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Devices made with 2D semiconductors might start to appear sooner than you expected.

If there’s one thing about Moore’s Law that’s obvious to anyone, it’s that transistors have been made smaller and smaller as the years went on. Scientists and engineers have taken that trend to an almost absurd limit during the past decade, creating devices that are made of one-atom-thick layers of material.

The most famous of these materials is, of course, graphene, a hexagonal honeycomb-shaped sheet of carbon with outstanding conductivity for both heat and electricity, odd optical abilities, and incredible mechanical strength. But as a substance with which to make transistors, graphene hasn’t really delivered. With no natural bandgap—the property that makes a semiconductor a semiconductor—it’s just not built for the job.

Instead, scientists and engineers have been exploring the universe of transition metal dichalcogenides, which all have the chemical formula MX2. These are made up of one of more than a dozen transition metals (M) along with one of the three chalcogenides (X): sulfur, selenium, or tellurium. Tungsten disulfide, molybdenum diselenide, and a few others can be made in single-atom layers that (unlike graphene) are natural semiconductors. These materials offer the enticing prospect that we will be able to scale down transistors all the way to atom-thin components long after today’s silicon technology has run its course.

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Computational biology is the combined application of math, statistics and computer science to solve biology-based problems. Examples of biology problems are: genetics, evolution, cell biology, biochemistry. [1].

Nagoya University researchers say they have designed a laser diode that emits the shortest-wavelength ultraviolet light to-date, with potential applications in disinfection, dermatology, and DNA analyses.

At CES, LG Display is showing off a 65-inch concept TV that can bend at the edges, allowing it to switch from a flat-screen display to a curved one in about five seconds. The company also put a bendable OLED on a foldable tablet/laptop.

Styrofoam or copper—both materials have very different properties with regard to their ability to conduct heat. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz and the University of Bayreuth have now jointly developed and characterized a novel, extremely thin and transparent material that has different thermal conduction properties depending on the direction. While it can conduct heat extremely well in one direction, it shows good thermal insulation in the other direction.

Thermal insulation and thermal conduction play a crucial role in our everyday lives—from computer processors, where it is important to dissipate heat as quickly as possible, to houses, where good insulation is essential for energy costs. Often extremely light, porous materials such as polystyrene are used for insulation, while heavy materials such as metals are used for heat dissipation. A newly developed material, which scientists at the MPI-P have jointly developed and characterized with the University of Bayreuth, can now combine both properties.

The material consists of alternating layers of wafer-thin glass plates between which individual polymer chains are inserted. “In principle, our material produced in this way corresponds to the principle of double glazing,” says Markus Retsch, Professor at the University of Bayreuth. “It only shows the difference that we not only have two layers, but hundreds.”

POHANG, South Korea, Jan. 15, 2020 — A research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea (POSTECH) developed technology that allows diagnosis of diabetes and treatment of diabetic retinopathy by wearing smart light-emitting diode (LED) contact lenses.

And it could help in the development of quantum computers.

A startup focused on “invisible computing” Thursday unveiled a smart contact lens which delivers an augmented reality display in a user’s field of vision.

The Mojo Vision contact lens offers a display with information and notifications, and allows the user to interact by focusing on certain points.

The rigid contact lens, which the company has been developing in stealth mode for some 10 years, may also be used to help people with visual impairments by using enhanced image overlays, and has obtained US approval for testing it as a medical device.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=T9ZCi29mAiI

With 360 video, IEEE Spectrum takes you behind the scenes with one of the world’s first drone-delivery companies. Zipline, based in California, is using drones to deliver blood to hospitals throughout Rwanda. At an operations center in Muhanga, you’ll watch as Zipline technicians assemble the modular drones, fill their cargo holds, and launch them via catapult. You’ll see a package float down from the sky above a rural hospital, and you’ll get a closeup look at Zipline’s ingenious method for capturing returning drones.

You can follow the action in a 360-degree video in three ways: 1) Watch on your computer, using your mouse to click and drag on the video; 2) watch on your phone, moving the phone around to change your view; or 3) watch on a VR headset for the full immersive experience.

Continue reading “360 Video: Go on a Mission With Zipline’s Delivery Drones” »