A recent study has advanced the understanding of magnonics by showing how magnons can interact nonlinearly, marking a critical step towards faster and more stable computing technologies.
High NA EUV is the next step in smaller transistors. Like NXE systems, it uses EUV light to print tiny features on silicon wafers. And by turning the NA knob, we deliver even better resolution: The new platform, known as EXE, offers chipmakers a CD (critical dimension) of 8 nm. That means they can print transistors 1.7 times smaller – and therefore achieve transistor densities 2.9 times higher – than they can with NXE systems.
Above – High NA EUV mirror testing at ZEISS (Credit: ZEISS SMT)
EUV lithography allowed us to make a big turn of the wavelength knob. It uses 13.5 nm light, compared to 193 nm for the highest-resolution DUV systems. The first pre-production EUV lithography platform, the NXE, shipped in 2010 and delivered a drop in CD (critical dimension) from more than 30 nm in DUV down to 13 nm with EUV.
A new fusion of materials, each with special electrical properties, has all the components required for a unique type of superconductivity that could provide the basis for more robust quantum computing. The new combination of materials, created by a team led by researchers at Penn State, could also provide a platform to explore physical behaviors similar to those of mysterious, theoretical particles known as chiral Majoranas, which could be another promising component for quantum computing.
The new study was recently published in the journal Science. The work describes how the researchers combined the two magnetic materials in what they called a critical step toward realizing the emergent interfacial superconductivity, which they are currently working toward.
The ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop concept even comes with a built-in drawing tablet.
A cool sci-fi concept, but what’s the killer app?
Physicists at Paderborn University have enhanced solar cell efficiency significantly using tetracene, an organic material, based on complex computer simulations. They discovered that defects at the tetracene-silicon interface boost energy transfer, promising a new solar cell design with drastically improved performance.
Physicists at Paderborn University have used complex computer simulations to create a novel solar cell design that boasts substantially higher efficiency than existing options. The enhancement in performance is attributed to a slender coating of an organic compound named tetracene. The results have recently been published in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters.
“The annual energy of solar radiation on Earth amounts to over one trillion kilowatt-hours and thus exceeds the global energy demand by more than 5,000 times. Photovoltaics, i.e. the generation of electricity from sunlight, therefore offers a large and still largely untapped potential for the supply of clean and renewable energy. Silicon solar cells used for this purpose currently dominate the market, but have efficiency limits,” explains Prof Dr Wolf Gero Schmidt, physicist and Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Paderborn University. One reason for this is that some of the energy from short-wave radiation is not converted into electricity, but into unwanted heat.
Terra Quantum introduces ‘flowermon,’ a superconducting set to enhance processor stability with extended coherence times.
Terra Quantum, a frontrunner in quantum technology leaps in quantum computing.
In an experiment reported in the journal Nature, physicists have achieved a remarkable feat by creating the world’s first quantum holographic wormhole. The experiment delves into the profound connection between quantum information and space-time, challenging traditional theories and shedding light on the complex relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
The team, led by Maria Spiropulu from the California Institute of Technology, utilized Google’s quantum computer, Sycamore, to implement the groundbreaking “wormhole teleportation protocol.” This quantum gravity experiment on a chip surpassed competitors using IBM and Quantinuum’s quantum computers, marking a significant leap in the exploration of quantum phenomena.
The holographic wormhole emerged as a hologram from manipulated quantum bits, or “qubits,” stored in minute superconducting circuits. This achievement brings us closer to realizing a tunnel, theorized by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935, that traverses an extra dimension of space. The team successfully transmitted information through this quantum tunnel, further validating the experiment’s success.
The maverick entrepreneur, known for embellishing the facts, provided no conclusive evidence as to the veracity of his claim.
As transistors are scaled to smaller dimensions, their static power increases. Combining two-dimensional (2D) channel materials with complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) logic architectures could be an effective solution to this issue because of the excellent field-effect properties of 2D materials. However, 2D materials have limited polarity control. The transistors have a gapped channel that forms a tunable barrier—thus circumventing the polarity control of 2D materials—and exhibit a reverse-saturation current below 1 pA with high reliability and endurance.
They use the devices to make homojunction-loaded inverters with good rail-to-rail operation at a switching threshold voltage of around 0.5 V, a static power of a few picowatts, a dynamic delay time of around 200 µs, a noise margin of more than 90% and a peak voltage gain of 241. They also fabricate fundamental gate circuits on the basis of this pseudo-CMOS configuration by cascading several devices.
RuO2 has been established as the benchmark catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, the low precious metal content compared to other OER industrial catalysts like RuO2, Pt/C, and IrO2 makes a hybrid heterosurface of RuO2 and F-doped graphene (RuO2@FGr) an excellent catalyst with a high current density. Moreover, the advantage of graphene support increases stability. We investigated the mechanism of the OER on RuO2@FGr using density functional theory (DFT) and the computational hydrogen electrode model (CHEM). In CHEM, the adsorption energy of the reactive intermediates is considered for the reduction potential calculation. This is followed by free energy calculation and, eventually, overpotential calculation using standard or reversible hydrogen electrodes (SHE/RHE). Computational OER activity calculated in the gas phase using density functional theory (DFT) cannot explain the contribution of the condensed phase, water organization energy, the kinetics of the elementary steps, and electrochemical contribution. The current study will address the issue by implementing an implicit solvation model and the electrostatic contribution by considering the charge extrapolation model. We used molecular RuO2 to mimic the exact experimental weight percentage. Fluorine intercalation doping improves the binding of oxygen-based intermediate species to the reactive surface due to a shift in the d-band center toward the Fermi level. The graphene sheet behaves as a conductor after fluorine doping, and the electron density contribution near the Fermi level is clearly distinguished from the projected density of states (PDOS). Using the implicit solvation model with altered parameters, we find improvements in the reaction barrier for hydroperoxo formation. An overpotential of 0.40 V vs RHE is obtained for the cavity shape parameter and charge density cutoff parameter of 0.8 and 0.0035 Å–3. For completion, we implement the constant potential model (CPM) to extrapolate our results calculated at the nonzero potential environment to 0.0 V potential. The mean energy path computed using the climbing image nudged elastic band provides the activation and reaction energy, and the values are extrapolated to 0.0 V RHE using the CPM correction. Implementing both thermochemical and electrochemical corrections simultaneously, we can find a reasonable overpotential of the studied catalytic reaction.
