Research

NASA has awarded a $4m contract to the University of Hawaii to develop – in collaboration with Leonardo, Markury Scientific, and Hawaii Aerospace – ultra-sensitive infrared sensors to help observe distant planets and their atmospheres. Specifically, it is the university’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) that will be working on the technology, along with the Southampton offices of Leonardo, with the ...

Northumbria University is collaborating with Lockheed Martin for research into the role played by ‘nanojets’ and the reconnection of the Sun’s magnetic field lines for generating the Solar Corona’s heat. In a bid to gather more evidence about how often nanojets occur and how they impact coronal heating, Northumbria PhD student Ramada Sukarmadji, under the supervision of Dr Patrick Antolin, ...

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science have developed an ionic transistor for neuromorphic computing. The ions in question are lithium, its ‘gate oxide’ is a solid lithium-ion-conducting glass-ceramic electrolyte, and its channel is lithium tungsten oxide that changes conductivity as ions are inserted. Physically, it is built around the electrolyte in the form of a 150μm thick ion-conducting glass-ceramic ...

Imec and ASML are to intensify their collaboration in the next phase of developing a High-NA EUV lithography pilot line at imec. The pilot line is intended to help the industries using semiconductor technologies to understand the opportunities that advanced semiconductor technology can bring and have access to a prototyping platform that will support their innovations. The collaboration between imec, ...

The UK government is providing £2.1 million of funding, through the UK Space Agency (UKSA), to boost UK-based involvement in space technologies such as harnessing solar power for reusable spacecraft and new propulsion systems. The initial nine projects involve work at Lancaster University, the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey, Swansea University, University of Strathclyde, Durham University (two ...

Persuading lithium-sulphur batteries to heal themselves is the aim of a European project which includes two UK institutions. This is another battery chemistry with great potential, but also a tendency to self-destruct and wear out. “Specific issues with Li-S include mechanical degradation – including electrode cracking or loss of electrical connectivity – and [both] chemical and electrochemical degradation such as ...

Intel is to team up with French lab CEA-Leti to put two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenides on 300mm wafers. The aim of the multi-year project is to develop a way to transfer layers of 2d material, grown on substrates up to 300mm, to a second substrate for transistor building. Intel will supply manufacturing expertise and CEA-Leti has bonding, layer-transfer and characterisation knowledge. ...

Durham University is working with Viasat to better understand atmospheric turbulence in free-space optical (FSO) communications. The resulting forecasting tool will be used, the organisations say, to optimise Viasat’s ground station design and support operational decision-making such as network switching between ground stations based on atmospheric conditions. Specifically – for the first phases of the project, using a £200k investment ...

Step aside precision-ground solid germanium, as Flinders University has discovered an injection-mouldable plastic that can be used for the lenses of thermal imaging cameras. OK, OK, it might not be a replacement at the high-end, but ’67-poly(S-r-CPD)’ is black to visible light, and passes both medium and long-wave infra-red. “It has the potential to expand the use of thermal imaging ...

Tokyo Institute of Technology has created a Sub-THz 6G transceiver, which will be revealed next week at the VLSI Symposium. Capable of transmission and reception at over 100GHz, and at 112Gbit/s, “by effectively suppressing the self-interference caused by the transmission signal leaking into the receiver, the proposed architecture reaches unprecedented data rates while maintaining a surprisingly compact size”, according to ...