Items Tagged With Electronics

Researchers at Ohio University have created an improved magnetic semiconductor that solves a problem spintronics scientists have been investigating for years. Unlike classic or vintage electronics that operate on electronic charges, spin-based electronics focuses on the spin of electrons to carry and store information. Researchers predict spintronics will revolutionise the electronics industry by making devices faster, improving storage capacity and reducing the amount of power needed to run them.

The University of Leicester is the co-ordinating partner in an international project involving information that can be stored on nanoparticles. The project, entitled Nanospin, aims to use the novel properties of nanoparticles in the building of new materials and devices and, looking even further ahead, to functionalise the nanoparticles themselves, by making them from more than one element, or as core-shell structures, so that each is able to become a device.

The future of high-speed electronics might very well be defined by linking together small, &ldquot;electrically jumpy&rdquot; molecules called chromophores. According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and St Joseph’s University, electrical charges can zip along chains of linked chromophores faster than any electrical charge yet observed in organic semiconductors, beating the previous benchmark in this regard by a factor of three. Their findings suggest the use of chromophore-based circuitry that could create nano-sized electronic components for numerous applications. Their findings are presented in the current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Physicists of the University of Bonn have taken one more important hurdle on the path to what is known as a quantum computer: by using “laser tweezers” they have succeeded in sorting up to seven atoms and lining them up. The researchers filmed this process. They have reported on their breakthrough in the 13 July issue of Nature.

The University of Bath is to lead an international £555,000 three-year project to develop a system which could cut out the need for wiring to carry electric currents in silicon chips. Computers double in power every 18 months or so as scientists and engineers develop ways to make silicon chips smaller. But in the next few years they will hit a limit imposed by the need to use electric wiring, which weakens signals sent between computer components at high speed.