Electronics news and discussion thread

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Time_Traveller
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SCIENTISTS BUILD CIRCUIT BOARDS BASED ON MUSHROOMS

MycelioTronics
Electronic waste, also known as "e-waste," is a major polluter, not to mention an increasingly difficult issue to combat. Excitingly, however, a team of Austrian scientists are working on a creative new solution to solve at least part of the e-waste puzzle: they're making biodegradable substrates for electronics out of mushroom skins.

Yes, really. And per the scientists' proof-of-concept paper published in Science Advances, these materials — dubbed "MycelioTronics — are showing some incredible promise as a possible replacement for traditionally plastic printed circuit boards, among other applications.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/circuit-board-mushrooms
"We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams."

-H.G Wells.
weatheriscool
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Building a 900-pixel imaging sensor using an atomically thin material
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-pix ... -thin.html
by Bob Yirka , Tech Xplore
A team of researchers at Penn State University has developed a 900-pixel imaging sensor using an atomically thin material. In their paper published in the journal Nature Materials, the group describes how they built their new sensor and possible uses for it.

Sensors that react to light have become very common in the modern world—lights that turn on when the presence of an intruder is detected, for example. Such sensors are typically made of a grid of pixels, each of which are reactive to light. Performance of such sensors are based on measurements of responsivity, and which parts of light they detect.

Most are designed with certain noise-to-signal constraints. In this new effort, the researchers noted that most such sensors are also very inefficient, using far more electricity than should be the case for such devices.

To make a sensor that would be more efficient, the researchers looked at the materials that are used to make those now in use—generally a silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor serves as the backbone. And it was the backbone where the researchers focused their effort. To make a sensor that would be more efficient, they replaced the traditional backbone with one made from molybdenum disulfide, a material that, like graphene, can be grown as a one atom thick sheet.

In their work, they grew it on a sapphire base via vapor deposition. Then then lifted the finished product from the base and laid it on a base of silicon dioxide that had already been wire etched. They then finished their product by etching additional wiring on the top.
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Using lasers to bond semiconductor electronics components
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-lasers-bo ... nents.html
by Pol Sopeña and David Grojo
Today, lasers are well-established in daily life, even if it is sometimes hard to tell what and where they are. As an example, we can find them in CD/DVD readers or medical applications like cancer and eye surgery, being essential tools in a vast range of multidisciplinary fields. All of this is the result of constant progress and development, from the first Maiman's ruby laser (1960) to the attosecond lasers, passing through exotic, funny demonstrations like Jell-O lasers.

In the quest to constantly obtain more intense sources, ultrashort lasers (with pulses in the femtosecond regime) represented a clear breakthrough, as they allowed high-intensity delivery in confined spaces on the nanoscale. In particular, they allow inducing nonlinear absorption phenomena which, for instance, permits locally modifying the interior of transparent materials with a low thermal budget, not achievable with other laser sources. Some demonstrations include waveguides writing in glasses or creating 3D complex patterns with polymers.
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Photonic chip with record-breaking radio frequency dynamic range
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-photonic- ... uency.html
by University of Twente

Researchers at the University of Twente have developed a revolutionary programmable integrated microwave photonic filter with a record-breaking dynamic range. This represents a major breakthrough in the integration of functionality and performance in radio frequency photonic signal processors.

The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Prof. Dr. David Marpaung, one of the authors of the study says, "Our work breaks the conventional and fragmented approach of integration, functionality and performance that currently prevents the adoption of these photonic systems in real applications. Traditional radio frequency filters can only work in a narrow frequency range, meaning you need several separate filters for broadband operation. Our device is integrated, broadband, and has an enormous dynamic range, making it possible to use just a single photonic circuit for various frequency ranges."

Many applications

The research shows that the filter can play a key role in modern radio frequency and microwave applications, including cognitive radio, multi-band all-spectrum communications, and broadband programmable front-ends. Before this discovery, programmable microwave photonic circuits with such advanced functions had poor performance. "Versatile programming of the chip can easily give in to various disturbances like loss, noise, and distortion of the signal," explains Marpaung.
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A Bayesian machine based on memristors
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-01-bay ... stors.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore
Over the past few decades, the performance of machine learning models on various real-world tasks has improved significantly. Training and implementing most of these models, however, still requires vast amounts of energy and computational power.

Engineers worldwide have thus been trying to develop alternative hardware solutions that can run artificial intelligence models more efficiently, as this could promote their widespread use and increase their sustainability. Some of these solutions are based on memristors, memory devices that can store information without consuming energy.

Researchers at Université Paris-Saclay- CNRS, Université Grenoble-Alpes-CEA-LETI, HawAI.tech, Sorbonne Université, and Aix-Marseille Université-CNRS have recently created a so-called Bayesian machine (i.e., an AI approach that performs computations based on Bayes' theorem), using memristors. Their proposed system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, was found to be significantly more energy-efficient than currently employed hardware solutions.

"Artificial intelligence is making major progress today but faces a challenge: its considerable energy consumption," Damien Querlioz, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. "It is now well understood that this consumption comes from the separation, in computers, between computation and memory functions. As artificial intelligence uses a lot of data, it requires a lot of memory, which is costly to access in terms of energy. Our brains are much more energy efficient because the memory functions are integrated as close as possible to the computation functions, and we wanted to reproduce this strategy."
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A new elastic polymer dielectric to create wafer-scale stretchable electronics
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02-ela ... hable.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore
Over the past few years, material scientists and electronics engineers have been trying to fabricate new flexible inorganic materials to create stretchable and highly performing electronic devices. These devices can be based on different designs, such as rigid-island active cells with serpentine-shape/fractal interconnections, neutral mechanical planes or bunked structures.

Despite the significant advancements in the fabrication of stretchable materials, some challenges have proved difficult to overcome. For instance, materials with wavy or serpentine interconnect designs commonly have a limited area density and fabricating proposed stretchable materials is often both difficult and expensive. In addition, the stiffness of many existing stretchable materials does not match that of human skin tissue, making them uncomfortable on the skin and thus not ideal for creating wearable technologies.

Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have recently fabricated a vacuum-deposited elastic polymer for developing stretchable electronics. This material, introduced in Nature Electronics, could be used to create stretchy field-effect transistors (FETs), which are primary components of most electronic devices on the market today.

"Recently, various approaches for adopting soft materials have been proposed for developing intrinsically stretchable electronics which does not need any specific structural designs owing to their intrinsic deformability," Donghee Son, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. "However, such devices employed solution-processed dielectric materials and thereby encounter critical challenges in achieving high electrical performances."
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Fully recyclable printed electronics ditch toxic chemicals for water
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-fully-rec ... toxic.html
by Ken Kingery, Duke University
Engineers at Duke University have produced the world's first fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process. By bypassing the need for hazardous chemicals, the demonstration points down a path industry could follow to reduce its environmental footprint and human health risks.

The research appeared online Feb. 28 in the journal Nano Letters.

One of the dominant challenges facing any electronics manufacturer is successfully securing several layers of components on top of each other, which is crucial to making complex devices. Getting these layers to stick together can be a frustrating process, particularly for printed electronics.

"If you're making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, one layer on either slice of bread is easy," explained Aaron Franklin, the Addy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke, who led the study. "But if you put the jelly down first and then try to spread peanut butter on top of it, forget it, the jelly won't stay put and will intermix with the peanut butter. Putting layers on top of each other is not as easy as putting them down on their own—but that's what you have to do if you want to build electronic devices with printing."

In previous work, Franklin and his group demonstrated the first fully recyclable printed electronics. The devices used three carbon-based inks: semiconducting carbon nanotubes, conductive graphene and insulating nanocellulose. In trying to adapt the original process to only use water, the carbon nanotubes presented the largest challenge.

To make a water-based ink in which the carbon nanotubes don't clump together and spread evenly on a surface, a surfactant similar to detergent is added. The resulting ink, however, does not create a layer of carbon nanotubes dense enough for a high current of electrons to travel across.
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Researchers Discover New Circuit Element – The Meminductor
https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-di ... minductor/
By Rachel Rose, Texas A&M Engineering April 12, 2023
Logic Circuit Concept

The research team published their new circuit element discovery in the February issue of the journal Scientific Reports.
Physical evidence of meminductance proven

Dr. H. Rusty Harris, an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, has discovered a novel circuit element referred to as a meminductor.

A circuit element refers to an electrical component utilized to regulate and guide the flow of electricity within an electrical circuit. The traditional three circuit elements are the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. Recently, within the past 15 years, two additional circuit elements, the memristor, and the memcapacitor, have been discovered. These newer circuit components are referred to as the “mem-” versions of their classical counterparts and exhibit unique current and voltage properties that depend on previous values of current or voltage in time, acting like a memory.
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Researchers design flexible electronics for stretchable OLED display
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-fle ... splay.html
by Sarah C.P. Williams, University of Chicago
Imagine a thin, digital display so flexible that you can wrap it around your wrist, fold it in any direction, or curve it over your car's steering wheel. Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago have designed just such a material, which can bend in half or stretch to more than twice its original length while still emitting a fluorescent pattern.

The material, described in Nature Materials, has a wide range of applications, from wearable electronics and health sensors to foldable computer screens.

"One of the most important components of nearly every consumer electronic we use today is a display, and we've combined knowledge from many different fields to create an entirely new display technology," said Sihong Wang, assistant professor of molecular engineering, who led the research with Juan de Pablo, Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering.

"This is the class of material you need to finally be able to develop truly flexible screens," added de Pablo. "This work is really foundational and I expect it to allow many technologies that we haven't even thought of yet."
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No More Toxic Chemicals – The World’s First Fully Recyclable Printed Electronics

https://scitechdaily.com/no-more-toxic- ... ectronics/
By Duke University April 13, 2023
The first-of-a-kind demonstration indicates that a greener future for the electronics sector is possible.

Duke University engineers have created the world’s first printed electronics that can be fully recycled. Their innovative solution replaces the use of harmful chemicals with water during the fabrication process, thereby reducing the environmental impact and potential health risks associated with the use of hazardous chemicals. This demonstration opens up a new avenue for the industry to follow in reducing its ecological and health footprint.

The research was recently published in the journal Nano Letters.

One of the major obstacles that electronics manufacturers face is successfully securing several layers of components on top of each other, which is crucial for the production of sophisticated devices. This can be a challenging task, especially for printed electronics, where ensuring proper adhesion of layers is often a source of frustration.
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