semiconductors

There’s a mineral called bustamentite that almost nobody studies. It forms in flat hexagonal plates, grows readily in warm water, and turns up as an unwanted contaminant in perovskite solar cells. For decades it sat at the margins of materials science, useful mostly as a precursor for more fashionable compounds. Then a group of physicists decided to look at it very carefully in the terahertz rang…

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72625-z Guan et al. report a molecular regulator to control crystallization kinetics in Sn-based perovskite, resulting in elongated island-like grain structure that regulates charge injection and recombination, enabling NIR-II LEDs with efficiency of 10.7%, peak radiance of 173 W sr-1 m-2, and operational lifetime of 1,3…

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with ASMPT Limited to acquire its NEXX business, a supplier of large-area advanced packaging deposition equipment for the semiconductor industry. The post Applied Materials Broadens Advanced Packaging Portfolio with Acquisition of NEXX appeared first on Semiconductor Digest .

A new kind of memory device may finally solve the problem of overheating and battery drain in electronics. By shrinking components to an extreme scale and redesigning their structure, researchers found a way to reduce energy loss instead of increasing it. The result is a tiny memory unit that improves as it gets smaller—something once thought impossible. This could pave the way for ultra-efficien…

A new technical paper, “Nonvolatile photonic field-programmable coupler array,” was published by researchers at University of Oxford. Abstract “Programmable photonic networks carry out universal unitary functions by independently operating on the amplitude and phase of guided light. Exploiting the reconfigurability and spatiospectral degrees of freedom of these systems, the majority of state-of-t…

Imagine a screen that can power itself when you are not using it. Instead of just sitting idle, it could collect light from its surroundings and turn that light into electricity. A new study shows this idea is not just possible, but already working in the lab. Researchers have created a special device that can […] The post One device, two jobs: A solar cell that also shines like an LED appeared f…

ULVAC, Inc. anticipates that orders for its continuous vacuum melting furnaces dedicated to rare-earth magnets will approximately triple year on year, driven primarily by magnet manufacturers in Europe and North America. The post ULVAC Establishes Japan-Based Production for Rare-Earth Magnet Vacuum Melting Furnaces appeared first on Semiconductor Digest .

Groove Quantum, a spin-out from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has secured €16 million ($18.7M USD) in combined equity and grants to accelerate the development of its germanium-based quantum processors. Alongside the funding, the company unveiled an 18-qubit semiconductor spin-qubit processor, currently the largest of its kind. The funding included a €10 million [...] The post Gro…

Nature, Published online: 30 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10587-4 Continuously graded-doped SnO 2 for efficient n–i–p perovskite solar cells

Nature Electronics, Published online: 30 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41928-026-01617-0 A photodiode that is based on silver bismuth sulfide offering a reversible symmetry-to-asymmetry transition via the localized electrochemical reduction of silver ions can be used for both transmissive imaging and in-sensor processing.

A new technical paper, “Highly energy-efficient manifold microchannel for cooling electronics with a coefficient of performance over 100,000,” was published by researchers at KAIST. The study presents a CMOS-compatible manifold microchannel cooler that removes over 2,000 W/cm² using single-phase water at only 8 kPa pressure drop, achieving a record COP of 106,000—a significant improvement over...…

Scientists have developed a new type of semiconductor material that can do something unusual: it can tell the difference between left- and right-handed light while also responding to visible light. This breakthrough could help create more advanced technologies in areas like optical communication, sensing, and energy conversion. The research was led by a team at […] The post Scientists create smar…

Atomera Incorporated, a semiconductor materials and technology licensing company, today announced an expanded collaboration with Synopsys, Inc. to advance gallium nitride (GaN) device modeling for radio frequency (RF) and power semiconductor applications. The post Atomera Extends Collaboration With Synopsys appeared first on Semiconductor Digest .

Originally from the DC metropolitan area, Jonah Horowitz is currently in his fourth year at MIT, where he is a member of Professor Moungi Bawendi‘s research group. Jonah’s work in the Bawendi Lab considers the properties of heavy-metal-free semiconductor nanocrystals that might be used in next-generation TVs. The team is trying to identify stable and […]

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A new technical paper, “Chipmunq: A Fault-Tolerant Compiler for Chiplet Quantum Architectures,” was published by researchers at the Technical University of Munich. Abstract “As quantum computing advances toward fault-tolerance through quantum error correction, modular chiplet architectures have emerged to provide the massive qubit counts required while overcoming fabrication limits of monolithic …

A new technical paper, “Characterisation of Complex Multilayer Nanostructures with High Aspect Ratio,” was recent published by researchers at Aalto University, University of Eastern Finland, Chipmetrics OY, and VTT MIKES. Abstract “Deposition studies of deep vertical dips on semiconductor wafers can create problems at an industrial manufacturing scale, since cross-sectioning requires a lot of tim…

Shielding materials are essential in key modern industrial settings-such as spacecraft, nuclear power plants, semiconductor equipment, and advanced medical devices-to protect both equipment and personnel from electromagnetic waves and radiation. In particular, as space exploration gains momentum-such as with the successful launch of Artemis 2 on the 2nd-the importance of next-generation shielding…

Promising 2D materials may face an unexpected obstacle at the atomic scale: a tiny gap at their interfaces. For decades, the steady shrinking of electronic components has powered faster, more efficient technology. Engineers now hope to push that trend even further with 2D materials, atomically thin sheets that promise unprecedented control at the smallest scales. [...]