News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Graphene Flagship researchers managed to carve out graphene to nanoscale dimensions, solving one of the main challenges towards effective nano-electronics.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed an advanced phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer that can drastically cut power consumption. This digital PLL could be an attractive building block for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and other wireless technologies to support a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have designed a 28 GHz transceiver that integrates beamforming with dual-polarized multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) technology. Measuring just 3 mm by 4 mm, this tiny transceiver could help improve performances of fifth-generation cellular network (5G) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Hiroshima University, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, and Panasonic Corporation announced the successful development of a terahertz (THz) transceiver that can transmit or receive digital data at 80 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). The transceiver was implemented using silicon CMOS integrated circuit technology, which would have a great advantage for volume production.

One of the key building blocks of flexible photonic circuits and ultra-thin optics are metasurfaces. And EPFL engineers have now discovered a simple way of making these surfaces in just a few minutes -- without needing a clean room -- using a method already employed in manufacturing. Their findings have just been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Scientists from EPFL and the Russian Quantum Center have built a photonic integrated, compact, and portable soliton microcomb source. The device is less than 1 cm3 in size, and is driven by an on-chip indium phosphide laser consuming less than 1 Watt of electrical power. It can be used in LIDAR, data center interconnects, and even satellites. The study is published in Nature Communications.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab have turned parts of a 13,000-mile-long testbed of 'dark fiber', unused fiber-optic cable, owned by the DOE Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor that could potentially augment the performance of earthquake early warning systems currently being developed in the western United States.

Two researchers at Osaka University developed an algorithm for numerical calculation of EM noise (interference) in electric circuits. This algorithm is for computer simulation of electric circuits in which transmission lines are connected with lumped element models.

Reporting this month in Physical Review A, a Wits University research team provide the first experimental evidence for fractal light from simple lasers and add a new prediction, that the fractal light should exist in 3D and not just 2D as previously thought.