Silicon isn’t the perfect semiconductor, it’s just the one we’re using. How can we ensure our electronics keep get getting faster in the face of silicon’s natural physical limits?
Electronic engineers are emerging as important contributors to understanding of the workings of the human brain. There is a rapidly growing intersection between electronic engineering and neuroscience…
One evening when I was young, my father confiscated my radio because he said I was playing it too loud (I wasn’t). Fortunately, I had a bunch of broken down receivers in my room, so I built a new one…
Pejman Hadi, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Gordon McKay, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, fuelled by increased consumption and by the equipment’s relatively short lifespan. As a result…
So serious are the effects of air pollution on human health - the WHO recently categorised it as carcinogenic, responsible for 223,000 deaths a year worldwide - that it is easy to neglect its wider impact…
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, is being touted as the material that could change how electronics are made. But it’s difficult to make graphene in forms needed for electronics. Now, researchers…
In 1859, from August 28 to September 2, we were given an important lesson about how vulnerable we are to the Sun’s power. The Carrington Event, named for the amateur astronomer who recorded it, Richard…
Assuming you are geeky enough to open up any mobile device on the market – a phone, tablet or laptop - the most glaringly obvious component of the device is the battery: it generally consumes up to (if…
Imagine having a wafer-thin touchscreen on your sleeve which, like a scene out of a Philip K. Dick novel, gives you all the functionality of a smartphone without the awkwardness of a cumbersome battery…
It’s early morning, you’re preparing for the day ahead and thinking about life’s important conundrums. Is there enough muesli left for the week? Do you have enough time to catch the bus? Are you going…
Diamond is well known for its appeal as a gemstone. Perhaps less well known are some of its extreme material properties. As well as being the hardest material in nature, diamond is very good at conducting…