Light is more energy-efficient and a faster way of transferring data than electricity. Until now, the rapid attenuation of light signals in microchips has prevented the use of light as a source of an information signal. With international collaboration, researchers at Aalto University have now developed a nanosized amplifier to help light signals propagate through […]
First Truly Black Solar Modules Roll off Industrial Production Line
A 2011 invention made by Aalto University’s researchers has proceeded from concept to reality. Just a few years ago the researchers obtained the record efficiency of 22% in the lab for nanostructured solar cells using atomic layer deposition, and now with the help of industrial partners and joint European collaboration, the first prototype modules have […]
Carbon In Color: First-Ever Colored Thin Films Of Nanotubes Created
Single-walled carbon nanotubes, or sheets of one atom-thick layers of graphene rolled up into different sizes and shapes, have found many uses in electronics and new touch screen devices. By nature, carbon nanotubes are typically black or a dark grey. In their new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Aalto University researchers […]
Illuminating Electronics: Researchers Construct All-Optical Pocket Calculator
Our daily lives rely on electronic processors, which perform the basic arithmetic, logical, and control operations that make devices from mobile phones to smart TVs possible. Current technologies are, however, approaching their limits and researchers around the world are looking to enable the next generation of computing. In their paper now published in Science Advances, an […]
Qubits As Valves: Controlling Quantum Heat Engines
Researchers from Aalto University are designing nano-sized quantum heat engines to explore whether they may be able to outperform classical heat engines in terms of power and efficiency. In their paper, published in Nature Physics, the group led by Professor Jukka Pekola presents a way to solve a problem in how quantum systems interact and exchange […]
Ultimate Precision For Sensor Technology Using Qubits And Machine Learning
There are limits to how accurately you can measure things. Think of an X-ray image: it is likely quite blurry and something only an expert physician can interpret properly. The contrast between different tissues is rather poor but could be improved by longer exposure times, higher intensity, or by taking several images and overlapping them. […]
Designer Materials With Completely Random Structures Might Enable Quantum Computing
Topological randomness may be the answer for lossless electronics and making the nuts and bolts of quantum computers. Complete randomness in the structures of superconductors and insulators could lower the requirements of pristine crystalline ordering – and make them more accessible to industry. Designing quantum materials with exotic and unprecedented electrical properties has the field […]
AI Improves Touchscreen Interfaces For Users With Impairments
Researchers at Aalto University, Finland, and Kochi University of Technology, Japan, developed a new algorithmic approach to user interface optimization that takes individual differences into account. “The majority of available user interfaces are targeted at average users. This “one size fits all” thinking does not consider individual differences in abilities – the ageing and disabled […]
New Quantum Spin Liquid Predicted By Nobel Laureate Prepared For The First Time
In 1987 Paul W. Anderson, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, proposed that high-temperature superconductivity, or loss of electrical resistance, is related to an exotic quantum state now known as quantum spin liquid. Magnetic materials are made up of very tiny magnets, which can be as small as individual electrons. The strength and direction of […]
Scientists Observe a New Quantum Particle With Properties of Ball Lightning
Scientists at Amherst College and Aalto University have created, for the first time a three-dimensional skyrmion in a quantum gas. The skyrmion was predicted theoretically over 40 years ago, but only now has it been observed experimentally. In an extremely sparse and cold quantum gas, the physicists have created knots made of the magnetic moments, […]
