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Is it possible to transmit information through a material in the form of electron spins? New measurements show: not in the way that scientists had been working on for decades. It is an old dream of solid-state physics: "spin liquids" are a hypothetical state of matter with exotic magnetic properties.

Berkeley Lab-led study shows expected cost declines of 17%-35% by 2035 and 37%-49% by 2050 Technology and commercial advancements are expected to continue to drive down the cost of wind energy, according to a survey led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the world's foremost wind power experts.

This wireless implant, developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, can measure the oxygenation of living tissue deep below the surface of the skin. (UC Berkeley photo by Soner Sonmezoglu) Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created a tiny wireless implant that can provide real-time measurements of tissue oxygen levels deep underneath the skin.

University of Sydney researchers have made a significant discovery in the field of materials science, for the first time providing a full picture of how fatigue in ferroelectric materials occurs. Ferroelectric materials are used in many devices, including memories, capacitors, actuators and sensors. These devices are commonly used in both consumer and industrial instruments, such as computers, medical ultrasound equipment and underwater sonars.

Power converters play an essential role in electric vehicles and solar panels, for example, but tend to lose a lot of power in the form of heat in the electricity conversion process. Thanks to a new type of transistor developed at EPFL, these converters can perform at substantially improved efficiencies, especially in high-power applications.

Carnegie Mellon University In the field of robotics, metals offer advantages like strength, durability and electrical conductivity. But, they are heavy and rigid - properties that are undesirable in soft and flexible systems for wearable computing and human-machine interfaces. Hydrogels, on the other hand, are lightweight, stretchable and biocompatible, making them excellent materials for contact lenses and tissue engineering scaffolding.

Scientists at EPFL and the University of Geneva have combined two powerful, cutting-edge techniques to uncover the physics behind an exotic phase transition that turns a metal into an insulator. The materials they looked at are rare-earth nickelates, which are of great interest for innovating new approaches in electronics.

Joint project with Birmingham's Tyseley Energy Park and the University of Birmingham. Demonstrates the potential of cost-effective decarbonisation through more effective utilisation and coordination of current and planned generation assets. A more coordinated net zero system could supply up to 50,000 users with CO2-neutral electricity or supply Birmingham airport with green electricity, heat and cooling.

Scientists at EPFL and the University of Geneva have combined two powerful, cutting-edge techniques to uncover the physics behind an exotic phase transition that turns a metal into an insulator. The materials they looked at are rare-earth nickelates, which are of great interest for innovating new approaches in electronics.

Until now, hexagonal boron nitride was considered the insulator of choice for miniaturised transistors. New investigations by TU Wien (Vienna) show: this may not be the way to go. For decades, there has been a trend in microelectronics towards ever smaller and more compact transistors. 2D materials such as graphene are seen as a beacon of hope here: they are the thinnest material layers that can possibly exist, consisting of only one or a few atomic layers.

'Make-at-home' pulse oximeter that can help track Covid-19 symptoms shared by Bath engineers Last updated on Wednesday 17 February 2021 Designs for a low-cost, 3D-printed blood-oxygen sensor have been shared by University of Bath engineers to help in the fight against Covid-19. The do-it-yourself 'Open Oximeter' sensor, designed by a team of engineers and scientists, can be created by anyone with a 3D printer and basic electronics skills.

For the first time, physicists from the University of Basel have produced a graphene compound consisting of carbon atoms and a small number of nitrogen atoms in a regular grid of hexagons and triangles. This honeycomb-structured -kagome lattice- behaves as a semiconductor and may also have unusual electrical properties.

In a first-of-its-kind discovery, researchers in the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Argonne National Laboratory announced they can directly control the interactions between two types of quantum particles called microwave photons and magnons. The approach may become a new way to build quantum technology, including electronic devices with new capabilities.

Savings of up to £1,000 a year on energy bills could be made by living in the UK's first affordable energy positive house, researchers have shown. The team from Cardiff University say that over the course of a year the house exports 1.3 times more electricity to the grid than it consumes, thus resulting in overall net negative carbon emissions, equating to around -179 kg per year.

To perform calculations, quantum computers need qubits to act as elementary building blocks that process and store information. Now, physicists have produced a new type of qubit that can be switched from a stable idle mode to a fast calculation mode. The concept would also allow a large number of qubits to be combined into a powerful quantum computer, as researchers from the University of Basel and TU Eindhoven have reported in the journal -Nature Nanotechnology-.

By Birgit Baustädter Power cuts have a wide variety of causes. Mostly we think of damaged power lines due to wind and weather or unplanned power surges that overload the grid. But solar storms can also lead to them. Electricity is omnipresent in our lives. So omnipresent that we no longer even consciously perceive it.

Pseudospin in antiferromagnets: new perspectives for information technologies Elementary particles carry an intrinsic angular momentum known as their spin. For an electron, the spin can take only two particular values relative to a quantization axis, letting us denote them as spin-up and spin-down electrons.

The experimental Photoacoustic Airborne Sonar System setup in the lab (left). A Stanford "S" submerged beneath the water (middle) is reconstructed in 3D using reflected ultrasound waves (right). (Image credit: Aidan Fitzpatrick) The "Photoacoustic Airborne Sonar System" could be installed beneath drones to enable aerial underwater surveys and high-resolution mapping of the deep ocean.

By Susanne Eigner The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Technology-Guided Electronic Component Design and Characterization investigates ways to better control electromagnetic interactions in smart networked devices, especially in the 5G frequency range. In smartphones and many other complex, wirelessly networked devices, sophisticated technologies are used to integrate the individual electronic components into the housing.

Using modern nanotechnology, it is possible nowadays to produce structures which have a feature sizes of just a few nanometres. This world of the most minute particles - also known as quantum systems - makes possible a wide range of technological applications, in fields which include magnetic field sensing, information processing, secure communication or ultra-precise time keeping.