The massive hardware demands of artificial intelligence (AI) applications are stretching the physical and structural limitations of semiconductors. But researchers have engineered a three-dimensional silicon chip that they propose as the solution.

In a new study published May 27 in the journal Nature, scientists found a way to cram more computing power into a chip by stacking silicon circuits in multiple layers in a way that doesn't impact performance.

Stacking chips vertically, known as 3D integration, is more efficient than traditional 2D chips, where silicon circuits are spread across a single surface. This is because stacking shortens the distance that data has to travel and reduces the power required for data transmission.

The researchers' 3D chip uses ultrathin silicon membranes and low-temperature manufacturing techniques to overcome the challenges of current chip architectures.

"Our method is not only easier to implement with lower cost, but it has several advantages over previous approaches to stack silicon wafers," Qing Cao, first author of the study and a materials science and engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement.

Extending Moore's law

Since the 1960s, ensuring that electronics can handle more demanding applications has meant making transistors smaller so more can be packed onto a single chip. But, as Cao pointed out, doubling the number of transistors every couple of years — a principle known as Moore's law — is becoming less feasible.

"If you look at the actual size of transistors, they're not getting smaller, especially in terms of their contacted gate pitch," Cao said in the statement — defined as the combined width of one transistor gate and the space needed to separate it from the next.

"This is because we're becoming limited by the intrinsic material properties of silicon and the fundamental rules of quantum mechanics. If we're going to keep up the trend of increasing processing power of our microprocessors, we have to start thinking beyond just squeezing more devices on a single surface."

The researchers think vertical integration across multiple layers is the best way to guarantee that engineers can continue to adhere to Moore's law, because this approach creates room for more transistors on a chip.

"Today it takes six microelectronic devices called transistors on a single plane to store one bit of information," Cao explained, suggesting that just like in a densely populated city, the only way to solve overcrowding is to build upward. "You get the same functionality, but the spatial footprint is reduced while making communication between layers faster and more efficient."

Getting around the heat problem

Stacking is nothing new, of course, but vertical integration — building layers directly on top of one another — can create thermally dense packages. In the study, the researchers noted that the fabrication of high-quality silicon chips demands temperatures up to 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius).

However, once the first chip layer has been completed, the metal wiring introduced to connect further layers can be destroyed by such high temperatures. As a result, the "thermal budget" — the maximum amount of heat that can be endured before degradation starts to occur — for any additional layers is 752 F (400 C), said Cao. This can result in performance and reliability issues.

When creating 3D stacked silicon chips, manufacturers have sought to avoid this problem by using alternatives to single-crystalline silicon for the upper layers, according to the researchers. These materials include amorphous and nanocrystalline metal oxides, carbon nanotubes and polycrystalline silicon, but they can lead to performance and reliability issues, the scientists said in the study.

To overcome this challenge, Cao and his team adopted an approach called "monolithic integration" — a process in which all chip components are fabricated on a single piece of substrate, as opposed to making them separately and then bonding them together later.

To build each chip, the researchers created ultrathin silicon nanomembranes that they then transferred, using a roll laminator, onto a substrate containing the bottom layer.

The maximum temperature required to generate a strong bond using this method was just 392 F (200 C) — five times less than the heat normally required. The membranes they transferred were also just 10 nanometers thick or less — about the size of a protein — compared with the approximately 500-to-700-micrometer (500,000 to 700,000 nanometers) thickness of a typical wafer. Because they are thin, these membranes are mechanically flexible to conform to the underlying surface, Cao added.

The result of this process was a 3D chip with three layers, each containing 625 transistors. This pales in comparison to the billions of transistors that can be crammed onto chips already on the market, but the researchers believe their technology boasts power efficiency benefits. The electrical current that can flow through the chip has proved to be at least three to four times greater than that of monolithic chips made from alternative materials.

The big question is whether their 3D silicon chip can make the leap from the laboratory to commercial applications. While the research demonstrates the potential of a chip comprising three stacked layers, the scientists suggested that plenty more layers can be added in future iterations.

Can you match these ancient devices to their pictures? Find out with our computing quiz!

A breakthrough in photonic chips could make large, costly, ultrafast lasers dramatically smaller, leading to portable and affordable imaging, diagnostic and information-processing devices, researchers say.

By using a decades-old overlooked laser architecture, scientists managed to fit an ultrafast laser onto a tiny photonic chip — a chip that uses light, rather than electricity, for computing operations.

In a new study published June 3 in the journal Nature, the team demonstrated that a tiny laser on the photonic chip could deliver 1.05 nanojoules of energy in 147-femtosecond (147 quadrillionths of a second) bursts — thereby competing with the output of laboratory-class ultrafast lasers.

Ultrafast lasers are used in a variety of applications, from precision manufacturing and eye surgery to biological imaging and atomic clocks, but the systems needed to power them tend to take up whole tabletops in labs or factories. Yet the powerful output of these laser pulses made them difficult to miniaturise onto photonic chips.

"For more than twenty years, a high-pulse-energy femtosecond laser on chip was widely regarded as a holy grail of integrated photonics," Tobias Kippenberg, a photonics professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology(EPFL), said in a statement.

"Our result shows that it is not only possible, but that it can be achieved with a surprisingly elegant architecture that the integrated-photonics community had overlooked."

Forward-thinking breakthrough comes from looking back

Photonic chips manipulate light by using microscopic structures called waveguides — usually in the form of optical fibers or etched cavities — to carry information. They aren't particularly novel, and can be found in fiber-optic communications, medical sensors and lidar systems.

But photonic chips have previously struggled when handling high-powered, ultrafast lasers. That's because they need to contain light to extremely small waveguides, leading the light to interact strongly with itself and destabilizing the laser pulses.

To tackle this problem, the researchers looked at a laser architecture called the Mamyshev oscillator, created in 1998 by Pavel V. Mamyshev, a physicist and engineer at Bell Labs.

This oscillator, which has received little attention in the world of photonic chips, works by placing a nonlinear waveguide between two optical filters. This causes a high-intensity laser pulse to expand into a broader range of colors that can then pass through both filters while weaker light, which can cause laser destabilization, is blocked out. This technique essentially means that a high-intensity laser pulse can be maintained.

Because the Mamyshev oscillator doesn't require extra components to manufacture on a chip, it presents an attractive design for use on photonic chips. And although the laser cavity needed to direct an ultrafast laser is 16.5 inches (42 centimeters) long, it can be folded to occupy around the same area as a match head. This can't be done with conventional fiber-optic-based lasers, often used in photonic chips.

That takes care of the size, but the cost of ultrafast laser systems is another challenge. But because photonic chips can be fabricated using silicon wafers in the same fashion as computer chips, more than 1,000 laser cavities could potentially be produced in a single batch, the researchers said. As such, photonic chips with ultrafast laser capabilities could be produced at scale, in turn reducing manufacturing costs and even expanding their use.

Photonic chips capable of handling ultrafast lasers could, in the future, lead to portable tools for tasks like detecting pollutants or performing advanced medical diagnostics in the field, the researchers noted in the study. The technology also opens the door to smaller atomic clocks that can benefit navigation and future communications.

Researchers in Japan have created a device that promises to boost computer processing speeds, without generating massive amounts of additional heat.

Two of the limiting factors in high-performance computing, especially for the processors used in data centers, are the costly energy inputs required and the massive amount of waste heat generated. Generally, the faster a processor performs, the more heat it generates.

This principle applies to the largest and smallest machines; most people are familiar with the sound of fans whirring to cool down components when a computer is performing a particularly complex function. Cloud data centers, meanwhile, might have tens of thousands of servers, each generating massive amounts of heat from their processors.

But a new device, called a "non-volatile switching element," is capable of rapid processing without the problematic heat generation that's typically associated with fast processing, scientists have discovered.

The new device could process a bit — the smallest unit of information, represented as a "1" or a "0" — in just 40 picoseconds, or 40 trillionths of a second. For comparison, conventional chips struggle to process a bit in less than a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second.

In the new study, published May 14 in the journal Science, the scientists demonstrated that ultralow-power switching in the picosecond range was possible.

Tapping into the power of light

The researchers built this nonvolatile switching element device from ultrathin layers of tantalum (Ta) and Mn₃Sn atop a silica base. They chose tantalum, a refractory metal that can store and release electricity, and Mn3Sn because it is antiferromagnetic, meaning it has stable magnetic properties and is resistant to interference from external magnetic fields.

Then, they used an ultrafast pulse generator to control rapid pulses of light ‪—‬ as quick as 60 picoseconds per pulse ‪—‬ within the normal communication wavelength band. Each pulse of light passed through a high-speed photodetector called a uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTD-PD).

When the nonvolatile switching element device received pulses from the UTD-PD, the spins of the electrons in the material changed and the scientists recorded a minuscule magnetic force.

In the laboratory trials, the nonvolatile switching element operated consistently and reliably, despite performing over a billion switches, thereby proving the device's inherent stability. What's more, the process didn't require a continuous flow of electricity for the magnetic information to be maintained.

Most importantly, the processing generated minimal additional heat compared with that generated by a conventional computing processor. The nonvolatile switching element device could therefore bypass the challenge of high-speed processing by operating in a way that did not generate massive amounts of heat.

Minimizing waste heat

Waste heat is currently a major barrier to scaling up data centers' processing power, the scientists noted in the study ‪—‬ and this device could remove that limitation. Due to the low power requirements and low thermal generation, the nonvolatile switching element could dramatically reduce the power demands of processors.

However, manufacturing enough of these devices to make a difference may pose further challenges. Tantalum is a rare metal that is already in high demand, so there may be supply issues to overcome. The device would also need to be tested outside laboratory conditions, where external environmental factors could hinder the results.

Following the successful laboratory demonstration, a prototype chip could be ready by 2030, the scientists said in the study.

The researchers think a further reduction in the thickness of the Mn₃Sn layer will reduce power consumption even more. The next challenge, they added, will be to develop a commercially viable bulk manufacturing process capable of building the device at scale.

If you have ever tried to repair something, realized that it was beyond your financial or technical means, and ended up buying a new one, you are not alone. Repairing electronics and household appliances has not been a real option in the United States for decades now, particularly for items that have proprietary software in them.

Absurd situations have proliferated. It can cost about the same to buy a new printer as it does to replace the ink cartridge. The U.S. Department of Defense cannot repair the weapons systems it purchases because the intellectual property rights remain with the manufacturer. John Deere, the farming equipment company, doesn't allow farmers to access the software needed to repair their own combines and tractors because, while the purchase covers the physical machinery, it does not cover the software.

One consequence, in addition to cost and frustration for consumers, is environmental harm. The U.S. is the world's second producer of electronic waste after China, to the tune of about 43 lbs (19.5 kg) of electronic waste annually per person. Only 25% of this e-waste is recycled.

The right-to-repair movement emerged in response, calling for people to be able to repair what they purchase, or have third parties do the repair work, without unnecessary financial, legal or technical barriers. Right to repair seems to be a rare area of bipartisanship in Congress. The Warrior Right to Repair Act — introduced in 2025 by a Democrat —and the Repair Act — introduced by a Republican — are two ongoing legislative initiatives to create a federal legal framework that would make it easy and cheap for American users to repair their devices. Both bills are fiercely opposed by industry groups.

As a scholar of American culture, I found through my research that the origins of the legal and technical obstacles to product repairs lie in debates in the 1980s over new media and copyright guardrails.

Hollywood and VCRs

The rapid rise and popularity of video cassette recorders, or VCRs, in the late 1970s transformed films and TV shows from transient experiences into tangible consumer goods. As I show in my book, "Videotape," despite the potential for extra revenue, Hollywood was alarmed by the fact that users were now able to copy films on videotape, and tried to stop the technology. Today's repair bans are part of that story.

The first U.S. copyright provisions were embedded in the 1790 Constitution. Over time, the law was amended to include new technologies, but at the core of future legal arrangements remained the initial intent: to protect the financial rights of creators while giving enough access to information for society as a whole to progress.

Until the second half of the 20th century, the American doctrine of fair use, which allows the unlicensed use of protected works under specific conditions, allowed judges to prevent copyright law from negatively affecting public interest. Organizations such as public libraries, book clubs, universities and news organizations benefited from this legal approach. The concept was codified into American law in the Copyright Act of 1976.

When the film studios took Sony to court to stop the production and sale of video recorders in 1976, they argued that Sony's product encouraged copyright infringement. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that taping TV content for personal use did not violate copyright law, expanding the understanding of fair use.

The industry then focused on finding a technological solution to the piracy problem and on securing stricter legal protections for its products.

They identified the digital versatile disc, or DVD, as a safer alternative to the VHS tape. Initially, the DVD was a read-only format. It took a few more years of engineering before affordable recording was possible. Even then, the process was far more complicated for users than videotape recording. In 1997, barely one year after the video disc was launched, all of the Motion Picture Association of America member studios joined the DVD Forum, collectively adopted the new format and started to phase out films released on videotape.

Copyright and virtual locks

Then came digital rights management. Collectively, the term refers to the battery of technological tools that the industry developed in order to control user access to content. These include encryption software and various forms of authentication or enforcement software that limit which types of digital activities users can perform. For instance, some mechanisms block the option to download or share a digital file.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1998, provided the broad legal framework that allowed these technological locks to expand far beyond entertainment, including to software. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act reflected a new alignment in interests between the entertainment and software industries. It increased existing penalties for copyright infringement online and criminalized any technology used to bypass technological locks. The law was adopted although at the time — and since then — critics warned that it could stifle innovation and increase costs for consumers.

Since 1998, more and more consumer products, from toys to dishwashers, use microchips and proprietary software protected by copyright. Because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, third party repairers cannot alter or bypass the proprietary software. If they did so, they would be liable for infringing the manufacturer's intellectual property rights, as is the case for John Deere farm equipment. Some electronics are even designed to make tampering with the product impossible.

Manufacturers maintain that only they or authorized personnel can and should repair their products. These repairs are often quite costly. When getting a product repaired becomes almost as expensive as buying a new one, many consumers will choose to buy and throw repairable items away.

Rising resentment over repair bans

Technology tends to outpace existing legal arrangements. With over 80% of Americans supporting the right to repair, it remains to be seen when or if American law will catch up with the unexpected consequences of a law meant to protect the intellectual rights of the creative industries, but which is now hurting consumers' pocket books.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Engineers have created a device that produces tiny, earthquake-like vibrations on the surface of a chip. They say it could one day be harnessed for signal processing inside everyday electronics, potentially paving the way to smaller, faster and more efficient wireless devices.

In a new study published Jan. 14 in the journal Nature, the scientists described their device as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) phonon laser that generates very small, rapid vibrations.

"Think of it almost like the waves from an earthquake, only on the surface of a small chip," lead study author Alexander Wendt, a graduate student at the University of Arizona Wyant College of Optical Sciences, said in a statement.

In nature, SAWs are produced on a massive scale when tectonic plates slide against each other and cause earthquakes.

SAWs are also used as filters in smartphones to help clean up wireless signals. A phone's radio receives radio waves from a cell tower and then converts them into tiny mechanical vibrations, making it easier for chips to remove unwanted noise.

Multiple chips convert radio waves into SAWs and back again every time you send a text, make a call or access the internet.

SAWs in modern technology

Although they're conceptually similar to seismic surface waves released by earthquakes, SAWs are far too small to be measured on any scale like the moment magnitude scale, which is used to estimate the energy released by movement in Earth's crust.

SAW devices are essential to many of the world's most important technologies, senior study author Matt Eichenfield, a professor of quantum engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in the statement. This includes cell phones, key fobs, garage door openers, most GPS receivers, and radar systems.

The scientists said a completely solid-state, single chip that generates coherent SAWs at very high frequencies, without needing an external radio-frequency source, has never been achieved before.

Traditional SAW components typically require two separate chips plus a power source. The team's design aimed to deliver similar functionality using a single chip — potentially enabling much higher frequencies to be powered by a typical smartphonebattery.

The researchers built the device by stacking ultrathin layers of different chip materials into a tiny "bar" about 0.02 inches (0.5 millimeters) long.

This included a silicon base; a thin layer of lithium niobate, a type of piezoelectric crystal that converts electrical signals into mechanical vibrations; and a final layer of indium gallium arsenide, a semiconductor material that can accelerate electrons to extremely high speeds when exposed to an electric field.

The system works by repeatedly amplifying vibrations as they bounce back and forth inside the structure, similar to how light intensifies in a diode laser between two mirrors. Surface vibrations in the lithium niobate interact with electrons in the indium gallium arsenide, boosting the energy of the waves as they move forward.

"It loses almost 99% of its power when it's moving backward, so we designed it to get a substantial amount of gain moving forward to beat that," Wendt said in the statement.

The team generated surface waves at around 1 gigahertz — equal to billions of vibrations per second — and believes the design could be pushed into the tens or hundreds of gigahertz. That's well beyond the capabilities of typical SAW devices, which often top out around 4 GHz, the researchers said.

The long-term goal is to simplify how phones handle wireless signals — namely, by designing a single chip that can convert radio waves into SAWs and back again, using surface waves for much of the signal processing. Doing so could potentially enable future wireless devices to filter and route signals on smaller chips, using less power.

"This phonon laser was the last domino standing that we needed to knock down," Wendt added. "Now we can literally make every component that you need for a radio on one chip using the same kind of technology."

Scientists have found a new way to manipulate graphene to create a substance with record-breaking energy and power density.

When incorporated into energy storage devices called supercapacitors, this new form of graphene could be the key to high-capacity, fast-charging energy storage that could deliver power more quickly than conventional batteries, the researchers said in a statement.

The new material, called multiscale reduced graphene oxide (M-rGO), is created from graphite, a globally abundant resource. Researchers incorporated it into pouch cells, a type of rechargeable battery packaged into a thin, flexible, laminated foil envelope instead of rigid metal. The scientists published their findings Sept. 15 in the journal Nature Communications.

Pouch cells are used in electric vehicles, drones, wearable electronics, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Building them from M-rGO could lead to improvements in total capacity, charge time and the ability to power more complex and power-hungry devices with smaller batteries, according to the research team.

Soaking up power

Whereas traditional batteries store energy in chemical bonds, supercapacitors are electrochemical capacitors that store energy as separated electric charge on electrode surfaces. They have the advantage of superior energy density — how much energy can be stored in a given space — and power density — how quickly energy can be delivered per unit volume — over traditional batteries.

Until now, however, supercapacitors have been hamstrung by one significant limitation: only a portion of the potential energy storage of the materials from which they were created was available for use.

This limitation comes from graphene's physical makeup. While it has the advantage of allowing for denser electrodes — the solid conductors in a battery where charge is stored — it's very inefficient at using that space. Simply stacking graphene, for instance, is inefficient because the sheets adhere too closely together and don't leave enough space for the ions that need to move in and out to store energy.

To get around this problem, scientists built messy 3D structures similar to sponges, which provide both large amounts of storage area and pathways for ions to move. While lightweight, the downside is that these structures were large and cumbersome.

This breakthrough overcomes that issue by heating the graphene in a two-step process. This results in a tangled, curved graphene network with multiple levels of structure that still allows for the rapid movement of ions while providing lots of surface area for energy storage.

"This discovery could allow us to build fast-charging supercapacitors that store enough energy to replace batteries in many applications, and deliver it far more quickly," said Mainak Majumder, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Australia's Monash University, in the statement.

A lab accident has led engineers to build a chip that fires a rainbow of powerful laser beams — and it could help data centers better manage skyrocketing volumes of artificial intelligence (AI) data.

The new photonics chip contains an industrial-grade laser source paired with a precisely engineered optical circuit that shapes and stabilizes the light before splitting it into multiple, evenly spaced colors.

Because each color band represents an optical frequency that can carry its own unique stream of data, the technology could enable data centers to move information around far faster and more efficiently than existing optical networks such as fiber, which transmit data using single-wavelength laser pulses.

Creating this rainbow effect — called a frequency comb — typically requires large and expensive lasers and amplifiers. However, the researchers stumbled on a way to pack this powerful photonics technology into a single, tiny chip when working on a way to improve lidar (light detection and ranging) technology.

Lidar uses laser pulses to measure distance based on the time it takes them to travel to an object and bounce back. While trying to produce more powerful lasers capable of capturing detailed data from further away, the team noticed the chip was splitting the light into multiple colors.

What is a frequency comb?

A frequency comb is a type of laser light made up of multiple colors or frequencies that are evenly spaced across the optical spectrum. When plotted on a spectrogram, these frequencies appear as spikes resembling the teeth of a comb.

The peak of each "tooth" represents a stable, precisely defined wavelength that can carry information independently of the others. Because the wavelengths are locked in both frequency and phase — meaning their peaks stay perfectly aligned — they don't interfere with one another. This enables multiple data streams to travel in parallel through a single optical channel, such as a fiber-optic cable.

After stumbling on the effect by accident, the scientists then engineered a way to reproduce it intentionally and controllably. They also packed the technology into a silicon chip where light travels through waveguides mere micrometers wide; one micrometer (1 µm) is one-thousandth of a millimeter (0.0001 cm), or roughly one-hundredth the width of a human hair.

The team published their findings Oct. 7 in the journal Nature Photonics. The breakthrough is especially important now that AI is placing more and more resource strain on data center infrastructure, the researchers said.

"Data centers have created tremendous demand for powerful and efficient sources of light that contain many wavelengths," study co-author Andres Gil-Molina, principal engineer at Xscape Photonics and a former researcher at Columbia Engineering, said in a statement.

"The technology we've developed takes a very powerful laser and turns it into dozens of clean, high-power channels on a chip. That means you can replace racks of individual lasers with one compact device, cutting cost, saving space and opening the door to much faster, more energy-efficient systems."

Rainbow-on-a-chip

To create a frequency comb on a chip, the researchers needed to find a high-power laser that could be squeezed into a compact photonic circuit. They eventually settled on a multimode laser diode, which is widely used in medical devices and laser cutting tools.

Multimode laser diodes can produce powerful beams of laser light, but the beam is "messy," meaning the researchers needed to figure out how to refine and stabilize the light to make it workable, the researchers said in the study.

They achieved this using a technique called self-injection locking, which involves integrating resonators into the chip that feed a small portion of the light back into the laser. This filters and stabilizes the light, resulting in a beam that's both powerful and highly stable.

Once stabilized, the chip splits the laser beam into a multicolored frequency comb. The result is a small but efficient photonics device that combines the power of an industrial laser with the precision needed for data transmission and sensing applications, the scientists added.

Beyond data centers, the new chip could enable portable spectrometers, ultra-precise optical clocks, compact quantum devices and even advanced lidar systems.

"This is about bringing lab-grade light sources into real-world devices,” said Gil-Molina. "If you can make them powerful, efficient and small enough, you can put them almost anywhere."

Researchers have developed a lightweight computer mouse that you wear on your finger like a ring and works for more than a month on a single charge.

Called picoRing, the device weighs just 0.18 ounces (5 grams) and is designed as a discreet, low-power alternative to traditional mice.

Its inventors see it initially as a contender for controlling augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) systems, where compact, hands-free control offers a practical advantage over standard input devices. Users can scroll and interact with virtual interfaces using small hand gestures, making picoRing ideal for setups that lack desk space.

Because the ring sits in direct contact with the skin, future versions could also monitor heart rate, stress levels and other health markers, the researchers said in a statement. Combining these health features with interaction control could open the door to "multifunctional wearable devices."

"Although it's just a prototype, picoRing could have several useful impacts on the way people interact with technology," Ryo Takahashi, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo's Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, said in the statement.

"Obviously, it could mean longer-lasting wearable technology becomes more common, but it also offers a new intuitive way to interact with AR. It offers more discreet control to avoid being too obvious in public spaces, is generally more convenient because it’s so compact, and may become a platform for health sensors or other innovations."

The humble computer mouse has been kicking about for almost 60 years, and while its design has been refined and improved in that time, attempts to radically rethink it have never quite taken hold. Researchers hope picoRing's convenient form factor and month-long battery life will help it stand out, particularly as other ring-style wearables gain traction.

"Previous so-called smart rings suffer from short lifespans because their small 50-60 megawatt-hour batteries struggle to power the necessary communications components for long," Takahashi said."To solve this challenge, we needed picoRing to use hundreds of times less power at around 30-500 microwatts."

Ring of Powerpoint?

That huge battery life is the result of a unique power system called semi-passive inductive telemetry (semi-PIT), which pairs the ring with a wristband that serves as a relay between the ring and the device it controls.

This is built around a coil of wire, similar to those found in wireless chargers, but with small capacitors running along its length. Together, these boost the magnetic fields that carry signals between the ring and wristband, extending its range without needing an external amplifier.

This enables the ring itself to use much weaker and less power-hungry components than other wireless wearables. The researchers had already ruled out standard wireless systems like Bluetooth and NFC, noting that Bluetooth would consume too much power for such a small device, while NFC only works over very short distances.

As with many prototypes, picoRing faces practical constraints in its current form. It remains somewhat bulky and can be prone to interference. For the time being, it also supports only basic inputs like scrolling and clicking.

The researchers said future refinements could make the device smaller, more responsive and easier to use in everyday settings. Still, it's unlikely ever to become the go-to for more intensive office work.

"For typical office work like spreadsheets or long editing sessions, a standard mouse is still more comfortable," said Takahashi. "But as the technology improves, it could become a lightweight alternative for mobile or occasional use."

MIT researchers have improved a new type of "concrete battery" by tenfold, paving the way for its use in turning buildings, bridges and sidewalks into giant energy stores capable of powering entire cities.

The material is called electron-conducting carbon concrete — or ec³ — and is made by combining cement, water, a common liquid electrolyte and an extremely fine carbon powder called nanoscale carbon black.

When mixed together, the ingredients create a dense, conductive network capable of carrying an electrical charge. Once set into concrete, the material and anything built from it (whether they’re buildings and bridges or pavements) is able to store and release energy as needed.

It’s a concept known as supercapacitive energy storage, and researchers hope it can offer a viable solution to one of renewable energy's biggest challenges: namely, how to store power locally when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

Related: Your household gadgets could soon be battery-free — scientists create tiny solar cells that can be powered by indoor light

In a new study published Sept. 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers said they achieved a tenfold increase in the energy storage capacity of ec³ since 2023. Fivecubic meters (176.5 cubic feet) of the material can now store more than 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity — roughly enough to power a typical household for a day.

Just two years ago, achieving that level of storage would have required nine times the volume, the team said.

"With these higher energy densities and demonstrated value across a broader application space, we now have a powerful and flexible tool that can help us address a wide range of persistent energy challenges," lead author of the study Damian Stefaniuk, research scientist at MIT, said in a statement.

"One of our biggest motivations was to help enable the renewable energy transition. Solar power, for example, has come a long way in terms of efficiency. However, it can only generate power when there's enough sunlight. So, the question becomes: How do you meet your energy needs at night, or on cloudy days?"

Building batteries

While ec³ doesn't match the energy density of traditional battery technologies like lithium-ion (which pack hundreds of times more energy into the same weight or volume), the fact that it can be cast directly into building components and may last as long as the structure itself, without relying on scarce or toxic materials, makes it especially attractive to scientists.

The new performance boost came from a better understanding of the interaction between the carbon network inside the concrete and the electrolyte and from changes to how the material is made.

Rather than soaking slabs of the material in the electrolyte after it hardened, the researchers added the electrolyte directly to the water used in the initial mix. That enabled the production of thicker, more energy-dense slabs without compromising conductivity.

The team also tested different types of electrolytes, including seawater, and found several viable options. The best results came from a mix of quaternary ammonium salts — used in household disinfectants — and acetonitrile, a conductive solvent common in industrial processes.

Powering the block

Most exciting to the scientists was the realization that it only took small changes to how concrete is made to produce ec³. This potentially opens up huge opportunities in sustainable construction, where the material could be used to develop what the researchers dubbed "multifunctional concrete" that can store energy, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and even repair itself.

The material has already been tested in Japan to heat sidewalks in snowy conditions, offering a potential alternative to road salt. The team is now working toward real-world applications, from homes that operate off-grid to parking spaces and roads that could one day charge electric vehicles.

"What excites us most is that we've taken a material as ancient as concrete and shown that it can do something entirely new," study co-author James Weaver, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University, said in the statement.

"By combining modern nanoscience with an ancient building block of civilization, we're opening a door to infrastructure that doesn't just support our lives, it powers them."

Researchers have developed a tiny device that extinguishes one of the biggest heat sources in quantum computers, cutting their running costs and potentially bringing these machines closer to commercial reality.

Most quantum computers operate at temperatures close to absolute zero (459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) using specialized cooling equipment to maintain the delicate quantum states of qubits — the core processing units of quantum systems.

Cryogenic amplifiers are also used in quantum computers to boost the extremely weak signals qubits emit at these ultra-low temperatures. This makes it possible to accurately measure their quantum states — which is needed in order to understand what the quantum computer is actually doing.

The challenge with existing amplifiers used to measure qubit behaviour — or any electronics used in quantum computers, for that matter — is that they generate heat. This means the quantum systems require additional cooling systems that add bulk and cost, both of which present major barriers to making quantum systems practical and scalable.

Now, Qubic, a Canadian startup, has devised a cryogenic traveling-wave parametric amplifier (TWPA) made from unspecified "quantum materials" that enables an amplifier to operate with virtually zero heat loss, representatives from the company said in a statement.

They added that this device reduced thermal output by a factor of 10,000 — down to practically zero.

Related: Why quantum computing at 1 degree above absolute zero is such a big deal

The company plans to bring its amplifier to market in 2026.

"The quantum computing industry continues to progress quickly, yet technological barriers remain, and these must be overcome before the industry can deliver utility-scale quantum computers," Jérôme Bourassa, CEO and co-founder of Qubic Technologies, said in the statement. "This project will produce a new type of amplifier which will remove one of those key barriers."

There's been a huge amount of research into how quantum computers can break through the practicality barrier. Scientists have also been exploring quantum error correction (QEC) s to reduce the error rates in qubits and make them more usable.

While some teams have focused on cooling system innovations — from autonomous quantum fridges to cryogenic control chips — other work has used photonic, or light-based, qubits that can operate at room temperature and don't need complex cooling systems.

Then there are more radical approaches like ETH Zürich's, which developed a fully mechanical qubit that eschews conventional quantum system design entirely.

Researchers have developed a breakthrough technology that solves a fundamental limit in electronics.

This new technology, dubbed an "optoexcitonic switch," could lead to a new class of electronics — ranging from phones and PCs to data centers and quantum computers that can operate at without generating waste heat.

The new switch works like a conventional electronic switch, which uses an electrical charge to control the flow of electrons in a system. Switches direct the flow of energy or control the transmission of signals in a device.

Because these electrons are charged, they produce "waste heat." This is why your laptop gets hot when you play a demanding video game and why massive data centers operate at extraordinarily high temperatures.

The new "excitonic switches," on the other hand, rely on neutrally charged "excitons" — a class of quasiparticles created by "exciting" an electron in such a way that it's removed from its position within an atom.

These excited electrons leave behind a hole that binds with the free electron. Together, the free-moving electron, which now has a negative charge, and the hole it leaves behind, which has a positive charge, form a single quasiparticle called an "exciton" that remains neutrally charged. As excitons have a neutral charge, they don't produce heat when they transfer information.

The power of light

The breakthrough research, published Aug. 31 in the journal ACS Nano, is the first time excitons have been used to create a switch that exceeds the performance of current photonic switches and achieves overall state-of-the-art performance.

"Electronics get hot, and that's because electronic devices always have capacitors," study co-author Parag Deotore, associate professor electrical engineering, computer engineering, and applied physics, told Live Science. “Every time you store energy or you release that energy, you heat it up. An exciton is a new charge-neutral particle, like a photon, that doesn’t produce this heat."

The new device uses excitons to overcome the heat problem and improves on the electronic design by shrinking the switches used to move information by two orders of magnitude.

Deotore said the long-term goal in developing these new switches is to create excitonic circuits that function so efficiently that computer systems don't need fans and that phones can keep their batteries charged for far longer periods of time.

Testing the 'magical thickness'

While the theory behind excitonic switches is sound, engineering and testing the new technology presented the biggest challenge for the team. In a conventional electronic system, electrons are pushed where they need to go through a brute-force electrical charge. Excitons lack this option because of their neutral charge.

To get excitons to go where they need to go, the scientists used similarly neutrally charged photons to order the excitons in a linear array along a one-dimensional plane — or "ridge."

The team created the excitons, then affected them with a specific number of photons, which were absorbed at the tip of the ridge to create an exciton population, Deotore said. In other words, this is a crowd of excitons bunched up and standing still at the bottom of a straight line. The team then applied more photons until the excitons began to move. If they added too many photons, the excitons failed to follow the ridge; too few photons caused the excitons to remain still.

"Our prediction was that if you grow them thick enough, the light coupling to excitons will be such that the push is going to be destroyed. And they could show it. So basically, it had to have a magical thickness," study co-author Mackillo Kira, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, and the co-director of the university’s Quantum Research Institute, told Live Science."

Because light acts as a wave, the photons "pushed" the excitons once that magical thickness was achieved. Observing this activity confirmed the theories and proved that the experiment was a success, Kira added. "That's actually easy to verify for experiments, because the color of the exciton will change as you go along the ridge, Kira said.

Based on the results of the experiment, the switch already meets or exceeds the capabilities of current technology.

The ultimate goal is to scale these switches into circuits that would, ostensibly, replace current electronics. According to the researchers, several advances are necessary to reach that goal, including finding new materials and developing techniques to fabricate and scale the prototype devices used in the team’s experiments. But the team believes these challenges could be overcome in a matter of decades.

The hope is that optoexcitonic switches and circuits could overcome waste heat — arguably the biggest problem in computing. This would enable massive reductions in size coupled with exponential improvements in performance, the scientists said.

Scientists seeking ways to amp up the capabilities of solar power generators have discovered a method that can boost their efficiency by a factor of 15.

The breakthrough lies in a unique, laser-etched "black metal" developed by researchers over the past five years, which they now hope to use in solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs).

STEGs are a type of solid-state electronic device that converts thermal energy into electricity via the Seebeck effect — a phenomenon that occurs when the temperature difference between materials displaces charged particles and creates an electromagnetic force (EMF), or voltage.

A STEG contains semiconductor materials sandwiched between a "hot" and a "cold" side. When the hot side is heated — either by the sun or another thermal energy source — the movement of electrons through the semiconductor material creates an electric current.

The challenge with existing STEGs is that they are hugely inefficient, converting less than 1% of sunlight into electricity. This stands in contrast to the photovoltaic solar panels you'll typically find attached to people's homes, which convert around 20% of the light they receive into electricity.

Related: Nanoparticle breakthrough could bring 'holy grail' of solar power within reach

However, in a new study published Aug. 12 in the journal Light: Science and Applications, researchers used laser-treated metals, also known as "black metal" due to their deep, inky-black appearance, to boost the energy efficiency of a solar thermoelectric generator by a factor of 15.

Laser treatment

The method involved blasting a piece of tungsten with extremely fast and precise laser pulses to etch microscopic grooves into its surface. These "nanoscale etchings enabled the tungsten to absorb more thermal radiation and hold onto it for longer.

The laser pulses also have the effect of turning the surface of any metal pitch black, increasing their capacity to absorb heat. The researchers then covered the black tungsten with a piece of plastic to create a "mini greenhouse" that trapped even more heat.

For the cold side of the STEG, the scientists took a piece of regular aluminum and again blasted it with laser pulses. The tiny etchings in the metal created a "super-high-capacity micro-structured heat dissipator" that the team claimed was twice as efficient at dissipating heat versus a typical aluminum heat sink.

To test the system, the researchers used it to power an LED under simulated sunlight. A typical STEG couldn’t illuminate the LED even when exposed to light 10 times stronger than normal sunlight. With both sides treated using the black metal, however, the device lit the LED at full brightness under light five times stronger than normal sunlight — equating to a 15-times increase in power output.

While it likely won't be replacing solar farms any time soon, the technology could eventually be used for low-power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) sensors or wearable devices, or serve as off-grid renewable energy systems in rural areas, the researchers said in a statement.

"For decades, the research community has been focusing on improving the semiconductor materials used in STEGs and has made modest gains in overall efficiency," Chunlei Guo, study co-author, professor of optics and physics, and senior scientist at Rochester University's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, said in the statement.

"In this study, we don’t even touch the semiconductor materials — instead, we focused on the hot and the cold sides of the device instead. By combining better solar energy absorption and heat trapping at the hot side with better heat dissipation at the cold side, we made an astonishing improvement in efficiency."

An array of personal and home devices could one day function battery-free following the development of pioneering new solar technology.

These new solar cells are capable of harvesting energy from indoor light. Researchers said the discovery has broad applications and could enable consumers to power devices such as keyboards, alarms and sensors using only indoor ambient light.

In the study, published April 30 in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, researchers used the perovskite to gather light in solar cells. This material is already in use in other solar cells and offers distinct advantages to traditional silicon-based solar panels. In particular, perovskite absorbs lower-power, ambient light more efficiently than traditional methods, according to the study, making it ideal for indoor use.

The researchers' new perovskite cells were six times more efficient than silicon-based solar cells, the researchers found.

In the long term, perovskite-derived solar cells represent a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative to batteries, said study co-author Mojtaba Abdi Jalebi, associate professor in energy materials at University College London' Institute for Materials Discovery.

"Billions of devices that require small amounts of energy rely on battery replacements — an unsustainable practice. This number will grow as the Internet of Things expands," Jalebi said in a statement.

Related: EV batteries could last much longer thanks to new capacitor with 19-times higher energy density that scientists created by mistake

"Currently, solar cells capturing energy from indoor light are expensive and inefficient. Our specially engineered perovskite indoor solar cells can harvest much more energy than commercial cells and is more durable than other prototypes. It paves the way for electronics powered by the ambient light already present in our lives."

Perovskite composition challenges

Perovskite is already becoming a popular material for use in solar panels, with marked benefits compared with silicon-based materials.

However, while its applications are promising, the material does have several drawbacks regarding stability and longevity.

A key factor here lies in "traps" — miniscule defects in perovskite's crystal structure. These traps cause electrons to become stuck in minute flaws and indentations within the material, thereby preventing energy from being harnessed.

What're more, while traps inhibit the flow of electricity, they also accelerate the degradation of the material over time, due to the non-linear flow of charge through the material.

To counter this, the researchers behind the new study used a combination of chemicals to reduce the volume of these defects. This included the application of rubidium chloride, which "encouraged a more homogenous growth" of perovskite crystals and reduced the density of the traps, representatives said in the statement.

Two other chemicals — N,N-dimethyloctylammonium iodide (DMOAI) and phenethylammonium chloride (PEACl), both organic salts of ammonium — were also applied to stabilize two types of ions (iodide and bromide) and prevent them from separating. This helped address the issue of long-term performance degradation in the solar cell, the study noted.

"The solar cell with these tiny defects is like a cake cut into pieces. Through a combination of strategies, we have put this cake back together again, allowing the charge to pass through it more easily," said study lead-author Siming Huang, a doctoral student at UCL's Institute for Materials Discovery.

Marked performance benefits

After addressing the issue of traps, researchers found their solar cells converted 37.6% of indoor light into electricity. This was achieved at 1,000 lux, the researchers said, or the equivalent of a "well-lit office."

Long-term durability also improved, the study found, with the solar cells retaining 92% of their performance over 100 days. By comparison, a control device where the perovskite had not been altered to remove flaws retained 76% of its initial performance.

Jalebi said the team is in discussions with industry stakeholders to "explore scale up strategies and commercial deployment" of the perovskite solar cells.

"The advantage of perovskite solar cells in particular is that they are low-cost — they use materials that are abundant on Earth and require only simple processing. They can be printed in the same way as a newspaper," Jalebi said.

A new method of changing electronic states on demand could make electronics 1,000 times faster and more efficient, researchers say.

In a new study published 27 June in the journal Nature Physics, scientists discovered that controlled heating and cooling of a quantum material allows it to both insulate from and conduct electricity, depending on the temperature.

This material, named 1T-TaS₂, could potentially replace conventional silicon components in electronics, including laptops and smartphones. Quantum materials could accomplish the same tasks faster while taking up exponentially less room, the research team suggested.

If materials like 1T-TaS₂ were adopted for use in electronics, the amount of information they could process in a second would increase 1000-fold. "Processors work in gigahertz right now. The speed of change that this would enable would allow you to go to terahertz," Alberto de la Torre, a material physicist at Northeastern University and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

Thermal quenching

The technique the researchers used is called thermal quenching. It involves shining light on a material that has unique quantum properties when activated to increase its temperature. In the case of 1T-TaS₂, the activated trait is metallic conductivity.

This stable "hidden metallic state," as the researchers call it in the study, has previously been achieved, but only at cryogenically cold temperatures and for less than a second. The new research demonstrates that this property can be attained by temperature fluctuations at more practical temperatures — around -100 degrees Fahrenheit (-73 degrees Celsius), more than 250 degrees warmer than past experiments — the scientists said in the statement. What's more, the material 1T-TaS₂ can maintain its conductivity for months at a time with this method, which has never before been accomplished.

Related: Superfast diamond-laced computer chips now much closer to reality thanks to 'quantum breakthrough'

When light is removed, the material's temperature decreases and the 1T-TaS₂ falls back into its original insulating state. The result is comparable to a transistor — a semiconductor device in the majority of modern electronics that controls the flow of electricity. The advancement of transistors, in accordance with Moore's Law, is often credited with the shrinking of computers from machines that once occupied rooms to ones that can fit into your pocket.

Understanding how to control quantum materials has the potential to similarly transform electronics, Gregory Fiete, a theoretical physicist at Northeastern University and co-author of the paper, said in the statement.

"What we're shooting for is the highest level of control over material properties," he said. "We want it to do something very fast, with a very certain outcome, because that's the sort of thing that can be then exploited in a device."

"There's nothing faster than light"

Finding a way to switch between states of conductivity at higher temperatures is a game-changer for eventually replacing silicon-based technology, Fiete explained. Traditional silicon semiconductors contain many densely-packed logic components, which has physical limitations.

Because this new technique combines both conductive and insulating properties into a single object, quantum materials could accomplish the same tasks as silicon components while using much less space. "We eliminate one of the engineering challenges by putting it all into one material," he said.

Thermal quenching may also increase computing speeds because it relies on light to control conductivity. "Everyone who has ever used a computer encounters a point where they wish something would load faster," Fiete added. "There's nothing faster than light, and we're using light to control material properties at essentially the fastest possible speed that's allowed by physics."

This research opens up a new future for electronics, one where engineers can have instant control over a material's properties. "We're at a point where in order to get amazing enhancements in information storage or the speed of operation, we need a new paradigm," Fiete said. "That's what this work is really about."

A new type of self-healing and reconfigurable circuit board can withstand heavy damage and still work effectively, scientists say. It can even be completely recycled once it reaches the end of its life.

The new breakthrough is owed to a material called a vitrimer, a special polymer capable of remaining rigid and durable at normal temperatures but malleable and reshapable at higher temperatures. The scientists outlined their findings in a new study published 1 June in the journal Advanced Materials.

Circuit boards are traditionally built with thermosets, such as silicone or epoxy resins, a type of plastic that becomes permanently rigid and hard after being heat cured. But vitrimer can be altered by reapplying heat, meaning that the circuit boards can be adapted into entirely new configurations.

Using vitrimer also allows circuit boards to be repaired if damaged, while making them easy to break down and reclaim materials from.

"Our material is unlike conventional electronic composites," said Michael Bartlett, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech who co-led the study, in a statement. "The circuit boards are remarkably resilient and functional. Even under mechanical deformation or damage, they still work."

Researchers used a universal testing machine, a machine that pulls or compresses a material to measure its strain at break (how much a material stretches before it breaks), to evaluate the new material.

Related: Scientists break down cheap plastic using the air — and turn it into something far more valuable

Adding just 5% by volume of liquid metal droplets to the vitrimer approximately doubled the strain at break versus vitrimer alone.

The team also used a device called a rheometer, which measures the flow and deformation behavior of materials, to test the liquid metal-infused material.

They applied 1% deformation at temperatures between 170 °C and 200 °C and found that the vitrimer was able to "relax" back to its original state, something traditional thermosets are incapable of doing.

'Modern circuit boards simple cannot do this'

The vitrimer is blended with droplets of liquid metal, which replicate the function of rigid metal wires in traditional circuit boards, enabling conductivity. The resultant material is so conductive that only 5% of the blend needs to be liquid metal, the scientists said.

It combines the best qualities of traditional thermosets, which are mechanically strong and chemically resistant, with the reconfigurability and recyclability of thermoplastics.

The new type of circuit board can remain fully operational despite significant stress, deformation and "thermally triggered shape-memory transformations," the scientists said.

The scientists designed the new circuit board to combat the rise of electronic waste. Presently, electronics, including circuit boards, are discarded due to damage or difficulty in reclaiming materials.

Electronic waste has doubled in the past 12 years, according to a 2024 report from the United Nations, from 34 billion kilograms to 62 billion kg.

Currently, only a small percentage of discarded circuit boards, like gold electrodes or select other precious minerals and metals, are recovered during the recycling process, which involves chemical treatment involving strong acids.

Because the base material of most boards is high-performance composites featuring non-recyclable thermosetting plastics, such as epoxy-laminated fiberglass sheets, the majority of the discarded material ends up in landfills.

"Traditional circuit boards are made from permanent thermosets that are incredibly difficult to recycle," Josh Worch, an assistant professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech and co-lead author of the study, said in a statement.

"Here, our dynamic composite material can be healed or reshaped if damaged by applying heat, and the electrical performance will not suffer. Modern circuit boards simply cannot do this."

While the team acknowledged that further work is necessary to allow recovery of a higher percentage of some of the materials, they said their work represented an important step forward in creating a circular economy for core electronic materials in everyday devices from cellphones and laptops to wearables and televisions.

Scientists have developed a new kind of "electronic ink" that can be used to print electronic circuits capable of switching between rigid and soft states when heated.

The technology could pave the way for next-generation electronic devices that change shape or stiffness depending on how and where they’re used, from medical implants that soften inside the body to flexible robotics.

The ink combines gallium, a metal that's solid at room temperature but melts just below body temperature — 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) — with a polymer-based solvent that breaks down when gently heated. The result is a stable, printable substance that becomes conductive after heating and can change its stiffness in response to temperature.

The findings were published May 30 in the journal Science Advances.

"This opens up new possibilities for future personal electronics, medical devices and robotics," study co-author Jae-Woong Jeong, professor of electrical engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said in a statement.

Related: Unique transistor 'could change the world of electronics' thanks to nanosecond-scale switching speeds and refusal to wear out

Most electronics today fall into one of two camps: rigid devices like smartphones and laptops, which offer performance and durability at the cost of flexibility; or soft systems like wearables, which are more comfortable to wear but can be harder to fabricate precisely or integrate with more complex components.

From hardware to soft-wear

So-called variable-stiffness electronics aim to bridge this gap, enabling devices to shift between hard and soft states as needed.

Gallium has long attracted interest in this area because of how differently it behaves in solid and liquid forms. But using it for printed electronics has proven difficult due to its high surface tension and tendency to oxidize when exposed to air, forming a kind of crust that prevents it from bonding or spreading properly.

To address this, the researchers developed a process for dispersing microscopic gallium particles into a polymer matrix — essentially a flexible, ink-like base — using a solvent called dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).

When the printed circuit is gently heated, the solvent breaks down and creates a slightly acidic environment. This strips away the oxide layer from the gallium particles, enabling them to melt and merge to form conductive pathways.

The resulting ink can be used to print features as small as 50 micrometers (0.002 inches or 0.005 centimeters) — thinner than a human hair — and can alternate between plastic-like hardness and rubbery softness as needed. The researchers said that the material became more than 1,400 times softer when warmed during tests.

The team built two working devices to demonstrate how the bendy technology might be used. One was a wearable health device that behaves like a rigid portable electronic at room temperature, then softens on contact with skin to improve comfort. The other was a flexible brain implant that remained rigid during surgery so it could be precisely inserted, and then softened once inside the brain to help reduce irritation and inflammation.

The ink can be used with common manufacturing techniques such as screen printing and dip coating, meaning it could be used in larger-scale or 3D-printed electronics in the future, the researchers said.

"The core achievement of this research lies in overcoming the longstanding challenges of liquid metal printing through our innovative technology," Jeong said in the statement. "By controlling the ink's acidity, we were able to electrically and mechanically connect printed gallium particles, enabling the room-temperature fabrication of high-resolution, large-area circuits with tunable stiffness."

Gordon Moore wasn’t overly enthused when he was asked to write an article to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Electronic Magazine in 1965. "I was given the chore of predicting what would happen in silicon components in the next ten years," he recalled 40 years later. But as Director of R&D at Fairfield Semiconductor, which had developed the breakthrough planar transistor in 1959, he was perfectly placed to assess the progress that had been made in six short years.

In particular, Moore noticed that Fairfield had doubled the number of transistors that could be placed on a chip each year — being able to squeeze 60 where there had once been two. He then "blindly extrapolated for about ten years and said, okay, in 1975 we’ll have about 60 thousand components on a chip." In other words, every year the number had doubled and Moore thought it would continue to double. His prediction was neat and easy to understand — but most of all, it worked.

The idea was quickly dubbed Moore’s Law, and it mostly held true until 1975. (To be strictly accurate, the number doubled nine times over ten years rather than ten times over ten years). Seeing complications further down the line, Moore revised his prediction to a doubling every two years, and remarkably, his prediction once again proved to be (roughly) accurate for the next 40 years.

His only mistake is that the doubling rate was actually faster — doubling every 21 months on average.

Moore’s self-fulfilling prophecy

One reason for the success of Moore’s prediction is that it became a guide — almost a target — for chip designers. This was especially the case for Intel, the company that Gordon Moore co-founded with Robert Noyce in 1968. Moore and Noyce, one of the engineers behind the planar process, saw a potential in integrated circuits that the recession-hit and cautious Fairfield did not.

In 1971, Intel would have its first big hit: the 4004 microprocessor. It included 2,300 transistors measuring 10 microns thick — five times slimmer than a strand of human hair. A little over ten years later, Intel introduced the 80286 processor, with 134,000 transistors each measuring 1.5 microns (because of this, it’s referred to as a "1.5-micron process"). These developments emerged very much in line with the revised Moore’s Law.

When looking back over the years that followed — the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s — it may seem like the path of progress was smooth. Moore’s Law kept holding, after all. But that was only possible due to a series of major breakthroughs, each solving a problem that at one time seemed impossible.

Related: Light-powered computer chip can train AI much faster than components powered by electricity

Some were based on material science, such as improving the "doping" methods that insert impurities into a semiconductor to better control its conductivity. Or the creation of complementary metal oxide superconductor (CMOS) technology in the mid-1980s, which brought lower power consumption and thus less heat. Other breakthroughs came in the manufacturing process, such as the development of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) to etch patterns onto ever smaller wafers.

And the innovations didn’t stop. We mentioned the planar processor, where transistors sit on a level plane, right at the start of this article. It took years of research and development — (four Japanese researchers at Delta created the first vertical design for a processor in 1989) — but when it arrived, the vertical FinFET processor gave Moore’s Law fresh life in 2012 in the form of Intel’s third-generation Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. These used a 22nm processor and packed up to 1.4 billion processors.

These are just a handful of the innovations that Gordon Moore could never have foreseen yet enabled his law to hold true. But there was one seemingly impossible problem looming on the horizon — physics.

Why smaller isn't always better

A strand of hair is around 50 microns thick. A mote of dust around five microns. A bacterial cell, such as Mycoplasma, measures 0.5 microns. Now, consider that modern transistors are often 0.005 microns thick, or 5 nanometers (5nm) and you’ll realise we’re approaching atomic levels. We mean that literally: the space between the centre of two adjacent silicon atoms is around 0.235 nanometers, so you can squeeze around 21 into a 5nm space.

Then consider that the latest CPU manufacturing processes have reduced yet further, from 5nm to 2nm, meaning space for eight silicon atoms. At this point, we begin to reach the point where quantum mechanical effects prevail, such as quantum tunneling, which causes electrons leak. This is not a property you want in a transistor.

All of this means that the straightforward approach of "make things smaller" no longer works on its own. That’s why we have seen a shift away from miniaturization and instead towards more sophisticated processors, with every chip in every device you own now including many different cores so that tasks can be split between them.

Is Moore’s Law still relevant?

In the simplest sense, no. The days when we could double the number of transistors on a chip every two years are far behind us. However, Moore’s Law has acted as a pacesetter in a decades-long race to create chips that perform more complicated tasks quicker, especially as our expectations for continual progress continue.

To measure its success, consider that if Moore’s Law had suggested a doubling every 10 years instead of every two, then we would be stuck with 1980s-era computers. Steve Jobs would never have been able to announce the iPhone in 2007, establishing the smartphone era.

This pace-setting is something that’s now demanded not only by consumers, but the boards of technology companies. It’s one of the drivers behind the neural processing units (NPUs) inside recent processors, capable of running local artificial intelligence (AI) tasks that are beyond the reach of conventional CPUs. For now, this technology can perform simple tasks such as removing unwanted people from the background of our photos, but this is just the beginning.

NPUs are big news today, as are the incredible Nvidia-powered equivalents in data centers that drive ChatGPT, Midjourney and the other AI services we are gradually coming to rely on. Meanwhile, it seems that personal AI assistants are a heartbeat away, with even bigger leaps likely to come in the next decade.

We can’t yet be sure what those leaps will entail. What we can say is that developments are currently happening in university research labs and R&D divisions in megacorporations such as Intel. One of those labs might yet work out a way to cram yet more transistors into even smaller areas — or perhaps move away from transistors altogether — but that seems unlikely.

Instead, Moore’s Law lives on as an expectation of the pace of progress. An expectation that every tech company from DeepSeek to Meta to OpenAI will continue to use as their guide.

Ever since the dawn of computing, people have compared machines to brains. This includes two founding fathers of computing — John von Neumann wrote a book called "The Computer and the Brain" while Alan Turing was quoted in 1949 saying: "Eventually I do not see why [a computer] may not compete on equal terms with the human intellect in most fields."

The only problem with this comparison is that the traditional processor — the central processing unit (CPU) — doesn’t mimic the brain at all. CPUs are far too mathematical and logical. The neural processing unit (NPU), on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach: simulating the structure of the human brain in its very circuitry.

Yet mimicking the workings of the human brain electronically is far from a new idea.

The birth of NPUs

Literal electronic brains date back to the birth of modern-day computing in the mid-1940s, specifically to a "neural network" of circuitry created by neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch and logician Walter Pitts. McCulloch’s pioneering work spurred further research during the 1950s and 1960s, only for the idea to fall out of fashion — perhaps due to a lack of progress compared to the rising number-crunching power of classical computers.

“There were a few isolated people in Japan and Germany [working on neural networks] but it was not a field,” Yann LeCun, a French-American computer scientist widely considered one of ‘godfathers’ of AI, said of his time working with Geoffrey Hinton, another of the field’s pioneers, on neural networks in the early 1980s. “It started being a field again in 1986.”

Yet for neural networks to regain their foothold as a respected part of computer science, it took the success of speech recognition in the early 2000s., Even then, LeCun said: “We didn’t want to use the word neuron nets because it had a bad reputation, so we changed the name to deep learning.”

Related: Light-powered computer chip can train AI much faster than components powered by electricity

The term NPUs would come in the late 1990s, but it has taken the deep pockets of Apple, IBM and Google to move it from university labs and into the mainstream. These tech companies invested billions of dollars into the development of silicon, crystallizing all the past work into a product that fits inside our phones and laptops: a processor that takes inspiration from the human brain. LeCun’s fortunes have also improved for the better: he is now chief AI scientist at Meta.

What’s likely to happen next with NPUs?

For the next few years, some AI experts contend that NPUs will follow a similar path to CPUs in their early days — something close to Moore’s Law, with a doubling of TOPS every year or two. With that power will come far greater abilities, to the point where you can create realistic AI artwork locally on your computer rather than resorting to programs such as Midjourney.

Over time, as software matures along with the hardware, and more developers take advantage of it, we expect to see the emergence of personal AI agents that understand us because they have been "living" inside our computers as we work. They won’t just serve as memory joggers but perform actions on our behalf.

NPUs will also likely find a home in more devices than our phones and laptops. TVs will produce personalized news services using your favourite avatar presenter; your fitness tracker will recommend workouts based on your mood and the time until your next meeting. Who knows, your best friend may one day be a humanoid robot who understands you better than any human.

Researchers in China say they have created a new silicon-free transistor that could significantly boost performance while reducing energy consumption. The team says this development represents a new direction for transistor research.

The scientists said that the new transistor could be integrated into chips that could one day perform up to 40% faster than the best existing silicon processors made by U.S. companies like Intel. This is according to a report in the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Despite that dramatic increase in power, the researchers claim that such chips would also draw 10% less power. The scientists outlined their findings in a recent study published Feb. 13 in the journal Nature.

Lead author of the study Hailin Peng, professor of chemistry at Peking University (PKU) in China, told SCMP: "If chip innovations based on existing materials are considered a 'short cut', then our development of 2D material-based transistors is akin to 'changing lanes'."

A new kind of silicon-free transistor

The efficiency and performance gains are possible thanks to the chip's unique architecture, the scientists said in the paper, specifically the new two-dimensional silicon-free transistor they created. This transistor is a gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET). Unlike previous leading transistor designs like the fin field-effect transistor (FinFET), a GAAFET transistor wraps sources with a gate on all four sides, instead of just three.

At its most basic level, a transistor is a semiconductor device found in every computer chip. Each transistor has a source, a gate and a drain, which allow the transistor to function as a switch.

The gate is how a transistor controls the flow of current between the source and drain terminals and can act as both a switch and amplifier. Wrapping this gate around all sides of a source (or sources, as some transistors contain multiple) — instead of just three as in conventional transistors — leads to potential improvements in both performance and efficiency.

This is because a fully wrapped source provides better electrostatic control (as there is less energy loss to static electricity discharges) and the potential for higher drive currents and faster switching times.

While the GAAFET architecture isn’t itself new, the PKU team's use of bismuth oxyselenide as the semiconductor was, as well as the fact they used it to create an "atomically-thin" two-dimensional transistor.

2D bismuth transistors are less brittle and more flexible than traditional silicon, the scientists added in the study. Bismuth provides better carrier mobility —the speed at which electrons can move through it when an electrical field is applied. It also has a high dielectric constant — a measure of a material's ability to store electrical energy — which contributes to the transistor’s increased efficiency.

Should this transistor be fitted into a chip that does prove faster than US-made chips by Intel and other companies, it could also allow China to sidestep current restrictions on buying advanced chips and tap into US chip-making by shifting to a wholly different manufacturing process.

Editor's note: This article was first published March 24, 2025.

On April 1, 2025, the Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC introduced the world's most advanced microchip: the 2 nanometre (2nm) chip. Mass production is expected for the second half of the year, and TSMC promises it will represent a major step forward in performance and efficiency — potentially reshaping the technological landscape.

Microchips are the foundation of modern technology, found in nearly all electronic devices, from electric toothbrushes and smartphones to laptops and household appliances. They are made by layering and etching materials like silicon to create microscopic circuits containing billions of transistors.

These transistors are effectively tiny switches, managing the flow of electricity and allowing computers to work. In general, the more transistors a chip contains, the faster and more powerful it becomes.

The microchip industry consistently endeavors to pack more transistors into a smaller area, leading to faster, more powerful, and energy efficient technological devices.

Compared to the previous most advanced chip, known as 3nm chips, TSMC's 2nm technology should deliver notable benefits. These include a 10%-15% boost in computing speed at the same power level or a 20-30% reduction in power usage at the same speed.

Additionally, transistor density in 2nm chips is increased by about 15%, over and above the 3nm technology. This should enable devices to operate faster, consume less energy, and manage more complex tasks efficiently.

Taiwan's microchip industry is closely tied into its security. It is sometimes referred to as the "silicon shield", because its widespread economic importance incentivises the US and allies to defend Taiwan against the possibility of Chinese invasion.

Related: China's new 2D transistor could soon be used to make the world's fastest processors

TSMC recently struck a US$100 billion deal (£76 billion) to build five new US factories. However, there is uncertainty over whether the 2nm chips can be manufactured outside Taiwan, as some officials are concerned that could undermine the island's security.

Established in 1987, TSMC, which stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, manufactures chips for other companies. Taiwan accounts for 60% of the global "foundry" market (the outsourcing of semiconductor manufacturing) and the vast majority of that comes from TSMC alone.

TSMC's super-advanced microchips are used by other companies in a wide range of devices. It manufactures Apple's A-series processors used in iPhones, iPads, and Macs, it produces NVidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) used for machine learning and AI applications. It also makes AMD's Ryzen and EPYC processors used by supercomputers worldwide, and it produces Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors, used by Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Google phones.

In 2020, TSMC started a special microchip miniaturization process, called 5nm FinFET technology, that played a crucial role in smartphone and high-performance computing (HPC) development. HPC is the practice of getting multiple processors to work simultaneously on complex computing problems.

Two years later, TSMC launched a 3nm miniaturization process based on even smaller microchips. This further enhanced performance and power efficiency. Apple's A-series processor, for example, is based on this technology.

Smartphones, laptops and tablets with 2nm chips could benefit from better performance and longer battery life. This will lead to smaller, lighter devices without sacrificing power.

The efficiency and speed of 2nm chips has the potential to enhance AI-based applications such as voice assistants, real time language translation, and autonomous computer systems (those designed to work with minimal to no human input). Data centers could experience reduced energy consumption and improved processing capabilities, contributing to environmental sustainability goals.

Sectors like autonomous vehicles and robotics could benefit from the increased processing speed and reliability of the new chips, making these technologies safer and more practical for widespread adoption.

This all sounds really promising, but while 2nm chips represent a technological milestone, they also pose challenges. The first one is related to the manufacturing complexity.

Producing 2nm chips requires cutting-edge techniques like extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. This complex and expensive process increases production costs and demands extremely high precision.

Another big issue is heat. Even with relatively lower consumption, as transistors shrink and densities increase, managing heat dissipation becomes a critical challenge.

Overheating can impact chip performance and durability. In addition, at such a small scale, traditional materials like silicon may reach their performance limits, requiring the exploration of different materials.

That said, the enhanced computational power, energy efficiency, and miniaturization enabled by these chips could be a gateway to a new era of consumer and industrial computing. Smaller chips could lead to breakthroughs in tomorrow's technology, creating devices that are not only powerful but also discreet and more environmentally friendly.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists have devised a way to store and read data from individual atoms embedded in tiny crystals only a few millimeters in size (where 1 mm is 0.04 inches). If scaled up, it could one day lead to ultra-high density storage systems capable of holding petabytes of data on a single disc — where 1 PB is equivalent to approximately 5,000 4K movies.

Encoding data as 1s and 0s is as old as the entire history of computing, with the only difference being the medium used to store this data — moving from vacuum tubes flashing on and off, tiny electronic transistors, or even compact discs (CDs), with pits in the surface representing 1s and smoothness indicating 0.

The hunt is now on for even denser data storage, which is leading scientists to the subatomic world. In a new study published Feb. 14 in the journal Nanophotonics, researchers have used an electron trapped by a defect in a crystal to represent a 1 with the lack of a trapped electron indicating 0.

The work was inspired by quantum techniques, the scientists said. In particular, they integrated solid-state physics applied to radiation dosimetry with a research group working strongly in quantum storage — but this specific work builds classical computing memory.

The technology works by shining a laser with a specific amount of energy that will excite an electron. At this point, a reading device may register the presence of light. No light means no trapped electron.

This only works when the crystals include defects, such as an oxygen vacancy or a foreign impurity. "These defects present very nice characteristics,” first author of the study, Leonardo França, postdoctoral researcher in physics at the University of Chicago, told Live Science. "One of them is the ability to store charge."

Related: Human genome stored inside near-indestructible '5D memory crystal' that could survive to the end of the universe

Knowing this, the team used rare earth ions as dopants — impurities added to a material to alter its properties — with the key lying in devising a way to excite an electron from a specific rare earth ion so it then becomes trapped. If imagining how a CD works, this would be equivalent to creating a pit.

"We have to provide sufficient energy to release an electron from a rare earth ion and the defect — a nearby defect — will sense that," said França. "So you capture the electron by an intrinsic electric field. This is the writing part."

Then you come to reading the data. "Basically, you have to use another light source so that the electron will be released from the defect," said França. "And that leads to a recombination of charges, and that leads to emission of light."

Building data storage of the future

If the process worked exactly like this, the data would be erased every time it was read, but using lower amounts of light would only "partially erase information," said França. So it would fade over time, in a similar way that data held in tapes fades over 10 to 30 years.

While the team used the rare earth element praseodymium and an yttrium oxide crystal, the work could equally extend to other non-rare earth element crystals with other non-dopants. But rare earth elements have the advantage of providing known and specific wavelengths that enable us to excite electrons using standard lasers.

The researchers’ initial aim was to address individual atoms. They haven’t yet achieved this goal, but França believes that the technique the team has pioneered puts them on the right track.

Appetite for further research is attributed to how scalable this technology is, potentially ushering in low-cost, high-density storage formats in the future for various applications, França said.

The good news is that the optical, laser side of the equation is already well understood and cheap. Likewise, the crystal would cost little money to produce at scale. That leaves the cost of acquiring the rare earth elements and devising a way to introduce defects using mass manufacturing methods.

If these obstacles can be overcome, the crystal could be fabricated as a disc, he added, and be read by inexpensive readers. The final question would be around how densely you can store data on a hypothetical disc.

"In our crystal, where we have around 40mm³ [0.002 cubic inches], we could store a few hundred terabytes,” França told Live Science. After performing some calculations, he put the figure at approximately 260 TB.

That figure is based on the crystal the scientists investigated, but França sees a future in which you could easily increase the defect density. This naturally leads to the possibility of PBs of data stored on a single device the size of a disc.

LAS VEGAS — The world's first "neuromorphic chip" will be on shelves by next year — and it will extend smart devices' battery life. The chip, which mimics the human brain's architecture, is meant to enable artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities on power-limited smart devices.

"Smart" devices like lightbulbs, doorbells or smoke alarms that are Wi-Fi connected are built with sensors that make detections and send data to the cloud for processing.

But this process is power-hungry, Sumeet Kumar, CEO of processor company Innatera Nanosystems, told Live Science in an interview at CES 2025. And any AI processing these devices perform also requires an internet connection.

But the Spiking Neural Processor T1 should drastically slash the power consumption of future smart devices.

It works by analyzing sensor data in real time to identify patterns and potentially clean up the data coming out of the sensors — and no internet connection would be required.

Mimicking the brain

The device is a neuromorphic processor — meaning its architecture is arranged to mimic the brain's pattern-recognition mechanisms. To draw an analogy, when you sense something — whether it's a smell or a sound — different collections of neurons fire to identify it.

Similarly, in the chip, different groups of artificial neurons register spikes. The underlying principle is the spiking neural network (SNN) — where a neural network is a collection of machine learning algorithms and the spikes it produces are akin to the signals produced by brain cells.

Related: Intel unveils largest-ever AI 'neuromorphic computer' that mimics the human brain

SNN algorithms also tend to be around 100 times smaller in terms of file size than conventional deep neural networks used in large language models.

Layers of computation

There are three fundamental layers in the T1 chip. The first is the SNN-based computing engine, which records a power dissipation of less than 1 milliwatt and latency, or delay, that's typically under 1 millisecond for most applications, Kumar said. The second layer includes conventional deep neural networks, while the third layer includes a standard processor that handles how the system functions.

The T1, or similar chips, would increase battery life up to sixfold in some smart devices and scenarios, Kumar said. For example, a prototype of a smart doorbell built with the T1 processor that could detect the presence of a person using radar technology lasted 18 to 20 hours, versus one or two hours in a conventional Wi-Fi-based product that sends image and video data to servers.

Applications include smart lighting, any kind of detectors for people-counting, door-opening systems, and even earbuds — in which the T1 chip can theoretically isolate different sounds for noise cancellation. When used for any sound-based applications, the company claims there is an 80 to 100 times reduction in energy consumption as well as a 70 times reduction in latency.

The chip is being readied for mass production this year, with samples shipping to device manufacturers. Kumar expects the first products with the T1 neuromorphic chip to hit the shelves by 2026.

Scientists have inched closer to integrating diamonds into silicon-based computer chips, after lowering the temperatures needed to grow them in the lab and melding the process with quantum mechanics.

Diamonds are highly desirable for use in electronics. That's because their specific crystal lattice structure lets them withstand high electrical voltages, while they can also dissipate heat incredibly well because they are not electrically conductive. But to be made in the lab, diamonds also require extremely high temperatures — well beyond the heat computer chips can withstand as they are being manufactured — so they cannot easily be integrated into chipmaking processes. Reducing heat, meanwhile, sacrifices the diamond quality.

Solving a diamond-related mystery

In a study published Sept. 13 in the journal Diamond and Related Materials, scientists found a way to reduce the heat needed to grow diamonds enough so they can now be incorporated into the standard silicon manufacturing process. The breakthrough means faster and more energy-efficient diamond-based computer chips are a much more realistic proposition.

"If we want to implement diamond into silicon-based manufacturing, then we need to find a method of lower-temperature diamond growth," study lead author Yuri Barsukov, a computational research associate at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), said in a statement. "This could open a door for the silicon microelectronics industry."

Related: New diamond transistor is a world-1st — paving the way for high-speed computing at the highest temperatures

Diamonds are normally made in a process called "plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition," in which thin films of acetylene in a gaseous state are deposited in a solid state onto a substrate.

Previous experiments showed that acetylene can contribute to diamond growth — but it also leads to soot growth, which forms on top of the diamond and inhibits its utility in chips, sensors and optics, the team said. Scientists previously did not understand the factors that caused acetylene to become either soot or diamond.

"Now we have an answer," Barsukov said in the statement. "Like water to ice, there is a critical temperature for the transition of one phase to another. Above this critical temperature, acetylene contributes mostly to diamond growth. Below this critical temperature, it contributes mostly to soot growth."

The "critical temperature" depends on the concentration of acetylene and the presence of atomic hydrogen near the diamond's surface, the scientists discovered. Hydrogen atoms don't directly fuel diamond growth, but they are crucial for promoting diamond growth — even at much lower temperatures.

Protecting the quantum diamond

But this forms only one part of the equation. The way atoms bond in diamond makes it well suited for quantum computing, secure communications and highly accurate sensing. So a study published July 11 in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces examined how to further prime diamonds for use in complex electronics. It centers around "quantum diamond" surfaces, in which carbon atoms are removed and a neighboring atom is replaced with nitrogen — creating something the scientists call "nitrogen-vacancy centers." The surface of these complex diamonds must be protected while keeping the nitrogen-vacancy centers intact, the scientists said in the study.

"The electrons in this material don't behave according to the laws of classical physics as heavier particles do," Alastair Stacey, head of quantum materials and devices at PPPL, said in the statement. "Instead, like all electrons, they behave according to the laws of quantum physics. But we can harness these quantum mechanical properties by making qubits, he added. Qubits are in quantum computing to what bits are in conventional computing and allow calculations to be processed in parallel.

"The advantage of qubits is that they can hold much more information than regular bits can," Stacey said. "This means that they can also give us much more information about their environment, making them extremely valuable as sensors, for example."

The scientists aimed to create a single layer of hydrogen on the surface of the quantum diamond, evenly distributed, without changing anything beneath the surface. In the July study, they explored techniques for adding that single layer onto the surface of the diamond in a more reliable way, without causing any damage.

The hydrogen layer is normally added by exposing the diamond to hydrogen plasma under high heat — but the nitrogen-vacancy centers cannot handle these conditions. Instead, the scientists proposed two alternate methods: "forming gas annealing" and "cold plasma termination." The former technique uses a mixture of hydrogen molecules and nitrogen gas, while the latter uses hydrogen plasma but avoids directly heating the diamond with the plasma.

Both techniques created hydrogenated diamond that could conduct electricity. Neither method was perfect, but both were much better than the conventional method in avoiding damage to the nitrogen-vacancy centers, the researchers said in the study. They added that their next steps are exploring new methods of creating high-quality hydrogenated diamond surfaces with ideal nitrogen-vacancy centers.

World energy demand is continuing to soar as cities grow, technology advances and industries develop. Buildings make up about 30%-40% of the total — even more than industry or transport. This comes largely from heating, cooling and ventilation systems, with air conditioning especially energy-hungry.

Windows are a significant part of the problem. They allow heat to escape in winter and enter in summer, forcing temperature systems to consume more energy and drive up emissions. The challenge is to control this heat transfer without compromising on windows' transparency and the amount of daylight they let in, both of which are essential for people's wellbeing and productivity.

The answer is smart windows. Most of the current versions on the market are what is known as electrochromic (EC), meaning they work by applying electricity at the touch of a button to layers of particles or crystals inside the glass.

This causes a reversible molecular transformation which turns the window either opaque or dark, depending on the product. This blocks out the majority of infrared light, which is what makes rooms uncomfortably warm. This drastically reduces the need for air-conditioning in hot countries, keeping some 60% to 70% of heat outside at peak temperatures. They can also reduce heat loss from rooms by about 40% in colder weather.

For a few years, these windows have been selling fairly well both for commercial and residential properties. The total global market in 2023 is estimated to have been worth US$6.6 billion (£5.2 billion).

Related: Wind and solar power overtakes coal for the first time ever in the US

Yet they have several important limitations. Though the windows don't use very much energy, they only operate with a power source. This can be challenging in locations that are remote or have unreliable electricity. And to the extent that renewable options from the grid aren't available, users need to install an alternative like solar panels to make these windows carbon neutral.

With many varieties — though there are exceptions — you can only toggle between full restriction and full transparency. This means you're losing the benefits from having windows when the weather is hot, and rooms will probably need artificially lit. And as previously mentioned, EC windows do a great job of keeping out heat in hot countries, but they're a bit more limited in colder climes.

The future is thermochromic

One alternative which at least negates the need for electricity is known as photochromic. These use a layer of either tiny silver halide crystals or compounds known as naphthopyrans, both of which react to rising levels of ultraviolet (UV) light, causing glass to tint in brighter conditions. It's exactly the same material that is used in light-reactive sunglasses.

Compared to EC windows, they have the additional benefit of creating a barrier to UV light. UV light is not only carcinogenic, but damages everything from furniture to paintings to EC coatings.

However, photochromic windows are very expensive, at least if they use silver. They are highly sensitive to weather, which can reduce their reliability in cloudy or rainy conditions. They are also not as good at blocking infrared light and have no manual control, so are more really useful for privacy than regulating room temperatures.

Many would argue that a more promising variety of smart window for the future is a third one known as thermochromic, meaning they use a coating of particles that react to temperatures instead of light. Again, this means there's no need for electricity.

They are much cheaper than photochromic windows, still block UV light and have the potential to be comparable to EC windows in blocking infrared. They can also progressively tint darker as outside temperatures rise, meaning you can have more transparent windows than those on/off EC products.

But while thermochromic glass already exists, it's not feasible for windows yet. This is because the vanadium dioxide layers in today's versions only fully reflect infrared at around 67°C, which is much hotter than even the all-time highest temperature in the world.

Many researchers around the world are looking into how to improve thermochromic glass. This includes our project at the University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute, which is partly involved in testing other coatings to try and find one which is effective at reducing infrared light at more realistic outside temperatures.

Uniquely, we're also looking into combining this with several other types of capabilities that currently can exist in other varieties of thermochromic glass besides those that can reflect infrared light. These include making the windows more useful in colder climates by enabling them to work as an insulator when temperatures are low so that rooms don't lose their heat to the outside, and also storing energy so that it can be used to help heat rooms.

It's difficult to predict an exact timeline, but maybe five or ten years from now, this kind of research should bring smart windows to market that will be just as useful in cold countries — as well as both in the daytime and at night. This is the key to the widespread rollout of a single type of window around the world.

It should make a significant difference not only to aircon requirements but also to the need for heating and radiators. My rough guess would be that by installing five smart windows in an apartment in a colder country, this might enable the owners to reduce the number of radiators from, say, five to two. And besides buildings, these technologies could also be used in airplanes and cars.

In the meantime, there's every reason to assume that the market particularly for EC windows keeps growing. According to one projection, it should increase by nearly another US$4 billion or around 60% by 2028. With the right mix of research success and policy support, in both developed and developing countries, the next generation of smart windows should then be able to take this forward and make a big difference to the carbon emissions of buildings a decade or two into the future.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists have created the world's first mechanical qubit: a tiny, moving system that stores quantum information using vibrations instead of electric currents or light.

Qubits are the fundamental units of quantum information. Unlike the bits you'd find in a classical computer, qubits can exist as 0, 1, or a superposition of both, thanks to the weird inner workings of quantum mechanics and entanglement.

Traditionally, these are made from superconducting circuits, charged atoms (ions), or light particles (photons). The new mechanical qubit, however, uses phonons — a type of "quasiparticle" — generated by vibrations within a precisely engineered sapphire crystal.

A quasiparticle is a concept used to describe the behavior and interactions of a group of particles as if they were acting as a single particle. In this case, phonons represent quasiparticles that essentially serve as carriers of vibrational energy.

The breakthrough could pave the way for ultra-sensitive sensor technologies capable of detecting forces like gravity, as well as new methods for maintaining stability in quantum computers for longer periods, the scientists said. They published their study Nov. 14 in the journal Science.

Related: Will we ever have quantum laptops?

Mechanical systems have historically been considered too challenging to be used as qubits because, thanks to the principles of quantum mechanics, they are never completely still. This means there is always residual motion that needs to be accounted for and controlled in order for them to work at the quantum level.

Likewise, mechanical oscillators — devices that store and transfer energy in the form of phonons — are typically subject to harmonic vibrations at evenly spaced energy levels. This is an issue, the scientists explained, because uniform spacing makes it difficult to isolate the two energy states needed to represent the 0 and 1 of a qubit.

"[The challenge] is whether you can make the energy levels unequally spaced enough that you can address two of them without touching the others," study co-author Yiwen Chu, a physicist at ETH Zürich, told Science.

The researchers tackled this problem by creating a "hybrid" system, coupling a sapphire crystal resonator measuring 400 micrometers (0.4 mm) with a superconducting qubit, and tuning the two to interact at slightly offset frequencies. When the resonator and qubit interacted, it blended their quantum states, resulting in unevenly spaced energy levels in the resonator — a phenomenon known as "anharmonicity."

This enabled the researchers to isolate two distinct energy states, effectively turning the resonator into a mechanical qubit.

While the mechanical qubit could hold and manipulate quantum information, the system’s fidelity — a measure of how accurately it performs quantum operations — was recorded as just 60%. By comparison, state-of-the-art superconducting qubits often achieve fidelities above 99%.

Even so, mechanical qubits may offer unique advantages, the scientists said. For instance, they can interact with forces like gravity in ways that other quantum systems cannot, making them promising candidates for the development of highly sensitive quantum sensors.

Mechanical qubits may also be able to store quantum information for longer periods of time, they said. This is critical for maintaining coherence — a measure of how long a system can stay stable and perform calculations using quantum data without interference.

The researchers are now working to link multiple mechanical qubits together to perform basic calculations, which they said would mark a key step toward practical applications for the technology.

If you've ever seen yourself through a thermal imaging camera, you'll know that your body produces lots of heat. This is in fact a waste product of our metabolism. Every square foot of the human body gives off heat equivalent to about 19 matches per hour.

Unfortunately, much of this heat simply escapes into the atmosphere. Wouldn't it be great if we could harness it to produce energy? My research has shown this would indeed be possible. My colleagues and I are discovering ways of capturing and storing body heat for energy generation, using eco-friendly materials.

The goal is to create a device that can both generate and store energy, acting like a built-in power bank for wearable tech. This could allow devices such as smart watches, fitness trackers, or GPS trackers to run much longer, or even indefinitely, by harnessing our body heat.

It isn't just our bodies that produce waste heat. In our technologically advanced world, substantial waste heat is generated daily, from the engines of our vehicles to the machines that manufacture goods.

Typically, this heat is also released into the atmosphere, representing a significant missed opportunity for energy recovery. The emerging concept of "waste heat recovery" seeks to address this inefficiency. By harnessing this otherwise wasted energy, industries can improve their operational efficiency and contribute to a more sustainable environment.

The thermoelectric effect is a phenomenon that can help turn heat into electricity. This works by having a temperature difference produce an electric potential, as electrons flow from the hot side to the cool side, generating usable electrical energy.

Conventional thermoelectric materials, however, are often made from cadmium, lead or mercury. These come with environmental and health risks that limit their practical applications.

Related: What is renewable energy?

The power of wood

But we've discovered you can also create thermoelectric materials from wood — offering a safer, sustainable alternative.

Wood has been integral to human civilisations for centuries, serving as a source of building materials and fuel. We are uncovering the potential of wood-derived materials to convert waste heat, often lost in industrial processes, into valuable electricity.

This approach not only enhances energy efficiency, but also redefines how we view everyday materials as essential components of sustainable energy solutions.

Our team at the University of Limerick, in collaboration with the University of Valencia, has developed a sustainable method to convert waste heat into electricity using Irish wood products, particularly lignin, which is a byproduct of the paper industry.

Our study shows that lignin-based membranes, when soaked in a salt solution, can efficiently convert low-temperature waste heat (below 200°C) into electricity. The temperature difference across the lignin membrane causes ions (charged atoms) in the salt solution to move. Positive ions drift toward the cooler side, while negative ions move toward the warmer side. This separation of charges creates an electric potential difference across the membrane, which can be harnessed as electrical energy.

Since around 66% of industrial waste heat falls within this temperature range, this innovation presents a significant opportunity for eco-friendly energy solutions.

This new technology has the potential to make a big difference in many areas. Industries such as manufacturing, which produce large amounts of leftover heat, could see major benefits by turning that waste heat into electricity. This would help them save energy and lessen their impact on the environment.

This technology could find use in various settings, from providing power in remote areas to powering sensors and devices in everyday applications. Its eco-friendly nature also makes it a promising solution for sustainable energy generation in buildings and infrastructure.

The trouble with storage

Capturing energy from waste heat is just the first step; storing it effectively is equally critical. Supercapacitors are energy storage devices that rapidly charge and discharge electricity. This makes them essential for applications requiring quick power delivery.

However, their reliance on fossil fuel-derived carbon materials raises sustainability concerns, highlighting the need for renewable alternatives in their production.

Our research group has discovered that lignin-based porous carbon can serve as an electrode in supercapacitors for energy storage generated from harvesting waste heat using a lignin membrane.

This process allows the lignin membrane to capture and convert waste heat into electrical energy, while the porous carbon structure facilitates the rapid movement and storage of ions. By providing a green alternative that avoids harmful chemicals and reliance on fossil fuels, this approach offers a sustainable solution for energy storage from waste heat.

This innovation in energy storage technology could power everything from consumer electronics, wearable technology to electric vehicles.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists could soon probe the secrets of the smallest particles in the world in more detail than ever before following a major upgrade of the most powerful laser of its kind in the world.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has given the go-ahead to upgrade the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), an incredibly powerful X-ray laser used for research. This is based at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory — located just off the Stanford University campus in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Scientists use the LCLS to document and analyze the building blocks of the universe by blasting atoms, nanostructures and molecules with X-rays. This lets them document the atomic processes that govern how the world works, and is especially useful for probing subatomic processes in quantum, energy and biological sciences.

Free-electron lasers like this produce brilliant light across an incredibly wide wavelength, with beams that are orders of magnitude brighter and more intense than other lasers. LCSC works by speeding up electrons to a velocity approaching the speed of light and then concentrating them through an array of magnets known as an "undulator." This forces them to release photons (particles of light) in a concentrated, bright beam that illuminates particles in a process akin to supercharged X-ray imaging.

How the LCSC X-ray laser works

The LCLS is housed in a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) tunnel originally used for a particle accelerator built in 1962. It was first upgraded in 2023 as part of the "LCLS-II" project. New hardware added to the laser increased its brightness — resulting in a beam up to 10,000 times brighter than with the first phase of LCLS. LCSC-II is also one trillion times brighter than X-rays you might find in a hospital. It shoots beams in bursts of up to one million pulses per second — each lasting only a handful of femtoseconds — the time it takes light to travel 300 nanometers (or approximately the width of a virus).

This lets it shoot frame-by-frame "movies" of chemical processes: in 2015, this allowed scientists to view how chemical bonds form for the first time, and in 2023 to observe the real-time steps of photosynthesis. This helps us understand everything from chemical reactions to the conservation of energy in novel solar cells.

Part of the project saw a new superconducting accelerator added, which greatly increased the acceleration speed of electrons within the laser. Achieving these results meant cooling the path of the particles to near absolute zero using 37 cryogenic modules (cryomodules), which lowered temperatures within the LCLS to -456 degrees F (-271 degrees C) — that’s colder than deep space.

These modules are lined up one after another and form the housing within which the LCLS-II’s laser is fired. Within each cryomodule in the circuit lie radiofrequency cavities, which once cooled to their incredibly low temperatures act as superconductors to amplify the energy output of the laser’s beam. Cryomodules contain supercooled helium and superconducting radiofrequency cavities which help cool the materials used within sensitive scientific systems such as the LCLS, allowing them to operate without electrical resistance or producing heat.

What to expect from LCLS-II-HE

This latest round of upgrades is known as "LCLS-II-HE" and will double the energy produced by LCLS-II’s free-electron beam, for an overall 3,000-times increase in brightness. This will require more cooling with 23 additional cryomodules.

To build these new components, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will work with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University, and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. It will also collaborate with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which designed the undulators used in LCLS-II alongside Argonne National Laboratory, to adapt the undulator in line with the new output requirements.

”The LCLS-II-HE upgrade will be a transformative advance for the scientific mission of DOE Basic Energy Sciences and the broader scientific community,” said LCLS Director Mike Dunne, in a press release. ”If the LCLS-II upgrade enabled a high-quality movie camera capable of capturing clear and detailed images, the LCLS-II-HE upgrade greatly boosts that camera’s resolution and sensitivity. Scientists will be able to image the atomic-scale motion of materials, chemical systems and biological complexes to address some of the most critical challenges facing our society.”

The upgrade will cost $716 million and is expected to greatly further the scientific capabilities of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is run by Stanford University on the DOE’s behalf. At present, the organization expects the upgrade to be completed by 2030, although scientists hope to run trials much earlier to demonstrate the laser’s full potential.

X-ray lasers like the LCLS carry transformational potential for scientific discovery. They are already being used to study optimal structures for nanotechnology and nanomaterials, which representatives from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have said could be instrumental in improving renewable energy tech and battery energy density. This scientific work could also expand our understanding of nanoscale biological processes in the pursuit of making better drugs, they added.

Once upgraded, the LCLS will produce more than one petabyte of data per day, which can in turn be used to train machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) models deployed in the aforementioned scientific fields.

Scientists in China have built a new type of tensor processing unit (TPU) — a special type of computer chip — using carbon nanotubes instead of a traditional silicon semiconductor. They say the new chip could open the door to more energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI).

AI models are hugely data-intensive and require massive amounts of computational power to run. This presents a significant obstacle to training and scaling up machine learning models, particularly as the demand for AI applications grows. This is why scientists are working on making new components — from processors to computing memory — that are designed to consume orders of magnitude less energy while running the necessary computations.

Google scientists created the TPU in 2015 to address this challenge. These specialized chips act as dedicated hardware accelerators for tensor operations — complex mathematical calculations used to train and run AI models. By offloading these tasks from the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU), TPUs enable AI models to be trained faster and more efficiently.

Unlike conventional TPUs, however, this new chip is the first to use carbon nanotubes —  tiny, cylindrical structures made of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern — in place of traditional semiconductor materials like silicon. This structure allows electrons (charged particles) to flow through them with minimal resistance, making carbon nanotubes excellent conductors of electricity. The scientists published their research on July 22 in the journal Nature Electronics.

Related: Razor-thin crystalline film 'built atom-by-atom' gets electrons moving 7 times faster than in semiconductors

According to the scientists, their TPU consumes just 295 microwatts (μW) of power (where 1 W is 1,000,000 μW) and can deliver 1 trillion operations per watt — a unit of energy efficiency.

"From ChatGPT to Sora, artificial intelligence is ushering in a new revolution, but traditional silicon-based semiconductor technology is increasingly unable to meet the processing needs of massive amounts of data," Zhiyong Zhang, co-author of the paper and professor of electronics at Beijing’s Peking University, told TechXplore. "We have found a solution in the face of this global challenge."

The new TPU is composed of 3,000 carbon nanotube transistors and is built with a systolic array architecture — a network of processors arranged in a grid-like pattern.

Systolic arrays pass data through each processor in a synchronized, step-by-step sequence, similar to items moving along a conveyor belt. This enables the TPU to perform multiple calculations simultaneously by coordinating the flow of data and ensuring that each processor works on a small part of the task at the same time.

This parallel processing enables computations to be performed much more quickly, which is crucial for AI models processing large amounts of data. It also reduces how often the memory — specifically a type called static random-access memory (SRAM) — needs to read and write data, Zhang said. By minimizing these operations, the new TPU can perform calculations faster while using much less energy.

To test their new chip, the scientists built a five-layer neural network — a collection of machine learning algorithms designed to mimic the structure of the human brain — and used it for image recognition tasks.

The TPU achieved an accuracy rate of 88% while maintaining power consumption of only 295 μW. In the future, similar carbon nanotube-based technology could provide a more energy-efficient alternative to silicon-based chips, the researchers said.

The scientists plan to continue refining the chip to improve its performance and make it more scalable, they said, including by exploring how the TPU could be integrated into silicon CPUs.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the chip is 1,700 times more energy-efficient than Google's Edge TPU. This false comparison was the result of a calculation error, and it has been removed.

Small devices like light sensors or network components could soon harvest power from background Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals — using a sophisticated new component that can turn even the faintest electromagnetic waves into electricity.

Researchers have created a highly sensitive "rectenna," or rectifying antenna, a component that exploits quirks of quantum physics to efficiently convert electromagnetic energy into direct current (DC) electricity. The researchers used this novel approach of capturing electrons to power a commercial thermometer.

In a study published July 24 in the journal Nature Electronics, the scientists suggested this technology could be scaled up to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors using a small proportion of the excess radiofrequency (RF) signals they use to communicate with one another.

Rectennas receive electromagnetic waves as found in radiofrequency (RF) signals like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, or different wavelengths of light, and capture them as alternating current (AC) electricity via the antenna. The device then converts this to DC electricity through its rectifier circuit.

It's long been known that rectennas can be used to generate low levels of electricity; researchers have demonstrated this by wirelessly powering model vehicles and similar experiments since the 1960s. For example, in 1964 the weapons manufacturer Raytheon ran a television broadcast in which it demonstrated a remote-controlled helicopter powered by microwaves.

Related: Wireless tech could replace Bluetooth at short distances and boost battery life 5-fold

But in these cases, power was beamed directly at the device in the form of microwave energy. Ambient RF signals are far weaker and are not aimed directly at the devices.

In the paper, the researchers said that ambient RF signals may register well below minus 20 decibel-milliwatts, a unit of measurement used to express signal strength. To put it in perspective, the average smartphone transmits signals at 27 dBm while a microwave oven operates at 60 dBm.

To harness the very weak ambient signals produced by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks, the researchers turned to a relatively obscure corner of quantum research.

Known as "spintronics," it studies the quantum spin of electrons and how this relates to magnetic fields. For their demonstration, the researchers leaned on the properties of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), a component consisting of a very thin layer of insulating material sandwiched between two magnetic layers. MTJs are most commonly used in hard disk drives and have been utilized in other types of computing memory.

RF signals can exert a shift on MTJs, in which the current of the signal affects the spin of the electrons within the construct. This can be harnessed to produce electricity.

The team created a series of nanoscale "'spin rectifiers"' (SRs) formed from MTJs, with full dimensions of 40 x 100 nanometers squared and 80 x 200 nm2, sensitive to the frequencies of common ambient electromagnetic signals such as Wi-Fi (2.4 gigahertz frequencies), 4G (2.3 to 2.6 GHz), and 5G (3.5 GHz).

Having demonstrated the effectiveness of their component on its own, the researchers created an SR array that could power a commercially available temperature sensor using only minus 27 dBm of ambient RF.

In the future, the team hopes this method could be used to lower the carbon cost of running wireless networks by reducing battery dependency and energy consumption in sensors and other small devices.

Researchers have produced the world's first flexible "solar panel" that is thin enough to coat on other objects so they can double as a portable source of energy.

A breakthrough approach allowed scientists to create solar cells 150 times thinner than existing silicon-based panels, without sacrificing any of their energy-generating capabilities. These panels could eventually be applied to almost any object as an easily-printed layer, such as cars or smartphone cases, enabling anyone to charge on the go and negating the need for large solar farms, the scientists said.

The material the researchers made is just over one micron thick (0.001 mm). Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has certified this invention ahead of the publication of a scientific study later this year.

In the study, the University of Oxford researchers made a new photovoltaic material (capable of turning sunlight into energy) from perovskite structures. These crystal formations are synthetic versions of naturally occurring calcium titanium oxide that can be made relatively cheaply in labs or factories. Like silicon, the most common material used for solar cells, perovskite produces an electric charge in the presence of sunlight.

Scientists around the world have been racing to unlock the benefits of perovskites since the late 2000s. Sometimes described as the '"holy grail" of solar power, they theoretically allow for flexible, lightweight solar panels to be manufactured far more cheaply than current-generation silicon cells.

While perovskites hold immense potential, scientists have struggled to synthesize them to make them last beyond a few months. Perovskites are particularly prone to damage from too much moisture and can break apart after being exposed to the air via volatile chemical reactions.

Over time, researchers have found that perovskites can be kept stable in layered structures such as tandem cells, which combine perovskites and silicon cells. The team at Oxford opted for a "multi-junction" approach, in which several photosensitive layers corresponding to different wavelengths of light are combined to improve the photosensitivity of the overall solar material.

The resulting thin layer of solar film was 27% efficient when converting sunlight into energy — compared with the approximate 22% efficiency of silicon panels on the market today. The researchers noted that they have dramatically improved their results with perovskites in the past five years, having started at 6% efficiency.

"We can envisage perovskite coatings being applied to broader types of surface to generate cheap solar power, such as the roof of cars and buildings and even the backs of mobile phones," said Junke Wang, professor of physics at Oxford University, in a statement. "If more solar energy can be generated in this way, we can foresee less need in the longer term to use silicon panels or build more and more solar farms."

In time, the researchers believe that perovskites could allow solar panels to exceed 45% efficiency — the upper limit based on current approaches and our understanding of physics. This will allow them to generate far more power for every square inch of solar material in operation, while also generating power in very low lighting.

For the first time, scientists have packaged a miniscule silicon chip with a cooling system designed to "actively" keep smartphones cool — rather than relying on "passive" cooling and thermal throttling.

The "xMEMS XMC-2400 µCooling" chip is just 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) thick — slightly thicker than a credit card — and is designed to be fitted into ultramobile devices like smartphones and tablets. 

Made in two configurations with vents either on the sides or on the top, the device can shift 2.4 cubic inches (39 cubic centimeters) of air per second while consuming minimal power and making no noise, representatives from xMEMS, a company specializing in chips for speakers, said in a statement. It also generates more "back pressure" than conventional fans, letting it be placed away from an ambient air source.

Unlike conventional fans, it uses a "piezoMEMS transducer" — a device that utilizes the piezoelectric effect, in which a material changes volume (or moves) when a current is applied to it. This comprises tiny silicon structures that oscillate at ultrasonic frequencies to generate air pulses that create airflow. 

There is a rising demand for better cooling as manufacturers integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into new devices. AI increases the demand for computing resources — including more processor cores and onboard memory. In theory, the more powerful future devices are, the hotter they will run.

Related: Ultrasonic earbuds with 'advanced noise-cancellation' could launch as soon as 2025

Unlike laptops, however, smartphones don't use active cooling systems like fans and instead rely on passive cooling — meaning the heat generated by components dissipates through features like a heat sink — a component designed to absorb any heat generated. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S24 uses a "vapor chamber" while the iPhone 15 Pro uses a large graphite heat spreader to absorb heat. 

As smartphones have grown more powerful and capable of intensive tasks like 3D gaming, video editing and tapping into 5G networks, while being designed to be ever slimmer, they have become more prone to thermal "throttling." This is when CPUs or GPUs limit power once they reach a thermal limit. The process is now so commonplace in modern-day smartphones there are even benchmarks measuring how well a device performs when being throttled.

The XMC-2400 chip, however, is an "active" solution that functions like fans in computers but on a much smaller scale, and it can be stacked on top of existing components in a smartphone. 

The device functions differently depending on whether it has vents on the top or on the side. The side-vented chip draws in cold air from eight vents below which strikes the heat captured by the passive cooling system, such as a heat spreader, and then pushes the warm air out through side vents. The top-vented XMC-2400 chip, meanwhile, draws in air through slits on the lid to blow directly onto the heat-generating components to cool them down.

This reduces the throttling of core components, lowers the surface temperature of smartphones and improves app performance, according to xMEMs representatives.

"Our revolutionary µCooling 'fan-on-a-chip' design comes at a critical time in mobile computing," Joseph Jiang, xMEMS CEO and co-founder, said in the statement. "Thermal management in ultramobile devices, which are beginning to run even more processor-intensive AI applications, is a massive challenge for manufacturers and consumers. Until XMC-2400, there's been no active-cooling solution because the devices are so small and thin."

Alongside smartphones, the chip-based cooling system can be used in ultrathin laptops, VR headsets, solid-state drives and wireless chargers. The company plans to sample its XMC-2400 chip to smartphone manufacturers at the beginning of 2025. The device will be in smartphones by 2026.

Researchers have developed a technique that could enable the extreme miniaturization of computing components, paving the way for compact and high-performance devices.

The smaller the transistors and logic gates in a processor, the more computing power can be packed into a smaller area. But the physical constraints of silicon mean we are reaching the limits of how small these components can be.

However, a new technique, involving ultrafast switching between spin states in 2D magnets — to represent the switching between the binary states of 1 and 0 — can lead to much denser and more power-efficient components.

This technique is enabled by a new type of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) — a material structure that acts as a data storage device in a computing system. The scientists sandwiched chromium triiodide (a 2D insulating magnet) between layers of graphene and sent an electrical current through it to dictate the magnet's orientation within the individual chromium triiodide layers.

Harnessing these MTJs could mean packing more computing power into a chip than was previously deemed possible — while consuming much less energy during the switching process. The researchers published their findings in a new study published May 1 in the journal Nature Communications.

In the paper, the scientists demonstrated that 2D magnets can be polarized to represent binary states — the 1s and 0s of computing data — paving the way for highly energy-efficient computing.

Harnessing spintronics for faster computing

Precisely controlling the magnetic phase of 2D materials is a crucial step in spintronics (controlling an electron’s spin and the associated magnetic moment). By precisely controlling the current, the new technique can change the spin states in chromium triiodide using the current's polarity and amplitude. This is possible because the compound is ferromagnetic (it is magnetic and can attract magnets in a similar way to iron). This compound is also a semiconductor — a material that has a conductivity that falls between a metal and an insulator.

A key enabling component for spintronics is the MTJ — two ferromagnetic layers separated by an insulating barrier. Controlling an MTJ’s spin state is a technique that is already used in various computer components, such as the read heads of hard drives. But precisely controlling the thickness of its constituent layers and their quality of their interfaces with each other has proved challenging.

Related: 'Crazy idea' memory device could slash AI energy consumption by up to 2,500 times

Materials must withstand the high current densities of at least 10 million amps through an area approximately the size of fingernail — but also meet the demands of device miniaturization and energy efficiency. For comparison purposes, a typical bolt of lightning is 1,000 to 300,000 amps.

"This paper is about the fact that you can have two possible states of the tunneling current; spin-parallel and anti-parallel," Adelina Ilie, a reader in physics at the University of Bath in the U.K. specializing in 2D magnets, told LiveScience. "If there are two defined states, they can be used as logic gates in a computer."

Much greater energy efficiency for future AI systems

The scientists created the 2D van der Waals (chromium triiodide) magnets, then layered atomically thin flakes of graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and chromium triiodide on top of each other to form tunnel junction devices — which they chilled to near absolute zero. They simultaneously passed an electrical current through the material and measured it using a sourcemeter in 16-millisecond bursts.

They noted that the voltage underwent random switching between the levels, corresponding to the spin-parallel and spin-antiparallel states within chromium triiodide, with the switching direction determined by the polarity and amplitude of the current. The duration for each magnetic state was typically 10 milliseconds, while the switching time between the two states was in the order of microseconds (a microsecond is onemillionth of a second).

"These states are not exactly stable," explained Ilie. "What actually happens is that the current goes from one state to another, back and forth stochastically, but the average of time it stays more in one state or another, depending on the voltage. This gives us two states that we can select deterministically."

The two states, which can be used as logic gates, enable operation at a much smaller scale than was previously possible. Using this technology, manufacturers could create computer chips with greater processing power. But the need for near absolute-zero operating temperatures means implementing futuristic devices practically would be challenging.

"What makes this kind of work different is that it looks like the energy needed to go from one state to another is a magnitude lower than in conventional magnetic tunnel junctions," concluded Ilie. "With new technologies like generative AI, which increase power consumption tremendously, it won't be possible to keep up, so you need devices that are energy efficient."

Researchers have developed a new type of transistor that they say could "change the world of electronics" within the next two decades.

The new transistor is built using an ultrathin material created from stacked, parallel layers of boron nitride, which researchers claim can switch between positive and negative charges in nanoseconds and withstand over 100 billion cycles without wearing down.

This makes it ideal not only for high-speed, energy-efficient electronic devices, but also for denser memory storage. Because boron nitride is so thin — and because the voltage needed for switching polarization scales with thickness — transistors made from this material would have remarkably low power demands.

In a statement, the researchers said the material’s properties "already meet or exceed industry standards" compared to existing transistor materials. They published their findings June 6 in the journal Science.

Related: 'Universal memory' breakthrough brings the next generation of computers 1 step closer to major speed boost

"In my lab we primarily do fundamental physics. This is one of the first, and perhaps most dramatic, examples of how very basic science has led to something that could have a major impact on applications," study co-author Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, a professor of physics at MIT, said in the statement.

Boron nitride can switch between positive and negative charges in billionths of a second thanks to its ferroelectric properties. This is a term used to describe materials that have spontaneous electric polarization (separation of positive and negative charges) that can be reversed by applying an electric field. In the new material, this polarization occurs due to a unique sliding action of the material’s layers that happens when it is subjected to an electric current. As the layers of boron nitride slide past each other, the positions of the boron and nitrogen atoms change, causing the charges to switch.

The researchers likened the process to "pressing your hands together then slightly shifting one above the other." This changes the material's electronic properties without wearing it down — unlike flash memory made from conventional materials.

"Each time you write and erase a flash memory, you get some degradation. Over time, it wears out, which means that you have to use some very sophisticated methods for distributing where you’re reading and writing on the chip," said Raymond Ashoori, co-author of the study and professor of physics at MIT, in the statement.

Ashoori added: "When I think of my whole career in physics, this is the work that I think 10 to 20 years from now could change the world."

Despite all its promise, the researchers admitted they faced challenges in getting the new ferroelectrics into production, which they noted was "difficult and not conducive to mass manufacturing." The researchers are now working with other industry groups to address this.

"If people could grow these materials on the wafer scale, we could create many, many more," said study co-author Kenji Yasuda, an assistant professor of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University. "There are a few problems. But if you solve them, this material fits in so many ways into potential future electronics. It’s very exciting," added Ashoori.

Researchers are harnessing the power of tiny defects in an incredibly thin material to one day make computer chips that are faster and more efficient than traditional silicon semiconductor platforms.

"All of our existing electronic devices use chips made up of silicon, which is a three-dimensional material," said Shoaib Khalid, a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Research Laboratory, in a statement. "Now, many companies are investing a lot in chips made up of two-dimensional materials."

This type of "two-dimensional' material, known as a transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD), can be just a few atoms thick. Computer chips made from these ultrathin semiconductors could allow the development of smaller, faster devices by packing much more processing power onto a smaller surface area.

In a study published May 24 in the journal 2D Materials, Khalid's team investigated whether using TMDs rather than silicon may be a solution to the notion that innovation with silicon-based chips may be reaching its peak. 

The thinnest TMDs are just three atoms thick and arranged like a sandwich. The "bread" consists of chalcogen atoms — elements in Group 16 on the periodic table, like oxygen or sulfur. Transition metal atoms — in Groups 3-12 — make up the "filling."

Related: 'World's purest silicon' could lead to 1st million-qubit quantum computing chips

The scientists investigated whether they could harness tiny, atom-sized imperfections called defects in slightly thicker TMDs. 

While most of the atoms in the TMD are arranged in orderly, even patterns, occasionally an atom will be missing or stuffed somewhere it doesn’t belong. Despite the name, defects aren’t necessarily a bad thing, the scientists said in the study. For example, some defects make TMDs more electrically conductive.

To take advantage of the positive effects of defects and reduce any negative consequences, scientists needed to understand how defects arise and how they affect the material's performance. In the study, Khalid's team determined which kinds of defects form most readily in TMDs — and investigated how those defects shape the material’s properties.

First, the team examined defects where one of the chalcogen atoms was missing. A previous study had shown that a TMD material called molybdenum disulfide unexpectedly emits infrared light when illuminated. Khalid’s team found that the infrared light emission was triggered by the movement of electrons related to the space where the missing chalcogen should be.

"Our work provides a strategy to investigate the presence of these vacancies in the bulk TMDs," Khalid said in the statement. "We explained past experimental results shown in molybdenum disulfide, and then we predicted a similar thing for other TMDs."

Next, the researchers studied a type of defect where an extra hydrogen atom is squished between two neighboring transition metal atoms. Hydrogen is a common impurity that arises in TMDs while they are being formed. The extra hydrogen atoms give several — but not all — of the TMD materials a slight negative charge, turning them into "n-type" semiconductors.

Computer chips rely on combinations of n-type semiconductors and positively charged “p-type” semiconductors. While scientists already knew that some TMD materials can act as n-type semiconductors, the new study explains where the extra negative charge comes from.

Understanding how these defects affect TMD performance could help researchers create next-generation computer chips, the scientists said in the study. Although TMD chips aren’t ready to hit the shelves just yet, companies are exploring ultrathin TMD chips to tackle energy-intensive AI operations.

Researchers have discovered a way to purify rare-earth minerals from discarded gadgets with a chemical compound normally used in medicine. They claim their method offers multiple benefits for the environment.

Rare-earth minerals, also known as rare-earth metals or rare-earth elements (REEs), include materials such as europium, yttrium, and samarium and have multiple uses in electronics. They are commonly found in smartphones, computers, TV screens and even electric car batteries.

Despite their name, REEs are actually quite common but only occur naturally in low concentrations in compounds in ores. This means that in order to be isolated for use, they have to undergo multi-step extraction and purification processes that are both chemical- and energy-intensive.

As described by Harvard International Review, this includes the creation of "leaching ponds" where soil containing the desired elements is mixed with chemicals like ammonium sulfate and ammonium chloride to separate them. These highly toxic chemicals can then leak into local waterways. Additional toxic byproducts include radioactive thorium and uranium. In total, processing one ton of rare-earth minerals produces around 2,000 tons of toxic waste.

"Rare-earth metals are hardly ever recycled in Europe. There is an urgent need for sustainable and uncomplicated methods for separating and recovering these strategic raw materials from various sources," said lead researcher Victor Mougel, assistant professor at ETH Zurich’s Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry, in a statement.

In a method described in a paper published June 3 in the journal Nature Communications, Mougel and his team focused on extracting europium — a highly volatile REE that, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is commonly used in the glass of fluorescent lights or as a source of blue color in LEDs.

Safer REE extraction and recycling

First author of the study Marie Perrin, a doctoral student at ETH Zurich, explained that existing separation methods for reclaiming europium have so far been impractical. The team, however, harnessed small inorganic molecules called tetrathiometallates, which comprise four sulfur atoms around tungsten or molybdenum.

Tetrathiometallates are transition metals that are conventionally used in medicine as treatments for copper metabolic disorders and cancer, the scientists said.

But by using them as a reagent in a redox (reduction-oxidation) reaction, they extracted samples of europium easily — including from post-consumer waste in the form of spent energy-saving light bulbs, they said in the study.

They ground down the lamps and then dissolved them in trifluoromethanesulfonic acid. Once the glass was filtered out, they vacuum-dried what remained at 392 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) and then added this to a solution of tungsten tetrathiometallate.

The efficiency of europium removal was approximately 98.9% — which was "over an order of magnitude higher than the best reported [methods]," the scientists added.

The researchers have patented their technology and are setting up a company named REEcover to commercialize it, with a focus on recycling rather than extracting new REEs from the environment. The team is also working on establishing methods for recycling other minerals such as neodymium and dysprosium, which are found in magnets.

Scientists have developed a new type of razor-thin crystal film semiconductor that enables electrons to move seven times faster than they do in traditional semiconductors — and it could have huge implications for electronic devices.

In a study published July 1 in the journal Materials Today Physics, physicists created an extremely thin film from a crystalline material called ternary tetradymite.

The film — measuring just 100 nanometers wide, or about one-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair — was created through a process called molecular beam epitaxy, which involves precisely controlling beams of molecules to build a material atom-by-atom. This process allows materials to be constructed with minimal flaws or defects, enabling greater electron mobility, a measure of how easily electrons move through a material under an electric field.

When the scientists applied an electric current to the film, they recorded electrons moving at record-breaking speeds of 10,000 centimeters squared per volt-second (cm^2/V-s). By comparison, electrons typically move at about 1,400 cm^2/V-s in standard silicon semiconductors, and considerably slower in traditional copper wiring. 

Related: Charging future EVs could take seconds with new sodium-ion battery tech

This sky-high electron mobility translates to better conductivity. That, in turn, paves the way for more efficient and powerful electronic devices that emit less heat and waste less energy.

The researchers likened the film's properties to "a highway without traffic," saying that such materials "will be essential for more efficient and sustainable electronic devices that can do more work with less power." Potential applications include wearable thermoelectric devices that convert waste heat into electricity and "spintronic" devices, which use electron spin instead of charge to process information, the scientists said.

"Before, what people had achieved in terms of electron mobility in these systems was like traffic on a road under construction — you’re backed up, you can’t drive, it’s dusty, and it’s a mess," Jagadeesh Moodera, a physicist at MIT, said in a statement. "In this newly optimized material, it’s like driving on the Mass Pike with no traffic."

The scientists measured electron mobility in the material by placing the crystalline film in an extremely cold environment under a magnetic field. They then passed electrical current through it and measured quantum oscillations, which occur when electrical resistance fluctuates in response to a magnetic field.  

Even tiny defects in the material can affect electronic mobility by obstructing the movement of electrons. As such, the scientists hope that refining the process for creating the film will produce even better results.

"This is showing it’s possible to go a giant step further, when properly controlling these complex systems," Moodera said. "This tells us we’re in the right direction, and we have the right system to proceed further, to keep perfecting this material down to even much thinner films and proximity coupling for use in future spintronics and wearable thermoelectric devices."

Researchers have built a mechanical computer inspired by kirigami, the Japanese art of paper-folding and cutting.

The proof-of-concept computer, which includes no electronic components, has 64 interconnected, 0.06 cubic inch (1 cubic centimeter) polymer cubes that can be rearranged to store, retrieve and erase data. Similar to kirigami, where paper is cut and folded into intricate designs, the computer can be physically manipulated into different configurations and states.

In this machine, each cube represents a bit of binary data, which can be pushed up or down to represent 1 or 0, respectively. Rearranging the cubes changes the computer's configuration, enabling information to be stored or represented in physical form.

The scientists said the concept could be used to create physical encryption-decryption systems, or even develop touch-based systems for 3D environments.

"For example, a specific configuration of functional units could serve as a 3D password," lead study author Yanbin Li, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University's College of Engineering, said in a statement. "We’re also interested in exploring the potential utility of these metastructures to create haptic systems that display information in a three-dimensional context, rather than as pixels on a screen."

Related: 'Quantum-inspired' laser computing is more effective than both supercomputing and quantum computing, startup claims

The researchers published their research June 26 in the journal Science Advances. 

Mechanical computers date back centuries — potentially as early as the second century B.C. — long before the invention of algorithms and programming languages as we know them today. Unlike this new kirigami-inspired concept, however, people operated these machines with gears or levers, making them extremely clunky.

In the new computer, changing the position of one cube changes the position of all connected cubes — altering the computer's configuration to correspond with different computational states. 

"Using a binary framework — where cubes are either up or down — a simple metastructure of 9 functional units has more than 362,000 possible configurations," Li said.

Data editing is controlled by pulling on the edges of the metastructure, which stretches elastic tape and pushes the cube up or down. When the tape is released, it locks the cubes, and the data, in place. The cubes can also be pushed up or down remotely by attaching a magnetic plate to the computer and applying a magnetic field.

The researchers said the system could allow for more complex computing beyond binary code, with cubes capable of occupying states of not just 1 or 0 but 2, 3 and 4. 

"Each functional unit of 64 cubes can be configured into a wide variety of architectures, with cubes stacked up to five cubes high," study co-author Jie Yin, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State, said in the statement. "This allows for the development of computing that goes well beyond binary code."

Next, the researchers hope to team up with programmers to develop code for the computer. "Our proof-of-concept work here demonstrates the potential range of these architectures, but we have not developed code that capitalizes on those architectures," Li said. "We’d be interested in collaborating with other researchers to explore the coding potential of these metastructures."

Scientists have developed an imaging chip that could equip future smartphones with "Superman-inspired" X-ray vision — albeit operating within a much more limited range than the caped Kryptonian superhero.

The experimental chip consists of an array of three sensor pixels that emit and receive high-frequency radio signals in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Signals reflected back from the target object are then amplified and mixed by onboard components, enabling outlines of the object to be viewed on a display.

In tests, the chip could detect an object behind cardboard at a distance of around 0.39 inches (1 centimeter). The researchers published their findings Jan. 5 in the journal IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology.

It took 15 years of work — and an improvement in pixel performance by 100 million times — to make the chip small enough to fit in a mobile device, the researchers said in a statement. In the future, smartphones equipped with the chip may be capable of detecting the contents of envelopes or packages, or could be used to find studs, wires or cracked pipes behind walls.

Related: New display tech paves the way for 'most realistic' holograms in regular eyeglasses

"We designed the chip without lenses or optics so that it could fit into a mobile device. The pixels, which create images by detecting signals reflected from a target object, have the shape of a 0.5-mm square, about the size of a grain of sand," said co-author of the paper Wooyeol Choi, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Seoul National University, in the statement.

Beyond making it possible to peer through walls and inside envelopes, the new imaging tech may find applications in medicine and healthcare, the researchers said. They likened the technology to that already used in passenger scanners found at airports — though they noted that their imager chip does not use microwaves.

Instead, the imager chip uses 300 GHz signals in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band of the electromagnetic spectrum. These sit between the microwave and infrared bands and are considered safe for humans.

"This technology is like Superman’s X-ray vision. Of course, we use signals at 200 gigahertz to 400 gigahertz instead of X-rays, which can be harmful,” said Kenneth O, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, in the statement

Also unlike Superman’s X-ray vision, the imaging tech used in the chip can only be used at very close range — approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) away from the object being scanned. This means that thieves wouldn’t be able to covertly scan the contents of your bag or pockets without your knowledge, the researchers said.

The next iteration of the chip will be designed to scan objects from a little further away — up to 5 inches (12.7 cm) — making it better at capturing small objects.

A breakthrough cooling technology could help invigorate quantum computing and slash costly preparation time in key scientific experiments by weeks.

Scientists often need to generate temperatures close to absolute zero for quantum computing and astronomy, among other uses. Known as the "Big Chill," such temperatures keep the most sensitive electrical instruments free from interference — such as temperature changes. However, the refrigerators used to achieve these temperatures are extremely costly and inefficient. 

However, scientists with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) — a U.S. government agency — have built a new prototype refrigerator that they claim can achieve the Big Chill much more quickly and efficiently.

The researchers published the details of their new machine April 23 in the journal Nature Communications. They claimed using it could save 27 million watts of power per year and reduce global energy consumption by $30 million.

A new breed of refrigerator

Conventional household fridges work through a process of evaporation and condensation, per Live Science. A refrigerant liquid is pushed through a special low-pressure pipe called an "evaporator coil." 

As it evaporates, it absorbs heat to cool the inside of the fridge and then passes through a compressor that turns it back into a liquid, raising its temperature as it is radiated through the back of the fridge.

Related: 'World's purest silicon' could lead to 1st million-qubit quantum computing chips

To achieve required temperatures, scientists have used pulse tube refrigerators (PTRs) for more than 40 years. PTRs use helium gas in a similar process but with far better absorption of heat and no moving parts. 

While effective, it consumes huge amounts of energy, is expensive to run, and takes a long time. However, the NIST researchers also discovered that PTRs are needlessly inefficient and can be greatly improved to reduce cooling times and lower overall cost.

In the study, the scientists said PTRs "suffer from major inefficiencies" such as being optimized "for performance only at their base temperature" — usually near 4 Kelvin. It means that while cooling down, PTRs run at greatly inefficient levels, they added.

The team found that by adjusting the design of the PTR between the compressor and the refrigerator, helium was used more efficiently. While cooling down, some of it is normally pushed into a relief valve rather than being pushed around the circuit as intended. 

Quantum computing at a fraction of the cost

Their proposed redesign includes a valve that contracts as the temperature drops to prevent any helium from being wasted in this way. As a result, the NIST team’s modified PTR achieved the Big Chill 1.7 to 3.5 times faster, the scientists said in their paper.

“In smaller experiments for prototyping quantum circuits where cooldown times are presently comparable to characterization times, dynamic acoustic optimization can substantially increase measurement throughput,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers said in their study that the new method could shave at least a week off experiments at the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) — a facility in Italy that’s used to look for rare events such as a currently theoretical form of radioactive decay. As little background noise as possible must be achieved to obtain accurate results from these facilities.

Quantum computers need a similar level of isolation. They use quantum bits, or qubits. Conventional computers store information in bits and encode data with a value of either 1 or 0 and perform calculations in sequence, but qubits occupy a superposition of 1 and 0, thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics, and can be used to process calculations in parallel. Qubits, however, are incredibly sensitive and need to be separated from as much background noise as possible — including the tiny fluctuations of thermal energy. 

The researchers said that even more efficient cooling methods could theoretically be achieved in the near future, which could lead to faster innovation in quantum computing space. 

The team also said their their technology could alternatively be used to achieve extremely cold temperatures in the same time but at a much lower cost, which could benefit the cryogenics industry, cutting costs for non-time-intensive experiments and industrial applications. The scientists are currently working with an industrial partner to release their improved PTR commercially.

A new material structure could revolutionize energy storage by enabling the capacitors in electric vehicles or devices to store energy for much longer, scientists say.

Researchers have developed capacitors from new "heterostructures" with a novel property that reduces the speed at which energy dissipates without affecting their ability to charge quickly.

The new discovery — which the scientists say was unintended and builds off novel electronics work — could be the foundation for better battery life across consumer devices such as laptops or smartphones, as well as more flexibility in grid-scale energy storage. The scientists described their findings in a study published April 18 in the journal Science.

While batteries can store energy for a long period, they take a long time to charge and discharge electricity. This is where capacitors come in — they store electricity in an electric field that can be quickly charged and discharged for rapid access to power as needed. 

Smartphones, for example, generally use power from the battery but get energy from capacitors when power is needed in a short burst — such as for a camera flash. Each smartphone typically has hundreds of capacitors.

Related: This tiny radioactive battery can last 50 years without recharging — and it's coming in 2025

Some capacitors use ferroelectric materials to store energy. These materials are naturally polarized, which can be reversed by applying a voltage. When the polarization is reversed, this remains in the capacitor like ‘memory’, even after the voltage is removed.

Applying power reverses the polarization of these materials, and they can maintain this polarization even after the power has been removed. However, they generally retain energy poorly over longer periods compared with batteries.

The new structure sits in a physical and chemical balance between conductivity and non-conductivity, letting it more effectively retain energy. By accident, the researchers found that a tiny gap in the core increases the relaxation time — a term used to describe the period over which the capacitor loses charge.

In each of the heterostructures, 2D and 3D materials are layered like pasta sheets in a lasagna at an atomic level, with chemical and non-chemical bonds between each layer. The maximum thickness of the overall structure or is just 30 nanometers – around 30,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Researchers said the technology could deliver energy density up to 19 times higher than current capacitors. The team also reported an efficiency of more than 90%, a standout result in the field. Comparable efficiency for novel ferroelectric capacitors stands at 86.95%, according to research published in July 2023 in the journal Materials.

"We found that dielectric relaxation time can be modulated or induced by a very small gap in the material structure," said Sang-Hoon Bae, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Washington University, in a statement. "That new physical phenomenon is something we hadn’t seen before. It enables us to manipulate dielectric material in such a way that it doesn’t polarize and lose charge capability."

If reproduced at scale, the structure could power a shift in the way that we store and access energy because it would allow energy to be accessed very fast on demand without sacrificing the stability of long-term storage. With higher energy densities, next-generation capacitors could enable greater use of fast-charging capacitors for devices that need long-term storage such as electric vehicles. Capacitors could also provide fast, on-demand power for the grid or private industrial uses. 

We love outlandish ideas and companies that take risks — that, after all, is how science and technology progress. But with every success comes a dozen failures and that’s what this list celebrates.

These are some ideas that could have been the next big thing: concepts that got backing but ultimately failed to take flight. Some were unlucky with timing. Some appeared to forget entirely to consider what consumers might actually want. And some, a handful, may yet have their moment of success.

So here’s a love letter to the Betamaxes and robot butlers of this world — not that either of those made the cut. To the technologies that could have made it, were it not for that most fickle of mistresses: us, the buying public.

Bluetooth face masks

CES, the world’s biggest consumer technology show, takes place in Las Vegas every January. In 2022, you couldn’t walk through its halls without seeing tech aimed at reducing the spread of viruses. Several companies decided that Bluetooth face masks were the future, allowing people to take calls, listen to music and stay safe from infection. Razer’s Zephyr is perhaps the most famous example, complete with RGB lights, speakers and replaceable filters, all for $99. But like every other Bluetooth face mask, it’s long since disappeared from sale. 

Hoverboards

It’s not that hoverboards can’t be made. The picture here is real, taken at a Formula 1 race in 2022, and around a decade ago you could even buy hoverboards from ARCA Space and Hendo. But then, much like a Live Science writer if they ever tried to ride one, came the crash. People love the idea of a true hoverboard — especially anyone who grew up watching Back To The Future — but when the reality is a few minutes of flight time and an outlay measured in five figures, hoverboards remain more McGrounded than McFly. 

Steam Machines

Back in 2013, Valve — the company behind the Steam gaming platform — thought it had spotted a gap in the console market. Rather than play a limited number of expensive games on the Xbox and PlayStation, it would give gamers an open platform to play any Steam-purchased game. But it took two years to get from announcement to hardware, and even with big-name backing from Alienware and Gigabyte, total sales of Steam Machines never even reached a million. To put that into perspective, Sony shipped 87 million PlayStation 3 units. 

Cat translators

Back in 2003, a Japanese firm launched Meowlingual, a cat-translation device. Point it at your cat’s face, let it listen to the sounds he or she was making, and it would reveal your pet’s current mood via an on-screen display and a short phrase (think "I’m hungry"). And here’s the science bit: the device used "voiceprint analysis technology developed at Tokyo’s distinguished Japan Acoustic Laboratory," according to an article in The Guardian. Meowlingual went on sale in the U.S. and Japan for around $75, but we’re sorry to say it’s no longer available. 

Monowheels

Why sit on a wheel when you can sit inside one? And then use an engine — similar to a motorbike’s — that can revolve the wheel around you, to carry you along at speeds of up to 61 miles (98 kilometers) per hour, the current world record? One good reason is that steering and braking are a challenge, with riders often using their feet, but ever since the first design in 1869 the idea has consistently caught people’s imagination. Albeit more for fun and exhibitionism than as a viable means of transport. 

Robotic sheep shearers

Australia dreams of electronically sheared sheep. With a collective flock numbering 75 million, its universities and industry bodies have been investigating ways to automate the process since the mid-1980s. There’s even a YouTube video showing one such prototype, from the University of Western Australia, in action. But we warn you, it looks pretty disturbing compared to manual sheep shearing. Robotic sheep shearers are still being worked on, but the old way continues to dominate — and likely will for decades to come. 

AR glasses

A clarification: we’re not putting smart glasses on this list. We actually like the recent designs from Ray-Ban and Amazon. Instead, we’re talking about true augmented reality glasses that want to overlay images across your vision, perhaps to give you directions or tell you all about the tourist attraction you’re gazing at. Because as Google Glass’s infamous demise showed, the public don’t like cameras staring at them — and glasses wearers don’t like terrible battery life coupled with bulky, ugly design. 

HD DVDs

Remember round two of Betamax versus VHS? This time it was Toshiba rather than JVC that took on Sony, with both proposing high-res replacements for DVDs in 2005. Toshiba’s HD DVDs initially tripled capacity to 15GB, but with the promise that discs would still work on older DVD players. Despite Toshiba’s collaboration with the movie industry, Sony’s Blu-ray swept to victory thanks to a larger capacity at launch and because the popular PlayStation 3 included a Blu-ray player as standard. To get the full benefit of HD DVDs, you had to buy an expensive HD DVD player. By 2008 it was game over. 

Radio newspapers

We endlessly scroll through information on our phones today, but back in the 1930s some lucky Americans could scroll through a radio-delivered newspaper each morning. This used radio stations to beam information to local homes overnight, where it would be printed out at an excruciating 15 minutes per page. The idea became commercial reality thanks to William Finch and his $125 receivers, but thanks to information loss due to static, annoying paper jams and the sheer expense involved, the dream came to an end in 1952 when Finch’s company went bankrupt. 

Smelly movies

When TVs started arriving in American homes, movie studios realized they needed to take action to revive plummeting theater-attendance numbers. One answer: smelly films! The core idea was for an odor to drift through the cinema, propelled via fans, to match the on-screen action. When Smell-O-Vision debuted in the 1960 movie "Scent of Mystery," filmgoers were subjected to 30 such smells that also served as clues (spoiler: the killer used a distinctive cologne). But it was expensive to add the system to cinemas, the technology was unreliable and the smells lingered long after the action. 

3D TVs

A prime example of a technology desperately searching for a market rather than solving a problem, 3D TVs were loved by manufacturers but met with apathy by buyers. Why? Because the number of great 3D movies can be counted on one finger, and because people watch TV to relax rather than wonder if that’s a headache building behind their eyes. The tech is there — John Logie Baird first demonstrated stereoscopic TVs back in 1928 — but even when LG, Samsung and Sony flooded tech show CES with 3D TVs in 2010, sales flopped. It’s time to accept that 3D TVs will never have their day. 

The Net PC

Back in the mid-1990s, Intel and Microsoft cooked up an idea. They could save businesses money by providing stripped-down PCs that were managed by IT teams and geared towards basic office tasks. Users couldn’t install any extras: the Net PC was a simple, closed beige box locked down by the business they worked for. Despite the backing of Acer, Dell, HP and many other big names, the idea flopped. The price was simply too high — often more than "real" PCs — and while IT managers may have loved the idea of simple network boxes, users most certainly did not. 

Modular phones

Remember Project Ara? This was Google’s attempt to create a phone assembled from blocks that could be easily replaced over time — buy the original phone then upgrade the processor, memory, camera or whatever as you desired. It also looked funky. Sadly, Project Ara never moved out of concept and into reality, just like the Modu phone before it. There are success stories — the Fairphone has many fans, as does the German Shiftphone — but we’re keeping modular phones in this list until they break into the true mass market. 

Gesture control for computers

To us, the fact we aren’t all using voice recognition and hand gestures to control our computers — an idea that dates back to the 1970s — emphasizes just how good keyboards and mice are. Despite huge improvements in gesture control over the past two decades, with great work by UltraLeap for instance, the traditional input methods remain the most accurate and intuitive. While the Apple Vision Pro has given hand gestures another spike of interest, it’s no surprise that one of people’s biggest complaints about the headset is when trying to enter text. 

Wearable computers

You could argue that wearable computers have happened. We have phones in our pockets and sensor-packed smart watches on our wrists. But that’s not the concept sold by Xybernaut, which sold several thousand wearable PCs between 1995 and its 2005 demise. Its Mobile Assistant series packed the computing device into a plastic box worn on the waist, while users strapped a QWERTY keyboard to their wrist and used a one-inch head-mounted display to see what was going on. Xybernaut only sold a few thousand models before it — and the idea — melted into obscurity. 

Microsoft Bob

In the mid-1990s, many struggled to get to grips with Windows. Microsoft’s solution: Bob. Rather than a flat desktop, users would enter a 3D room where they could click on a calendar, an address book, a typewriter, a checkbook and more. But not only did users find it patronizing, Bob was far too demanding for the hardware of the time, and was discontinued within a year. Still, without Bob, there would be no Comic Sans: designer Vincent Connare created it for the speech bubbles, and while the font wasn’t finished in time for Bob’s release, it still lives on today. 

DivX

Why rent a fading VHS video when you could buy a crisp DivX disc with the same film, in DVD quality, for $4.50? No need to return it: once activated, you had two days to watch the movie and then the disc would be unreadable. Just get rid of it! American electronics retailer Circuit City put its weight behind the idea in 1998, and was backed by the major studios, who loved the strict piracy controls. Sadly, users didn’t like the expensive players or that the player had to "phone home" to authenticate. The possible environmental impact, too, was significant. And they won: the format was discontinued in June 1999. 

Flying saucers

Science fiction has long inspired real-world technology, and it’s easy to see what kind of movies British designer John West grew up on. In 1975, he created a real flying saucer, with helium to add lift and a set of propellers to push his invention in the right direction. Sadly, West never got funding to turn his 30-foot (9 meters) diameter, radio-controlled prototype into the 200-foot (61 meters) production model that he believed would be capable of carrying 10-ton (9 metric tons) payloads for 1,000 miles (1,600 km) at 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour), but you can view the prototype in action on YouTube. 

HUDs in motorbike helmets

It seems so obvious: integrate a heads-up display into a motorbike helmet to show directions and speed so that riders need never take their eyes off the road. Indiegogo campaigns raised over $2.5 million for Skully Helmets by 2015, and Intel injected a further $1 million, but few helmets ever shipped. Meanwhile, BMW’s attempt never made it out of the concept stage. Instead, it now sells its ConnectedRide smart glasses for $750 while Nuviz offers a $699 standalone HUD. True HUDs in motorbike helmets seem destined to never happen. 

VR movies

VR movies were once the Next Big Thing, with viewers fully immersed in the action when watching on their VR headsets. California tech startup Jaunt raised around $100 million from investors by 2015, with its 24-lens orb camera capturing the action from gigs and sporting events, and filmmakers also able to create their own movies. Disney even created a VR version of Coco. But not enough people bought VR headsets, and not enough of those people wanted to watch films on them — leading Jaunt to declare bankruptcy and take the nascent VR movie industry with it. 

Internet fridges

We are willing to admit that robot butlers may never appear, but when manufacturers promised us dream homes where fridges would automatically order food as required, the idea felt genuinely plausible. Sadly, the reality is rather more mundane. While all the big companies sell smart fridges that monitor temperatures and have holiday modes to save energy — and some offer touch screens that can display recipes and show you what’s inside the fridge without you opening the door — we remain a long way from living the fully automated life of The Jetsons. 

Space elevators

The idea of a structure stretching out into space dates to 1895, when Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky speculated that this could be the way to launch items into space. The concept edged closer to reality when, in 2000, a NASA report set out details of a structure using "high-strength carbon nanotube materials" that would be tethered from geostationary Earth orbit (an altitude of around 22,000 miles, or 36,000 km), with crawlers that would put payloads such as satellites into orbit. While research continues, slowly, we await the key breakthrough that might one day make the technology a reality. 

LaserDiscs

Who remembers watching Jaws on a LaserDisc in 1978? Long before Sony and Toshiba came along with CDs and DVDs, well-heeled Americans could buy a 12-inch disc (initially called DiscoVision) with data stored on both sides. It’s thought that one million U.S. homes included LaserDisc players by 1990. The format proved even more popular in Japan, but ultimately its high cost and the inexorable rise of DVD proved LaserDisc’s undoing. In 2009, Pioneer, the long-time backer of LaserDisc, announced it would no longer be making players. 

Teasmades

We will happily admit that the teasmade is stretching the modern definition of a "technology," but this quintessentially British invention — a bedside clock (and light!) that can make you a freshly brewed cup of tea ready for when you wake up — never quite escaped the British isles. Teasmades were incredibly popular in the U.K. in the 1950s and 1960s, and a handful of models are still available for sale today. We say: don’t write them off just yet. Switch to coffee, get Starbucks to invest and worldwide domination will soon follow. 

Windows RT

Imagine a version of Windows with no security problems, an intuitive touch interface and a rich selection of apps to match the iPad. Well, 12 years after the launch of Windows RT and we’re still imagining, with the operating system long since retired. Three problems killed it. First, software developers didn’t share Microsoft’s vision, leaving its app store barren. Second, many users despised the tile-based interface. And third, it lacked the great selling point of Windows: universal compatibility with software. 

Li-Fi

Where Wi-Fi uses radio signals to transmit data, Li-Fi uses LED light: a receiver in a phone or laptop detects the intensity from an LED bulb, which can be modulated billions of times per second, and turns that information into data. One advantage over Wi-Fi is that light doesn’t leak out of a room, so it’s far more secure, which is one reason the U,S. army likes it. But Li-Fi has never broken out of its niche — or at least not yet, with British manufacturer pureLiFi claiming that the technology is “poised to redefine connectivity” at MWC 2024. 

Paper clothing

The idea of paper clothing stretches from second-century China to Japanese kamikos, which were popular from the tenth century right through to the nineteenth. But it was swinging 60s America that rebooted the concept, reaching a peak with the Warhol-inspired Souper Dress in 1967. Paper clothing even hit British TV screens in 1965, with science program Tomorrow’s World telling its viewers that "tomorrow’s girl" would wear a paper shirt "ideal for jotting down numbers." Why the idea went up in smoke is a mystery. 

Internet tablets

Long before the iPad stormed into being, the likes of Nokia and Microsoft kept on trying to sell the concept of internet tablets. These were primarily designed to be windows onto the web, but were then stuffed with extra software — think Flash, RSS readers, Skype and internet radio players, to name but a few. The only trouble being that internet tablets were rubbish. They were slow, ugly and plagued with terrible interfaces, as manufacturers seemed to favor long tick boxes of features rather than what people actually wanted: usability. 

Video phones

From Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece "Metropolis" to the first (and best) "Blade Runner" film, video phones were a staple of science fiction in movies for half a century. Of course everyone in the future would chat via video phones dedicated to that one purpose! It made sense: if we all have audio phones now, we’ll have video phones in the future, right? But long before video phones as a dedicated device could take off, along came smartphones — which simply do everything. The closest we now come to video phones is being stuck in endless meetings on Zoom. 

Handheld PCs

For a while, it seemed that handheld PCs would be a huge hit. Atari and HP both launched handheld devices in 1989, complete with tiny screens and a keyboard. They flopped. History repeated when Microsoft and Intel failed to sell the world on the idea of their "ultra mobile PC" form factor in 2006. OQO, a U.S. computer company dedicated to handheld computers, flirted with success but ultimately sank into obscurity. Recent handheld gaming PCs such as the Asus ROG Ally keep the idea alive, but users are never quite as keen as the manufacturers. 

Luggable computers

In the early 1980s, traveling executives dreamed of "luggable" computers that could fit inside a suitcase. All they would need to do was plug it in once they got to their destination. The Osborne 1 was the archetypal luggable, with a five-inch (13 centimeters) display and full-sized keyboard, and the 24-pound (11 kilograms) machine was a bestseller in 1981. But then along came laptops, replete with batteries and LCD screens, and the luggable became history. HP tried to breathe new life into the idea with the Envy Move all-in-one in 2023, but alas, sales seem rather slow. 

Airships

Airships, including German Zeppelins, once battled it out with airplanes for supremacy. Unlike early planes, they could cross oceans without stopping for fuel, while passengers enjoyed a gentle, almost noiseless flight. Unfortunately, as most airships used hydrogen rather than the far less common helium, they had a tendency to go up in flames — most infamously shown by the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. Airships still exist, including their lesser cousins blimps, but good luck catching one from New York to London. 

An experimental two-dimensional semiconductor can harness the power of ambient light to serve as a "smart filter" and vastly improve the quality of photos taken with cheap cameras.

The platform, which measures 0.4 by 0.4 inch (1 by 1 centimeter), is made of a 100-by-100-pixel array that is just a few atoms thick — meaning the chip is transparent. The device was described in a study published March 18 in the journal Nature Communications.   

Each of the 10,000 pixels in the filter is an "optoelectronic neuron," the name the scientists have given the structure they built. Each structure consists of a transparent phototransistor, which converts light particles into electrons, and a liquid crystal modulator that forms a layer when all pixels are combined. This layer was then connected to an array of electrodes. 

This visual computing platform responds to ambient light and adjusts the pixels to make them partially transparent or opaque to reduce bright spots or glare selectively. In experiments, the scientists combined the smartphone camera with the filter to reduce glare in images taken with a smartphone camera. 

Related: China develops new light-based chiplet that could power artificial general intelligence — where AI is smarter than humans

As well as opening the door to higher-quality smartphone images, this technology can be used in sensing and detection systems, such as those found in autonomous vehicles, or to find tiny defects in robot assembly lines, the researchers said. These cost far too much for the average consumer and are used in more scientific and industrial settings.

"An inexpensive device measuring a couple of centimeters could make a low-powered camera work like a super-resolution camera," study co-author Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCLA, said in a statement. "That would democratize access to high-resolution imaging and sensing."

Light-based computing is an emerging field with many experiments producing prototype devices and chips. For example, scientists recently proposed a light-powered processor that could power a superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) system. Another team recently proposed a similar chip that can be fitted into existing components to speed up AI training. 

But light-based computing conventionally needs high-powered infrared lasers to work. These operate in the narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum and absorb light over time, which can slow down processing times, the UCLA scientists said in the statement. 

The alternative is to use energy-inefficient materials that can absorb plenty of light but are useless in applications that need transparency — such as photography — because they're far too thick. 

The difference between previous efforts and this new "smart filter" is that it works using low-power ambient light that you can find anywhere instead of high-powered lasers and uses a 2D transparent semiconductor material. 

Scientists have discovered a new mechanism in which a concentrated laser beam can change the magnetic state of a solid material. The finding could one day be harnessed in ultrafast computing memory, the researchers say.

The scientists formulated a new equation that describes the link between the amplitude of the magnetic field of light, its frequency and the energy absorption properties of a magnetic material. The scientists published their findings in a study on Jan. 3 in the journal Physical Review Research.

The equation is "completely new and also very elemental," study co-author Amir Capua, a physics professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Live Science.

Although the discovery builds on the field known as "magneto-optics," this represents a new paradigm because scientists didn't previously understand that the magnetic component of a rapidly oscillating light wave can control magnets, he said. The equation describes the characteristics of this interaction.

Computer memory uses miniature electromagnets that are magnetized with voltage to enable the binary states of "on" or "off" to encode data, which are read and reinterpreted by a processor as 1 or 0. 

The most common computing memory, like those found in laptops or phones, comes in the form of dynamic random access memory (DRAM). This is volatile, meaning when power is switched off, all data held is lost, but it's easier to engineer, uses common materials and has low error rates — and those few errors are easy to detect and fix.

The new finding is more relevant for a technology called magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), which is a non-volatile memory more commonly used in spacecraft as well as military and other industrial applications, according to MRAM-info.

Related: 'Universal memory' breakthrough brings the next generation of computers 1 step closer to major speed boost

Interaction between a magnetic material and radiation is well established when they are in equilibrium, but less is known about this relationship when they are not in equilibrium. It's also an area that overlaps with the weird laws of quantum mechanics, which are being harnessed to build quantum computers.

"We've arrived at a very elementary equation describing this interaction. It lets us completely reconsider optical magnetic recording and navigate our way to a dense, energy-efficient, cost-efficient optical magnetic storage device that doesn't even exist yet," Capua said.

Previous efforts to use the magnetic component of a light beam to flip a magnetic bit in this way were not effective, Capua said. But the new equation could help researchers to successfully incorporate the mechanism, he said.

In the far future, this technology could lead to MRAM components that are faster and more efficient than today's state-of-the-art RAM units, he added.

Optical cycle times (the time for an optical electromagnetic wave to complete an oscillation, in megahertz) in the technology could be a million times faster than in conventional memory. Electrical cycle times operate on nanoscale timescales (a second is 1 billion nanoseconds) whereas typical optical beams work in picoseconds (a second is 1 trillion seconds). 

It may also one day lead to quantum memory for quantum computers, in which a beam of light can fix a magnetic bit in neither 0 nor 1 but a superposition of the two states — much like how qubits work in quantum computers. Even though that's beyond the precision engineering of today, Capua said his team's findings could lead to the discovery of materials that could one day be used in such technology.

It can also make digitized memory systems more energy-efficient by giving the device more control over the strength and duration of the light beam and its effects. "The duration of the optical beam and its energy can be chosen to reduce the writing power. Obviously, when the device is idle it doesn't consume any energy since magnetic memories are nonvolatile," he said.

Scientists have devised a new charging protocol for lithium-ion batteries that could double the lifespan of batteries used in smartphones and laptops.

The charging method — which gives devices power with a "pulse current" rather than a "constant current" — can extend battery lifespan by many years, the researchers wrote in a study published March 14 in the journal Advanced Material Sciences.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in everything from electric vehicles (EVs) to portable electronics, but the maximum capacity of these batteries degrades over time. The longer they are used, and the more charge cycles they undergo, the less charge they hold.

The batteries in many laptops, for instance, can last up to five years before weakening — or 300 to 500 charge cycles — according to the laptop manufacturer Lenovo. The best batteries, meanwhile, have a service life of up to eight years, the scientists said. These normally have electrodes made of a compound called NMC532 (comprising nickel, manganese and cobalt) as well as graphite.

Related: This tiny radioactive battery can last 50 years without recharging — and it's coming in 2025

A constant current normally charges these batteries, with pulse charging normally used in "fast charging" products. In the study, the scientists charged different batteries with constant current and pulse current charging and measured the batteries' charge capacity.

In constant current batteries, the electrolyte interface at the anode — where there is an exchange of electrons between the electrolyte material and the positively charged electrode — was significantly thicker. This limited how much charge it could hold. There were also more cracks in the NMC532 and graphite electrodes, which reduced battery charging capacity.

Pulse current, on the other hand, increased the number of charging cycles a battery could undergo from approximately 500 cycles for constant current to more than 1,000 cycles. The pulse current charging performed better because the rest periods between the supply of current allowed the materials to rest.

"These findings offer insights for optimizing the charging protocols of nowadays LIBs [lithium-ion batteries] and beyond during service life and more broadly for the advancement of future battery technology," the researchers wrote in the paper.

The findings align with previous research. In 2023, Josefin Strandberg, professor of particle physics at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, published a paper that found lithium-ion battery health improved when using a pulse current-based charging protocol.

Scientists in China have designed a tiny, modular chip that is powered by light rather than electricity — and they want to use it to train and run a future artificial general intelligence (AGI) model.

The new chiplet, called "Taichi," is one small piece of a wider jigsaw formed of many individual chiplets (including Taichi modules) that, together, could form a sophisticated and powerful computing system. If scaled up sufficiently, this would be powerful enough to train and run an AGI in the future, the scientists argued in their paper, published April 11 in the journal Science. 

AGI is a hypothetical advanced form of artificial intelligence (AI) that would, in theory, be just as smart as humans in terms of its cognitive reasoning abilities. AGI could be applied across many disciplines, whereas today's AI systems can only be applied very narrowly. 

Some experts believe such systems are many years away, with a bottleneck in computing power being a key blocker, while others believe we'll build an AGI agent as soon as 2027.

In recent years, scientists have begun to reach the limitations of conventional electronics-based components, especially given the growth of AI and the sheer amount of power required to service these increasingly demanding systems. 

Related: Light-powered computer chip can train AI much faster than components powered by electricity

Graphics processing units (GPUs) have emerged as key components in training AI systems, because they are better at performing parallel calculations than central processing units (CPUs). But the energy consumption levels required are becoming unsustainable as systems become larger, the scientists argued. 

Light-based components could be one way to overcome the limitations of conventional electronics — including the energy efficiency problems.

Looking to the light for superhuman AI

Scientists previously outlined the design for a new type of photonic microchip in February, which uses photons, or particles of light, instead of electrons to operate transistors — tiny electrical switches that turn on or off when voltage is applied. Generally speaking, the more transistors a chip has, the more computing power it has and the more power it requires to operate. Light-based chips are far less energy-intensive and can perform calculations much faster than traditional chips, as they can perform calculations in parallel.

Current photonic chip architectures for AI models consist of hundreds or thousands of parameters, or training variables. This makes them powerful enough for basic tasks like pattern recognition, but large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are trained using billions or even trillions of parameters. 

An AGI agent would likely require many orders of magnitude greater — as part of a broader network of AI architectures. Today, the blueprints for building an AGI system do not exist.

In the new study, the scientists designed Taichi to work the same way as other light-based chips, but it can be scaled much better than competing designs, they said in their paper. This is because it combines several advantages of existing photonic chips — including "optical diffraction and interference," which are ways of manipulating the light in the component.  

To test the design, the researchers stitched together several Taichi chiplets and compared their architecture with other light-based chips in key areas. 

Their architecture achieved a network scale of 13.96 million artificial neurons — compared to 1.47 million in the next biggest competing design — with an energy efficiency metric of 160.82 trillion operations per watt (TOPS/W). The next best result they highlighted in their paper came from research published in 2022, in which a photonic chip achieved 2.9 TOPS/W. Many conventional neural processing units (NPUs) and other chips achieve well under 10 TOPS/W.

The researchers also claimed that their Taichi-based architecture is twice as powerful as other photonic systems, but they did not directly cite these. In tests, meanwhile, they used the distributed Taichi network to perform tasks including image categorization and classification, as well as image content generation, as a proof of concept rather than to benchmark performance.

"Taichi indicates the great potential of on-chip photonic computing for processing a variety of complex tasks with large network models, which enables real-life applications of optical computing," the scientists said. "We anticipate that Taichi will accelerate the development of more powerful optical solutions as critical support for the foundation model and a new era of AGI."

Researchers have designed a waterproof e-glove that could help scuba divers better communicate with each other and with people on boats on the surface using hand signals.

Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the "hand gesture recognition glove" (GRG) is equipped with sensors that produce electrical pulses in response to 16 hand gestures commonly used by divers underwater, including the index finger-to-thumb gesture for "OK," according to a study published April 10 in the journal ACS Nano. 

These pulses are then transmitted to a computer capable of translating them into words, which could enable more efficient communication between divers and with people at the surface.

E-gloves are not a new concept and are already in development — for example, to help people who have experienced a stroke regain their fine motor skills. But, until now, designing an e-glove that is both waterproof and comfortable to wear remained a challenge.

The electronic sensors integrated into the new design are inspired by the shape and layout of starfish's tube-like feet, according to the study. Electrical signals are created by a series of flexible microscopic pillars, which the researchers embedded in thin sheets of a waterproof plastic material called polydimethylsiloxane. They then coated the micropillar-studded sheets in a conductive layer of silver and sandwiched two pieces together with the micropillars facing inward to create a sensor.

Related: Fluid leaked from scuba diver's blood vessels after 100-foot cave dive in rare medical case

Each sensor is roughly the size of a USB-C port and detects different pressures, according to a statement. To create an e-glove that responds to hand movements, the researchers individually packed 10 sensors in self-adhesive bandage and sewed them onto the knuckles and first finger joints of their prototype. 

With the help of a participant wearing the e-glove, the team then trained a machine learning algorithm to recognize the electrical signals corresponding to 16 hand gestures commonly used during diving. They used the algorithm to create a computer program, which translated these gestures into words with 99.8% accuracy, according to the study.

"Basic diver to diver hand signals work well in decent visibility but are more tricky at night or in poor conditions and obviously don't provide a means of communicating with the surface," Keiron Fraser, an associate professor in marine conservation and head of the scientific diving program at the University of Plymouth in the U.K., told Live Science in an email. Fraser was not involved in designing the glove. 

The design may be particularly useful for operations that require contact between scuba divers and the surface, Fraser said. During their explorations, Fraser and his colleagues use voice communication systems that are either hardwired or transmit through water, but "the kit is bulky and expensive," he said. Military and commercial divers also use voice communications, but these messages are easy to intercept and may therefore pose a security risk. 

Waterproof e-gloves could provide discrete communication channels during sensitive operations — and while the military has the technology to transmit typed messages underwater, "a gloved system might be quicker than typing," Fraser said.

Researchers in Japan have created the first "n-channel" diamond-based transistor, inching us closer to processors that can operate at super-high temperatures. This eliminates the need for direct cooling and increases the range of environments where processors can operate.

By using diamond in a transistor — electrical switches that flip between 1 and 0 when voltage is applied — the research opens up the prospect of electronics that are smaller, faster and more power-efficient. 

They can also work in much harsher environments than conventional components — operating in temperatures above 572 degrees Fahrenheit (300 degrees Celsius) rather than the typical transistor's limit of 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) — and can endure much higher voltages before breaking down. 

The scientists detailed their findings in a paper published Jan. 19 in the journal Advanced Science. 

Silicon transistors have been used to make processors since the early 1960s, but it's reaching its physical limitations as the size of the manufacturing process (as low as 3 nanometers) approaches the 0.2-nanometer width of silicon atoms. 

There are several different types of transistors out there, but the most commonly used is metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), with "metal-oxide-semiconductor" referring to the silicon wafer of a conventional computer chip. 

Within MOSFETs, there are different configurations too — referred to as n-channel and p-channel. N-channel transistors use electrons to carry charge while p-channel transistors use "holes" — that is, in greatly simplified terms, the gaps left behind by escaped electrons. N-channel transistors are commonly found in high-side power switches to protect batteries. 

Related: Universal memory' breakthrough brings the next generation of computers 1 step closer to major speed boost

In the new study, the researchers built a transistor with two "phosphorus-doped diamond epilayers." Phosphorus doping, which simply means adding the element to the layers, is necessary to add conductivity.  This is the n-channel layer, which carries free electrons and would replace the silicon-based layer in a conventional chip. When enough electrons flow, they connect two ends of a gate — known as "the source" and "the drain." This closes the circuit to represent a 1 rather than a 0.

The team lightly doped the negative layer with phosphorus and heavily doped the second, positive layer. The scientists then formed annealed titanium "source" and "drain" contacts on the top, heavily doped layer, before adding 30-nanometer-thick aluminum trioxide to serve as an insulator. The result was the world’s first working n-channel MOSFET transistor made using diamond.

The researchers then put the transistor through a series of tests to check for conductivity performance. "The n-type diamond MOSFETs exhibit a high field-effect mobility around 150cm2/V/sec at 573K," they said in their paper, referring to high conductivity and stability at extremely high temperatures. This was "the highest among all the n-channel MOSFETs based on wide-bandgap semiconductors," they noted.

A bandgap, measured in electronvolts (a unit of kinetic energy) is an area within the n-channel in which valence electrons (those in an atom's outermost shell) can move freely. A wider bandgap means a component can operate at higher voltages and frequencies. Diamond has a 5.47eV bandgap compared with 1.12eV for silicon.

This is not the first diamond transistor breakthrough. Another team published a study in January 2022 in the journal Nature detailing how to create diamond-based p-channel wide-bandgap transistors. Until now, scientists have been unable to demonstrate a working n-channel diamond-based transistor.

When it comes to future applications for their transistor, the scientists suggested it could work in energy-efficient electronics, as well as spintronic devices and sensors made from micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) that can operate in harsh environments, such as space. 

There are other uses for diamond semiconductors, including in supercomputers,  electric vehicles (EVs) as well as lighter and more durable consumer electronics.

Scientists have designed a new microchip that's powered by light rather than electricity. The tech has the potential to train future artificial intelligence (AI) models much faster and more efficiently than today's best components, researchers claim.

By using photons to perform complex calculations, rather than electrons, the chip could overcome the limitations of classic silicon chip architecture and vastly accelerate the processing speed of computers, while also reducing their energy consumption, scientists said in a new study, published Feb. 16 in the journal Nature Photonics. 

Silicon chips have transistors — or tiny electrical switches — that turn on or off when voltage is applied. Generally speaking, the more transistors a chip has, the more computing power it has — and the more power it requires to operate. 

Throughout computing history, chips have adhered to Moore's Law, which states the number of transistors will double every two years without a rise in production costs or energy consumption. But there are physical limitations to silicon chips, including the maximum speed transistors can operate at, the heat they generate from resistance, and the smallest size chip scientists can make. 

It means stacking billions of transistors onto increasingly small silicon-electronic chips might not be feasible as the demand for power increases in the future — particularly for power-hungry AI systems.

Related: World's largest computer chip WSE-3 will power massive AI supercomputer 8 times faster than the current record-holder

Using photons, however, has many advantages over electrons. Firstly, they move faster than electrons — which cannot reach the speed of light. While electrons can move at close to these speeds, such systems would need an extraordinary — and unfeasible — amount of energy. Using light would therefore be far less energy-intensive. Photons are also massless and do not emit heat in the same way that electrons carrying an electrical charge do.

In designing their chip, the scientists set out to build a light-based platform that could perform calculations known as vector-matrix multiplications. This is one of the key mathematical operations used to train neural networks — machine-learning models arranged to mimic the architecture of the human brain. AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini are trained in this way. 

Instead of using a silicon wafer of uniform height for the semiconductor, as conventional silicon chips do,  the scientists made the silicon thinner — but only in specific regions. 

"Those variations in height — without the addition of any other materials — provide a means of controlling the propagation of light through the chip, since the variations in height can be distributed to cause light to scatter in specific patterns, allowing the chip to perform mathematical calculations at the speed of light," co-lead author Nader Engheta, professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

The researchers claim their design can fit into pre-existing production methods without any need to adapt it. This is because the methods they used to build their photonic chip were the same as those used to make conventional chips.

They added the design schematics can be adapted for use in augmenting graphics processing units (GPUs), for which demand has skyrocketed in recent years. That's because these components are central to training large language models (LLMs) like Google's Gemini or OpenAI's ChatGPT. 

"They can adopt the Silicon Photonics platform as an add-on," co-author Firooz Aflatouni, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, said in the statement. "And then you could speed up [AI] training and classification." 

Scientists have developed a new type of optical disc that can increase information storage capacity to the "petabit" level — 125 terabytes of data, or the combined storage capacity of about 15,000 DVDs. 

Optical discs, such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs, are durable and inexpensive. A standard single-layer Blu-ray disc can store 25 gigabytes. By comparison, some USB flash drives can store 1TB, and hard disk drives (HDDs) can hold up to 16TB.

But a team of scientists has created a new type of material, called "dye-doped photoresist with aggregation-induced emission luminogens" (AIE-DDPR) with a high areal density (the amount of data that can be stored in a given area) that can offer far denser storage capacity than typical HDDs). 

Given the increasing amount of data we generate each day, from instant messages to streaming video, AIE-DDPR optical discs have the potential to revolutionize data storage. Optical discs take up less space than current storage methods, be more environmentally friendly and could become less expensive than data storage arrays.

They described the details in a paper published Feb. 21 in the journal Nature.

To enable nanoscale writing, recording information on an optical disk at the molecular level, AIE-DDPR comprises two chemicals called 2-isopropylthioxanthone (ITX) and dipentaerythritol penta-acrylate (DTPA). ITX is an efficient photoinitiator, in that it reacts when exposed to light, such as that from a laser beam. DTPA is a monomer — a small molecule — with a high photosensitivity, meaning it reacts strongly to light. In effect, the two combine to enable more information to be stored more densely than ever before.

Related: 'Universal memory' breakthrough brings the next generation of computers 1 step closer to major speed boost

For nanoscale reading, a chemical called hexaphenylsilole (HPS) and a new material called AIE luminogens (AIEgens) were incorporated into the film. AIEgens already have an incredibly high fluorescence — a high absorption rate of electromagnetic radiation — but this was further enhanced using a highly focused laser beam that fired in bursts lasting a femtosecond (one-millionth of one-billionth of a second) during the writing process. This resulted in a far denser means of storing information on an optical disc.

The scientists used multilayer nanoscale writing and reading, storing information in multiple layers at the molecular scale, to increase the disc's storage density. By reducing the distance between layers to 1 micrometer (one-thousandth of a millimeter), the research team stored and retrieved 100 layers of data. The storage capacity was further expanded by storing information on both sides of the disc, much like a vinyl record.

Using multilayer nanoscale writing, the scientists stored more than 1 petabit of data on a single AIE-DDPR disc. This is more than the capacity of 5,000 Blu-rays.

To be commercially viable, the writing speed will need to be improved and made more energy efficient. The team hopes to accomplish this by using a far more precise laser beam than was used in the experiment.

Given the increasing amount of data we generate each day, from instant messages to streaming video, AIE-DDPR optical discs have the potential to revolutionize data storage. Optical discs take up less space than current storage methods and could become less expensive than data storage arrays.

Headphones may finally move past centuries' old technology thanks to a new type of micro-speaker that uses ultrasonic waves. The new audio chip could pave the way for noise-cancelling earbuds that can also recreate the illusion of sound coming from multiple directions.

The startup xMEMS first showcased its audio chip Cypress — which measures roughly 0.25 inch by 0.25 inch (6.3 by 6.5 millimeters) — at CES 2024 on Jan. 9. It will make its way into earbuds and headphones by the end of next year, company representatives told Live Science. 

In conventional speakers, a metallic coil is wrapped around a magnet, and an electrical current passes through the coil. The electromagnetism generated by the passing current interacts with the magnetism of the permanent magnet, which pushes the coil back and forth like a piston. This coil is also attached to a speaker cone, or diaphragm, which pushes air to generate sound. The technology was first proposed in the 1800s, but it's still used in headphones today.  

However, speakers designed this way are prone to damage, wear-and-tear and issues such as phase distortion — in which the shape of the sound waveform changes during the signal-conversion process, creating a lag and causing fuzz sounds. 

The Cypress micro-speaker, on the other hand, is a silicon chip with two components: an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), which processes the electrical signals from a sound file; and an ultrasonic transducer. This latter component translates the signal into sound waves using the piezoelectric effect — in which a material changes volume (or moves) when a current is applied to it.

Related: These noise-canceling headphones can filter specific sounds on command, thanks to deep learning

The transducer is made of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) — microscopic machines that incorporate electronic and moving parts. They are widely used in consumer electronics such as buzzers and sound receivers.

Like older technologies, the Cypress transducer moves air to generate sound waves. Unlike most MEMS, though, which are made up of piezoelectric crystals or ceramics, Cypress uses a new class of thin piezoelectric films made from lead zirconate titanate (PZT).

The PZT is incorporated as a layer in the semiconductor manufacturing process together with a silicon speaker diaphragm layer. When applied in this way, the films can produce high-resolution, high-quality sound, company representatives told Live Science.

The ASIC chip first receives and interprets the electrical signals and transmits them to the piezoMEMS transducer. The thin film vibrates at a high ultrasonic frequency, generating air pulses that map to the original audio signal. This generates air pressure inside the Cypress chip. Finally, demodulation piezoMEMS valves convert this acoustic energy into audio at frequencies we can hear.

Unlike conventional speakers, the speaker output shows near-zero phase shift, xMEMS representatives said in a statement, and is, therefore, more suited to features such as spatial audio, which simulates the experience of being surrounded by speakers in different locations. 

The Cypress chips could also be used to create better noise-cancelling technology, which generates a tailored sound wave to cancel ambient noise. In theory, Cypress' faster mechanical response and near-zero phase coherence should enable higher-frequency noises to be canceled, which headphones today struggle to mask. This movement in the Cypress chip also generates far more energy and pressure at low frequencies — 40 times more than the company's previous non-ultrasonic micro-speaker chip — which equips it with anti-noise needed to cancel these sounds.  

Following its demonstration at CES, xMEMS has begun shipping samples to a handful of its customers. The company plans to release a production-ready version of Cypress in June 2024. Mass production could begin by late 2024 or early 2025 — before earbuds fitted with the chip go on sale as soon as the end of next year.