Research Laboratory of Electronics

Stabilizing quantum bits

Feedback technique used on diamond “qubits” could make quantum computing more practical.

April 6, 2016

Professor Yoel Fink, director of MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics

New institute will accelerate innovations in fibers and fabrics

National public-private consortium led by MIT will involve manufacturers, universities, agencies, companies.

April 1, 2016

Participants in the Monterrey Tec program visit with José Antonio Fernández Carvajal, chairman of the board of trustees at Tecnológico de Monterrey.

Monterrey Tec researchers exhilarated by nanotech challenges

The Tec de Monterrey and MIT Program fosters exchanges in nanotechnology and nanoscience, with the goal of helping the Tec to become a research university.

March 29, 2016

In global efforts to address climate change, electrical engineers have crucial role

In student energy seminar, Professor Rajeev Ram illustrates engineering solutions to energy issues.

March 23, 2016

Clockwise from top left: Tomás Palacios, Devavrat Shah, Dirk Englund, and Russ Tedrake

EECS announces four faculty promotions

Palacios, Shah, Tedrake promoted to full professor; Englund promoted to associate professor without tenure.

February 8, 2016

John Wyatt, longtime MIT professor and cofounder of Boston Retinal Implant Project, dies at 69

Dedicated researcher was a circuits expert developing a retinal implant to help the blind see.

February 5, 2016

MIT researchers have designed a new chip to implement neural networks. It is 10 times as efficient as a mobile GPU, so it could enable mobile devices to run powerful artificial-intelligence algorithms locally, rather than uploading data to the Internet for processing.

Energy-friendly chip can perform powerful artificial-intelligence tasks

Advance could enable mobile devices to implement “neural networks” modeled on the human brain.

February 3, 2016

Researchers used the MIT and Tim the Beaver logos to show photoluminescence emissions from a monolayer of molybdenum disulfide inlayed onto graphene. The arrow indicates the graphene-MoS2 lateral heterostructure, which could potentially form the basis for ultrathin computer chips.

New chip fabrication approach

Depositing different materials within a single chip layer could lead to more efficient computers.

January 27, 2016

This diagram demonstrates the simplified results that can be obtained by using quantum analysis on enormous, complex sets of data. Shown here are the connections between different regions of the brain in a control subject (left) and a subject under the influence of the psychedelic compound psilocybin (right). This demonstrates a dramatic increase in connectivity, which explains some of the drug’...

A new quantum approach to big data

System for handling massive digital datasets could make impossibly complex problems solvable.

January 25, 2016

On the top row are two images of a nanomesh bilayer of PDMS cylinders in which the top layer is perpendicular to the complex orientation of the bottom layer. The bottom images show well-ordered nanomesh patterns of PDMS cylinders. The images on the right show zoomed-in views of the images on the left.

Self-stacking nanogrids

Polymer nanowires that assemble in perpendicular layers could offer route to tinier chip components.

January 22, 2016

For both his master’s and his doctoral theses, Michael Watts (pictured) developed a photonic circuit that could align the polarizations of light traveling through an optical chip.

Local boy makes good

Michael Watts took two decades to make the 20-mile trip from suburban Hingham to tenure at MIT.

January 19, 2016

A proof-of-concept device built by MIT researchers demonstrates the principle of a two-stage process to make incandescent bulbs more efficient. This device already achieves efficiency comparable to some compact fluorescent and LED bulbs.

A nanophotonic comeback for incandescent bulbs?

Researchers combine the warm look of traditional light bulbs with 21st-century energy efficiency.

January 11, 2016

Researchers have produced a working optoelectronic chip that computes electronically but uses light to move information. The chip has 850 optical components and 70 million transistors, which, while significantly less than the billion-odd transistors of a typical microprocessor, is enough to demonstrate all the functionality that a commercial optical chip would require.

Optoelectronic microprocessors built using existing chip manufacturing

High-performance prototype means chipmakers could now start building optoelectronic chips.

December 23, 2015

Henry Thomas Tizard (center), British physicist and head of the Tizard Mission, visits with MIT researchers. The 1940 Tizard Mission introduced to the U.S. the newly invented resonant-cavity magnetron and other British radar developments, and helped establish MIT as a major federally funded research university.

How the Tizard Mission paved the way for research at MIT

Seventy-five years ago, an international meeting of scientific minds changed forever how MIT and other research institutions develop new technologies.

November 23, 2015

By using plasmons to “wiggle” a free electron in a sheet of graphene, researchers have developed a new method for generating X-rays. In this image of one of their simulations, the color and height represent the intensity of radiation (with blue the lowest intensity and red the highest), at a moment in time just after an electron (grey sphere) moving close to the surface generates a pulse.

A new way to make X-rays

MIT researchers have found a phenomenon that might lead to more compact, tunable X-ray devices made of graphene.