Electronic

Scientists have created a programmable optical chip that can slow light on demand, giving engineers far greater control over how optical signals propagate through a circuit. The technology could provide the delays, synchronization, and buffering functions needed to make light-based computing more practical. A single chip could eventually perform several tasks that currently require separate devices, potentially reducing energy use, cost, and complexity in AI servers and data centers.

Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes. The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and produces infrared signals similar to real material found in space. By studying these laboratory samples, scientists can explore how organic chemistry unfolds around stars and how comets, asteroids and meteorites may have carried those ingredients to Earth.

Researchers have created self-destructing living plastic that uses engineered bacteria to completely break itself down when activated. The material degrades in just six days without creating microplastics, offering a potential new solution for single-use plastic waste.

A new review highlights exciting progress in atomically thin quantum materials where light and magnetism work together in ways never before possible. In these materials, light-generated excitons can interact directly with magnetic behavior, creating opportunities to control magnetic states using light alone. Scientists believe this could pave the way for advanced optical memory, quantum devices, and ultra-efficient photonic technologies.

Researchers discovered that electricity can dramatically reshape how heat flows through certain ceramic materials, increasing heat conduction by almost threefold in a preferred direction. The unexpected result could lead to much more efficient cooling technologies and energy-saving devices.