ultra-fast devices for exchanging massive amounts of data, with applications in 6G communications and beyond.

Until now, the ability to make electronic devices faster has come down to a simple principle: scaling down transistors and other components. But this approach is reaching its limit, as the benefits of shrinking are counterbalanced by detrimental effects like resistance and decreased output power.

Elison Matioli of the Power and Wide-band-gap Elect...

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Evidence that Saturn’s moon Mimas is a Stealth Ocean World

Saturn moon Mimas and a graph of two options of its geology
Courtesy of NASA/JPL/SSI/SwRI

Simulations suggest that Saturn’s smallest, innermost moon could have an expanding, geologically young ocean. When a Southwest Research Institute scientist discovered surprising evidence that Saturn’s smallest, innermost moon could generate the right amount of heat to support a liquid internal ocean, colleagues began studying Mimas’ surface to understand how its interior may have evolved. Numerical simulations of the moon’s Herschel impact basin, the most striking feature on its heavily cratered surface, determined that the basin’s structure and the lack of tectonics on Mimas are compatible with a thinning ice shell and geologically young ocean.

“In the waning days of NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn, the spacecraft identified a curious libration, or os...

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A Greener Internet of Things with No Wires attached

A greener internet of things with no wires attached
Wirelessly powered electronics developed by KAUST researchers could help to make internet of things technology more environmentally friendly. Credit: © 2022 KAUST; Heno Hwang

Emerging forms of thin-film device technologies that rely on alternative semiconductor materials, such as printable organics, nanocarbon allotropes and metal oxides, could contribute to a more economically and environmentally sustainable IoT, a KAUST-led international team suggests.

Their paper is published in the journal Nature Electronics.

The IoT is set to have a major impact on daily life and many industries...

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Rare Sighting of Luminous Jet Spewed by Supermassive Black Hole

Image credit: Zwicky Transient Facility/R.Hurt (Caltech/IPAC).

What happens when a dying star flies too close to a supermassive black hole? Astronomers discover a bright optical flare caused by a dying star’s encounter with a supermassive black hole.

According to University of Maryland astronomer Igor Andreoni, several things happen: first, the star is violently ripped apart by the black hole’s gravitational tidal forces — similar to how the Moon pulls tides on Earth but with greater strength. Then, pieces of the star are captured into a swiftly spinning disk orbiting the black hole. Finally, the black hole consumes what remains of the doomed star in the disk. This is what astronomers call a tidal disruption event (TDE).

But in some extremely rare cases, the supermassive black ho...

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