These are the journeys of the “StarChip Wafersize.” UC Santa Barbara students sent up, via balloon, a prototype miniature spacecraft that might eventually become the “wafercraft” that researchers posit could be propelled by lasers to achieve space travel at relativistic speeds to reach nearby star systems and exoplanets. So begins a journey, funded by NASA…

Ten years into the future. That’s about how far UC Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering professor John Bowers and his research team are reaching with the recent development of their mode-locked quantum dot lasers on silicon. It’s technology that not only can massively increase the data transmission capacity of data centers, telecommunications companies and…

Imagine a generation of devices that operate not on electricity or batteries, but on light — an energy source that is both portable and abundant. Such technology could eliminate the costs associated with the manufacture of onboard energy systems and storage. An interdisciplinary group of scientists from several institutions, including UC Santa Barbara’s Javier Read…

Better known as glass, silica is a versatile material used in myriad industrial processes, from catalysis and filtration, to chromatography and nanofabrication. Yet despite its ubiquity in labs and cleanrooms, surprisingly little is known about silica’s surface interactions with water at a molecular level. “The way water interacts with a surface affects many processes,” says…

UC Santa Barbara scientists are on the cusp of a major advance in topological quantum computing. In a paper that appears in the journal Nature, Chris Palmstrøm, a UCSB professor of electrical and computer engineering and of materials, and colleagues describe a method by which “hashtag”-shaped nanowires may be coaxed to generate Majorana quasiparticles. These…

We’re all pretty familiar with what happens when we sustain a knock on the head: First, the all-too-audible crack, accompanied perhaps by a moment of surprise. Then, the swelling and, if we’re lucky, just a minor bump or scrape. But what happens on the other side of our skulls when we hit our heads? If…

In 1959 renowned physicist Richard Feynman, in his talk “Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” spoke of a future in which tiny machines could perform huge feats. Like many forward-looking concepts, his molecule and atom-sized world remained for years in the realm of science fiction. And then, scientists and other creative thinkers began to realize…