Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms such as Deep Learning have become integral parts of our daily lives: they enable digital speech assistants or translation services, improve medical diagnostics and are an indispensable part of future technologies such as autonomous driving. Based on an ever increasing amount of data and powerful novel computer architectures,…
Researchers Use a Virus to Speed up Modern Computers
In a groundbreaking study, researchers have successfully developed a method that could lead to unprecedented advances in computer speed and efficiency. Through this study, researchers Desmond Loke, Griffin Clausen, Jacqueline Ohmura, Tow-Chong Chong and Angela Belcher have successfully developed a method to “genetically” engineer a better type of memory using a virus. The researchers come from…
Material Electronics Mystery Solved
Schottky diode is composed of a metal in contact with a semiconductor. Despite its simple construction, Schottky diode is a tremendously useful component and is omnipresent in modern electronics. Schottky diode fabricated using two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted major research spotlight in recent years due to their great promises in practical applications such as transistors,…
Large-Scale and Sustainable 3D Printing With the Most Ubiquitous Natural Material
Cellulose is one of the most abundant and broadly distributed organic compound and industrial by-product on Earth. Yet, despite decades of extensive research, the bottom-up use of cellulose to fabricate 3D objects is still plagued with problems that restrict its practical applications: derivatives with vast polluting effects, used in combination with plastics, lack of scalability…
Microscale IR Spectroscopy Enabled By Phase Change Materials and Metasurfaces
The mid-infrared is an interesting part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is composed of colours that cannot be seen by the human eye. Many chemical molecules resonate when illuminated by infrared light. This infrared resonance can then be used to identify or “fingerprint” the molecules. The infrared is, therefore, useful for a range of applications,…
Prototype Strain Engineered Materials Are Future of Data Storage
Researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology have nano-engineered a superlattice data storage material. Data is recorded at the interfaces of the superlattice layers. When the atoms at the interface are disordered, the material has a high electrical resistance while the ordered interface has…
Scientists Develop 3D Printing’s Most Stretchable Elastomer
Due to its excellent material properties of elasticity, resilience, electrical, and thermal insulation, elastomers have been used in a myriad of applications. They are and especially ideal for fabricating soft robots, flexible electronics, and smart biomedical devices which require soft and deformable material properties to establish safe and smooth interactions with humans externally and internally.…
Telecommunciations Light Amplifier Could Strengthen Integrity of Transmitted Data
Imagine a dim light which is insufficiently bright enough to illuminate a room. An amplifier for such a light would increase the brightness by increasing the number of photons emitted. Photonics researchers have created such a high gain optical amplifier that is compact enough to be placed on a chip. The developed amplifier, when used…