Most of the world's internet traffic spends at least part of its journey travelling through optical fibre. It's fast, efficient and remarkably good at carrying light over long distances with very little signal loss. Shrinking that same performance onto a silicon chip, however, has proved far more difficult. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) now … [Read more...] about New photonic chip design brings fibre-optic performance onto silicon
Technology
Atomic-scale interface could help push transistors beyond silicon
As transistors shrink towards atomic dimensions, even the boundary between two materials can become an engineering problem. Researchers at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), working with TSMC Corporate Research, have developed an insulating interface just 0.42 nanometres thick that could help improve transistors made from atomically thin … [Read more...] about Atomic-scale interface could help push transistors beyond silicon
NASA engineers buy Voyager 2 another year in space
Voyager 2 has survived almost 50 years in space, travelled beyond the planets and crossed into interstellar space. Yet one of the biggest engineering challenges facing the spacecraft today is surprisingly small: finding a few more watts of electricity. The spacecraft has no solar panels to fall back on. Instead, Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 are powered by radioisotope … [Read more...] about NASA engineers buy Voyager 2 another year in space
New chip design could help future space telescopes search for Earth-like planets
Building a telescope capable of spotting an Earth-like planet orbiting another star isn't just an optical challenge. It's a computing one. Future observatories will need to process enormous amounts of data in real time as they continuously correct tiny distortions in their mirrors and optics. Every calculation has to happen almost instantly. Yet for many of these tasks, the … [Read more...] about New chip design could help future space telescopes search for Earth-like planets
New detector design simplifies particle tracking
Researchers at ETH Zurich and EPFL have developed a particle detector that could simplify one of the biggest engineering challenges in experimental physics: tracking particles in three dimensions without relying on millions of individual detector elements. Many modern particle detectors use scintillating materials that emit tiny flashes of light when struck by charged … [Read more...] about New detector design simplifies particle tracking