A technology that functions like a brain? In these times of artificial intelligence, this no longer seems so far-fetched — for example, when a mobile phone can recognise faces or languages. With more complex applications, however, computers still quickly come up against their own limitations. One of the reasons for this is that a computer […]
Displays
The Next Big (Small) Thing In Your Home: Smart Speakers with Projected Display
Raise your hand if you have a device like an Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod, or Sonos One in your home. What about two or more? In fact, the market for smart speakers and smart displays is estimated to continue its high growth trajectory, and at least one of these devices will be installed […]
A Novel Technique That Uses Quantum Light to Measure Temperature at the Nanoscale
Being able to measure, and monitor, temperatures and temperature changes at miniscule scales—inside a cell or in micro and nano-electronic components—has the potential to impact many areas of research from disease detection to a major challenge of modern computation and communication technologies, how to measure scalability and performance in electronic components. A collaborative team, led […]
What’s Trending in Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
Makers of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) continue to improve their products for longer lifetime, higher efficiency and brightness, and other performance factors. With these enhancements, LEDs are paving the way for brighter, more attractive lighting in applications such as vehicles and signage, and finding new uses in areas such as agriculture. The global LED lighting market […]
The Drawing Board: A Quantum Jump Into the Future for Display Technology
As its name implies, “The Drawing Board” column, each month, often discusses innovations that look highly promising in the laboratory but aren’t quite ready for prime time. On occasion, that requires perusing abstracts from scientific journals and browsing through a few Ph.D. dissertations. Many of these innovations never make it to commercial production; others represent […]
New Technique Could Pave the Way for Simple Color Tuning of LED Bulbs
Volkmar Dierolf and an international team demonstrate the possibility of tuning the color of a GaN LED by changing the time sequence at which the operation current is provided to the device. A new technique―the result of an international collaboration of scientists from Lehigh University, West Chester University, Osaka University and the University of Amsterdam―could pave […]
Takes a Licking and Keeps on Storing
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis made an energy storage device that can withstand a hammer striking it more than 40 times. The shatterproof supercapacitor is also nonflammable, unlike lithium-ion batteries. The new work is the cover story of the April 23 issue of the journal Sustainable Energy and Fuels. “Accidentally dropping electronics, such […]
Liquid Crystals in Nanopores Produce a Surprisingly Large Negative Pressure
Negative pressure governs not only the Universe or the quantum vacuum. This phenomenon, although of a different nature, appears also in liquid crystals confined in nanopores. At the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, a method has been presented that for the first time makes it possible to estimate […]
Light-Based Computer Hardware That Can Compete with Silicon
A team of researchers at NTT Corporation has developed a way to use light-based computer hardware that allows it to to compete with silicon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the group describes their research, the devices they created and how well they worked. Computer scientists have known for some time that the […]
Nanocomponent Is a Quantum Leap For Danish Physicists
University of Copenhagen researchers have developed a nanocomponent that emits light particles carrying quantum information. Less than one-tenth the width of a human hair, the miniscule component makes it possible to scale up and could ultimately reach the capabilities required for a quantum computer or quantum internet. The research result puts Denmark at the head […]