Northrop Grumman has developed a new gallium nitride (GaN) microwave chip that operates in the W-band spectrum, a high-frequency range used for advanced radar, satellite communications, and emerging wireless networks.
The company said the chip was designed, manufactured, and made market-ready in less than six months, an unusually short timeline for a high-frequency semiconductor intended for defense and commercial applications.
Built at Northrop Grumman’s semiconductor facility in Redondo Beach, California, the chip is designed to strengthen wireless signals while operating at frequencies capable of transmitting large amounts of data with low latency.
According to the company, the technology could support secure military communications, next-generation radar systems, satellite links, and future 5G and 6G wireless networks.
Faster signals, smaller hardware
The W-band occupies frequencies between roughly 75 and 110 gigahertz, offering significantly more bandwidth than lower-frequency wireless systems. The added spectrum can help enable faster data transmission, higher-resolution sensing, and more secure communications.
W-band technologies are attracting growing interest because they can handle far larger amounts of data than many conventional wireless systems. The frequencies are increasingly being explored for applications ranging from high-resolution imaging and advanced sensing to satellite communications and future mobile networks.
Microscope photo of the high-frequency GaN microwave chip. Credit – Northrop Grumman
However, operating at such high frequencies requires specialized semiconductor materials and designs capable of maintaining performance while managing power and heat, areas where GaN-based devices have gained increasing attention.
Northrop Grumman said the new chip fully utilizes this portion of the radio spectrum to improve signal performance while reducing the need for larger and more power-intensive equipment.
Gallium nitride has become a key material for advanced radio-frequency electronics because it can operate at higher power levels and frequencies than conventional silicon-based devices. The material is already widely used in military radars, electronic warfare systems, and satellite communications hardware.
The company said the chip can act as a signal amplifier, helping wireless systems transmit and receive data more efficiently. In military applications, that could improve secure communications and data transfer between platforms and satellites. Commercially, the technology could help support future wireless networks as demand for higher data rates continues to grow.
Defense To 6G
The project was developed through the California DREAMS hub of the Microelectronics Commons program, a public-private initiative aimed at accelerating domestic semiconductor innovation.
The program is funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and brings together industry, government, and academic partners to speed the development of advanced microelectronics technologies.
Northrop Grumman said the rapid development cycle demonstrates how collaborative manufacturing and design efforts can shorten the path from concept to deployment.
The company manufactures microelectronics at two US-based facilities and produces millions of semiconductor components annually for defense and commercial customers. Its Microelectronics Center has been involved in semiconductor development for more than seven decades.
As governments and industries seek faster communications, more capable radar systems, and advanced sensing technologies, high-frequency GaN devices are expected to play an increasingly important role in future wireless infrastructure.
In our latest episode of Lexicon, we sat down with Tom Grainger, Commercial Vice President at Niron Magnetics, to explore the hidden role permanent magnets play in modern technology and electrification.
From electric vehicles and wind turbines to smartphones and speakers, these components are essential to countless devices we rely on every day. Tom also discussed the growing strategic importance of rare earth magnets and the risks associated with highly concentrated global supply chains.
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Reinventing the magnet
Permanent magnets rarely make headlines. Yet, as Grainger explained to us, they sit at the core of modern electrification.
“Pretty well every modern electronic device relies on permanent magnets,” he told us. “The car you drive, the speakers you’re hearing me come out of right now, the microphone that’s picking up my voice, all of those are permanent magnet devices,” he added.
“Relying on rare earth magnets today means relying on a supply chain that is over 90 percent concentrated in China. Single point of failure geopolitically,” he said.
But it turns out the issue is not limited to mining.
“All through the supply chain, you see that concentration,” he explained. The result is what he calls a pinch point. “You’ve got a pinch point on which the global economy hinges,” he added.
A magnet-hungry world
Furthermore, the demand side only intensifies the pressure. “As cars install more speakers and compete on infotainment and a great in-cab experience, doubling the speakers doubles the magnets,” Grainger told us.
“Imagine as you move from an F-35 to a swarm of drones, you’re saving a lot of money, saving a lot of material, but you are greatly increasing your magnet consumption,” he added.
Even in a stable geopolitical climate, supply would be strained. “Even if everything is peachy globally, there are just not enough rare earths to solve this magnet-hungry global economy,” he added.
“For some critical rare earths, China put in place export controls,” he said. Those elements are required for high-temperature applications, which represent roughly 80 percent of use cases. Automotive production slowed. Defense programs accelerated alternative sourcing efforts. Phones, he recalls, were “ringing off the hook.”
“Magnets may already be as strategically important as semiconductors,” he added.
Forty years without a new material
Beyond supply risk, Grainger argues, there is a deeper technological constraint. The last major breakthrough in magnetic materials came in the 1980s with rare-earth magnets.
“The last time we had a new magnetic material that has had any sort of real commercial impact was rare earth magnets in the 1980s,” he told us.
That means four decades of motor and generator design constrained by the same materials. He uses a culinary analogy. “You can imagine you are a chef. You’ve been working with four ingredients. Suddenly, you have another option. It is just an unlock for breakthroughs in motor design,” he added.
“We’ve spent four decades without a new key and without a new door open,” he said. That new key, according to Niron, is iron nitride.
Iron nitride to the rescue
According to Grainger, iron nitride is not a brand-new discovery, being first identified in the 1950s. Later attempts in Japan produced promising but inconsistent results. The missing piece was the ability to understand and control the material at the nanoscale.
“We did not have the technology at the time to be able to explain, just from a physics perspective, what makes iron nitride so magnetic, and then to reliably produce iron nitride in this magnetic phase,” Grainger told us.
Advances in imaging and characterization in the 2000s and early 2010s changed that. “The ability to see what you’re doing when you make an experimental attempt to measure it was unlocked by advances in characterization imaging,” he added.
From there, it took more than a decade to move from laboratory research to bulk, commercially viable magnets. “It was a decade from that program to actually having commercially viable bulk permanent magnets,” he said.
The potential upside is significant. “For a rare earth permanent magnet made of neodymium, that number is about 1.6 Tesla,” he explained. “For iron nitride, that equivalent limit is 2.4 Tesla,” he added.
“That ceiling is 50 percent higher than rare earth permanent magnets,” he said.
Temperature performance is another factor. Rare earth magnets rely on scarce heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium to maintain performance at high temperatures. “Iron nitride, just by virtue of its underlying crystal structure and properties, gets that temperature stability for free,” Grainger said.
Unlocking variable flux motors
One of the most intriguing applications discussed in the episode is the variable flux motor. Traditional permanent magnet motors use a technique called flux weakening at high speeds, which requires continuous electrical input.
Grainger described it with a metaphor: “think of it as holding a spring. If you move your hand, it pops right back up. And so you’re using power to do that.”
Variable flux offers a different approach. “Instead of continuous energy expenditure holding down that spring, it’s like a ratchet. You push down the spring once, and you lock it into place,” he said.
The result is improved efficiency across the speed range. In electric vehicles, that translates directly to range and battery savings. “You get a 2 percent decrease in battery materials. The cost savings on that don’t just pay for your magnets, that pays for your whole motor,” he added.
The same logic applies to appliances and data centers. Efficiency gains compound quickly when systems operate continuously.
Scaling manufacturing
Moving from breakthrough to production required another leap. “Niron has been introducing iron nitride permanent magnets, and we’re doing so on a nano scale,” Grainger told us.
“Our lab breakthrough was then the second breakthrough, which is really the process. And the process in that case becomes the product,” he said. The goal is modular scalability. Facilities can be replicated in multiple regions, reducing geographic concentration risk.
Iron nitride is composed of iron and nitrogen. Both are abundant and widely sourced. “Anywhere you have an industrialized society, you’ve got an opportunity for iron nitride domestic magnet production,” he said.
A strategic shift
Looking at the bigger picture, Grainger drew a historical analogy to the Haber-Bosch process, which enabled synthetic fertilizer production and reduced reliance on guano mining. “What iron nitride is, is that shift,” he said. “So, what if we could avoid all of that digging. What if we could avoid the reliance on what is fundamentally any mine has a shelf life,” he added.
So, instead of finite ore bodies, he describes a factory-built approach. “This is innovation as a cookie-cutter. Sort of the abundance philosophy around magnets,” he told us.
And, defense customers have taken notice. Programs initially planned for five to seven-year development timelines were “suddenly on 18-month fast tracks” after export controls tightened.
What the next decade has in store
Looking ahead, Grainger defines success in pragmatic terms. “Success for iron nitride is that we’re not talking about magnets as a scarce or critical pain point in global supply chains,” he added.
Beyond stability, he anticipates innovation. New motor and generator designs built around the expanded magnetic ceiling. Localized manufacturing in Asia, Europe, and North America. Reduced vulnerability and expanded design freedom.
“It can be hard sometimes to think about, can new things be done that aren’t just new assembly or new software?” he told us. “And absolutely they can.”
Scientists in the US have utilized the Polaris supercomputer to generate the most detailed three-dimensional (3D) images of the pion, the lightest particle made of quarks.
The study, which helped reveal the internal structure of a pion in unprecedented detail, was conducted by a research team at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL).
Pions are subatomic particles that play a significant role in holding atomic nuclei together. “Pions mediate the strong force that binds nucleons, that is, the protons and neutrons that account for an atom’s mass,” Yong Zhao, PHD, an ANL physicist and principal investigator of the project, said.
According to the Zhao and the team, the findings reveal not only how quarks are arranged within the particle, but also offer new clues on how visible matter forms from fundamental particles. The latter is considered one of the biggest mysteries in physics.
Mapping the pion
Pions are among the lightest and simplest subatomic particles. They are governed by the strong force, which binds protons and neutrons together inside the atomic nuclei. This force accounts for 98 percent of the mass of the visible universe.
They’re also composed of a quark and an antiquark. Yet, despite their importance, scientists have struggled to examine their internal structure because experimental data remains limited. To overcome this challenge, ANL and Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers turned to large-scale computer simulations.
Graphic showing the transverse motion of a quark (green sphere) inside a proton whose spin is aligned with its direction of motion (large yellow arrow). Credit: Valerie Lentz / Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The team combined advanced theoretical models with the computing power of Polaris. This reportedly recreated the pion’s internal structure in remarkable detail.
Zhao pointed out that examining the pion’s multidimensional structure provides a deeper insight into the particle’s fundamental properties. “By probing the pion’s internal structure, we gain a deeper understanding of how quarks and gluons are confined to create visible matter,” he said.
The simulations generated high-resolution 3D images that showed how quarks are distributed throughout the particle. Understanding this structure is essential for explaining how quarks and gluons combine to create the visible matter that makes up the universe.
A new perspective
For the project, the group simulated hundreds of snapshots of four-dimensional (4D) spacetime with lattice quantum chromodynamics. This is a technique that places particles and fields on a vast computational grid.
“This is a task possible only with large-scale parallel computing power like that of ALCF supercomputers,” Zhao said in a statement. “We thereby obtained high-resolution images of the quark structure in a moving pion.” The images showed how quarks carrying different fractions of the pion’s momentum are distributed across the particle.
The team modeled how quarks move both along the pion’s direction of motion and across it. The simulations relied on lattices with millions of grid points. “The simulation captures hundreds of snapshots of our 4D spacetime, represented on a lattice with millions of grid points,” Zhao added.
The calculations revealed the quark generalized parton distribution (GPD) of the pion. This is a mathematical framework that describes how quarks are distributed in both momentum and space. The resulting maps provided a detailed 3D picture of the particle.
As per Zhao, one notable finding was that the pion’s transverse size decreases as its momentum increases. The team also found that the pion appears smaller than the proton at moderate momentum values.
“Our next step is to use the ALCF’s Aurora supercomputer to map the proton in three dimensions,” Zhao concluded. “Protons, together with neutrons, make up all the atomic nuclei that compose the visible matter in our universe.”
The study has been published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
Qcells has begun manufacturing solar cells at its new facility in Cartersville, Georgia, bringing the company closer to operating what it says is the United States’ first and only fully vertically integrated solar manufacturing factory.
The company announced that the plant is now producing solar cells and expects all production lines to reach full capacity by the third quarter of 2026. Once fully operational, the facility will manufacture ingots, wafers, cells, and solar modules under one roof.
The start of cell production marks a significant milestone for domestic solar manufacturing, as most solar panels installed in the US still rely on imported components. Qcells said the Cartersville site will become the largest operating solar cell factory in US history.
Module assembly operations at the facility are already running at full capacity, producing about 16,700 solar panels every day.
Building domestic supply chains
When fully ramped up, the Cartersville factory will produce 3.3 gigawatts (GW) of annual capacity each for ingots, wafers, and cells, along with 3.5 GW of solar modules.
Combined with Qcells’ expanded manufacturing facility in Dalton, Georgia, the company’s total US module production capacity is expected to reach 8.6 GW annually by the end of the third quarter. According to the company, that output is enough to generate the equivalent annual electricity needs of roughly 1.3 million American homes.
“Producing the first solar cells at Cartersville is a milestone for Qcells and for American manufacturing,” said Andy Park, Global CEO of Qcells.
The company said producing key solar components domestically could provide customers with greater certainty around supply availability, pricing, and potential tariff-related disruptions.
Tax credits and jobs
Qcells said the Cartersville operation could also help project developers qualify for the federal Domestic Content Bonus tied to the Investment Tax Credit. Because major solar module components are produced in the US, developers may find it easier to meet domestic sourcing requirements.
The company added that its vertically integrated manufacturing approach allows it to claim production incentives under Section 45X of the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit across multiple stages of the solar supply chain, including ingots, wafers, cells, and modules.
The investment is also expected to support thousands of manufacturing jobs in Georgia. Together, the Cartersville and Dalton facilities are projected to employ nearly 4,000 workers, including about 3,800 direct jobs across Bartow and Whitfield counties.
Qcells said the Cartersville factory is the first US facility of its kind built in more than a decade and includes what it describes as the largest ingot and wafer production plant ever constructed in the country.
New research has found that humanoid robots could become effective playmates for humans, but only if their behavior aligns with people’s expectations.
A study by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) explored how people interact with humanoid robots during physical games.
The team conducted controlled laboratory experiments using Pepper, a social robot built to engage with humans, to better understand the experience of playing alongside or against a robot.
The findings suggest that robots can be enjoyable gaming companions when they act naturally and respond appropriately to the flow of play. However, mismatched behavior, awkward movements, or an overly competitive attitude can quickly frustrate users and reduce engagement during interactions.
Robot teammate test
Humanoid robots such as Pepper are designed to look and behave in ways that resemble humans, featuring recognizable traits such as heads, eyes, hands, facial expressions, and conversational abilities.
According to researchers, these human-like characteristics help people relate more easily to robots, but they also create expectations that robots will act in socially appropriate and predictable ways.
To better understand how people interact with robots during play, researchers conducted an experiment in which participants played a physical version of trash-can basketball with Pepper. The game involved throwing crumpled paper balls into a trash can from designated positions chosen to provide a balanced level of challenge for both the human participants and the robot.
The study examined two different gameplay modes. In one mode, participants cooperated with Pepper as teammates working toward a common goal. In the other, they competed directly against the robot. Researchers also varied the order of play, with either the human participant or Pepper taking the first turn.
By comparing these scenarios, the team evaluated how gameplay mode and turn order influenced player engagement, motivation, enjoyment of physical activity, and emotional responses.
The findings revealed that seemingly minor factors, such as who takes the first turn and whether the interaction is cooperative or competitive, can significantly affect how people perceive the experience. “Our observations show that robots can actually be good playmates, but only if they behave in ways that make sense to people,” said Yavuz Inal, associate professor at NTNU’s Department of Design in Gjøvik, in a statement.
Cooperative play wins
Participants generally reported the most positive experiences when the game began in cooperative mode. However, competitive play also proved highly engaging for many players. Several participants found competing against Pepper more exciting and motivating, particularly when they were allowed to start the game first, which increased their sense of control over the interaction.
Many players also experienced a strong sense of accomplishment when they outperformed the robot. Some even admitted that watching Pepper miss a shot added to the enjoyment. For these participants, competition with the humanoid robot created a fun challenge, clear objectives, and a rewarding sense of mastery that enhanced the overall gaming experience.
The study also found that participants became frustrated with Pepper for reasons similar to those that make people irritated with overly competitive friends or family members during board games.
Frustration was particularly noticeable when the robot started the game in competitive mode. Pepper’s slow pace, long pauses before taking a turn, and apparent determination to win often clashed with participants’ expectations of how a human-like playmate should behave. As a result, some players felt the robot lacked the responsiveness and natural flow needed for enjoyable gameplay. One participant likened the experience to playing against an “overworked printer with arms.”
According to the researchers, people expect robots cast as playmates to act like genuine players. “The results offer a glimpse into a future where robots not only assist us at work and in the healthcare system, but also participate in everyday activities such as play, exercise, and games,” said the team in a statement.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have created advanced aluminum alloys that could allow for far lighter truck engines still capable of operating at higher temperatures.
The alloys have successfully met the demanding strength and durability requirements of General Motors’ new low-mass, high-efficiency (LMHE) medium-duty truck engine.
Testing under a cooperative research and development agreement showed more than 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency and a 15 percent reduction in engine weight compared to conventional designs.
New alloys enable reduced mass and superior high-temperature performance
Commercial truck engines, such as those in GM’s Chevrolet Silverado 3500, must endure heavy loads and extended operation.
Traditional materials capable of withstanding these conditions are dense, which hurts fuel economy. Lighter alternatives often fail under the elevated temperatures and pressures of high-performance engines.
According to an ORNL press statement, their team’s new alloys resolve this conflict by providing both reduced mass and superior high-temperature performance.
The ORNL researchers tested two aluminum alloys. One of these, cast ACMZ (AlCuMnZr), was used for the LMHE engine’s cylinder heads and block. It offers high strength at low cost while resisting intense heat and mechanical stress.
The second, DuAlumin3D, is a 3D-printable alloy developed for pistons. It combines lightweight construction with what ORNL describes as the strongest known combination of strength and durability at extreme temperatures for a structural aluminum.
“The shared goal between ORNL and GM was to demonstrate next-generation engines for high-volume trucks that are lighter, lower-cost, and more efficient, all without sacrificing power and performance,” said Allen Haynes, director of the ORNL-led TTO Powertrain Materials Core Program consortium.
“This is a remarkable set of combined outcomes by the GM design team,” added Amit Shyam, who leads ORNL’s Alloy Behavior and Design Group. “Any weight shaved off an engine equates to more miles per gallon for the average driver, saving not only energy, but money.”
An accelerated alloy design approach
The GM-led project, which included ORNL and multiple suppliers, passed rigorous performance and durability tests. In 2025, it earned an R&D 100 Award and a DOE 2025 Team Award. Both ACMZ and DuAlumin3D had previously received R&D 100 honors for earlier breakthroughs.
According to the ORNL press statement, the collaboration integrated materials science, advanced manufacturing, combustion engineering, and computational modeling. ORNL’s accelerated alloy design approach compresses the timeline from concept to prototype application to two to four years. This is a massive reduction when compared with the traditional 10 to 15 years. The shorter lead time reduces costs and risks in moving laboratory innovations to commercial use.
The project received support from the Department of Energy’s Transportation Technologies Office and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. The successful demonstration shows how targeted federal research can move quickly from laboratory alloys to proven engine components, giving US truck manufacturers a practical path to lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles that maintain full performance and durability.
Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a new liquid material that harvests, stores, and releases energy within a single system.
Powered by sources like light or electricity, the metal- and plastic-free material physically shape-shifts from a fluid into an energy-dense gel to store power, then resets to a liquid simply by exposure to open air.
This sustainable, adaptable platform eliminates the need for hardware components, opening new doors for clean energy and soft electronics.
“Our material’s ability to store and release energy on demand could make it useful for energy storage, environmental remediation and next-generation soft electronics,” said Samuel I. Stupp, the study’s senior author.
Credit: Chem.
Bio-inspired technique
To build it, the team looked inside our own bodies and drew inspiration from the cell’s cytoskeleton.
A cellular skeleton is incredibly dynamic. It constantly constructs, breaks down, and reconstructs itself to help the cell move and divide.
Northwestern researchers designed a material that physically builds, dismantles, and rebuilds itself to manage energy.
Powered by external electrons from sources such as sunlight or X-rays, the initial yellow liquid transforms into an energy-rich black gel that can store energy for months and drive chemical reactions.
The entire process resets seamlessly when exposed to open air, which dissolves the gel back into its liquid state, allowing it to be recharged and reused repeatedly.
“Living systems are remarkably dynamic,” Stupp said. “They constantly build structures, break them apart, and rebuild them. We wanted to create a synthetic material that behaves in a similar way while performing useful functions.”
To overcome the limitation where energy harvesting, storage, and usage require separate devices, researchers used supramolecular materials that self-organize into larger networks.
A custom molecule, ANI-MV, was designed. It integrates two functional components into a single system: an amino naphthalene aromatic unit (ANI) that responds to light, and a methyl viologen (MV) unit that stores the captured electrons.
Use in soft electronics
When the light-responsive ANI portion absorbs energy, it transfers electrons to the MV portion, causing neighboring molecules to strongly attract and form pairs called pimers.
These pimers organize into semiconducting nanoscale ribbons with free-moving, delocalized electrons that eventually entangle into a black gel.
This network stores electrons throughout its structure, marking the first real-world example of a supramolecular polymeric pimer built from electron-storing molecular pairs.
In laboratory experiments, researchers demonstrated the material’s remarkable versatility by triggering its transformation from a yellow liquid into an energy-rich, conductive black gel using chemical fuel, light, electricity, or X-rays.
As light can selectively target the fluid, scientists were able to print microscopic conductive patterns that completely vanish once exposed to open air, which reverts the gel back into non-conductive liquid clusters.
Furthermore, this stored energy can be transferred to oxygen, generating highly reactive molecules that enable the gel to power chemical reactions in complete darkness. This process is known as dark photocatalysis.
“Most light-driven materials stop working when the light source is gone,” Stupp said. “Our material enables a form of ‘dark photocatalysis.'”
Researchers envision this material powering applications ranging from environmental remediation and clean energy to adaptive soft electronics.
The study was published in the journal Chem on June 11.
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Centre for Advanced Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits (CASIC) have announced a major breakthrough in cryogenic electronics: the development of a programmable neuromorphic hardware platform that can operate at temperatures as low as 10 millikelvin (-459.65°F), close to absolute zero. This innovation holds significant promise for the future of quantum computing and deep-space exploration.
Harnessing negative differential resistance in Silicon Carbide
The research team, led by Professor Yuhao Zhang and PhD student Xin Yang from HKU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has successfully harnessed negative differential resistance (NDR) in industry-standard Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFETs.
Their approach enables a single transistor to mimic the energy-efficient “spiking” behavior of biological neurons at ultra-low temperatures. This is the first time such behavior has been demonstrated in a standard transistor at cryogenic levels.
Addressing quantum computing’s wiring bottleneck
Quantum computers require extremely sensitive qubits, maintained at temperatures near absolute zero, to function effectively. However, traditional silicon-based controllers generate significant heat and consume high power, forcing them to be positioned several meters (over a mile in large installations) away from the qubits. This distance introduces a wiring bottleneck that restricts scalability and performance.
“Our work introduces a hardware platform that can be integrated alongside quantum processors,” said Prof. Zhang. “By using unique carrier dynamics in silicon carbide, we can create circuits that are thousands of times more energy-efficient than conventional electronics, significantly reducing the thermal load on cryogenic systems.”
Stable and scalable technology
The key discovery is that SiC MOSFETs, when cooled below 2 Kelvin (-456.67°F), exhibit a strong “S-shape” NDR behavior due to electron-donor impact ionization (EDII). Unlike other technologies that require heat to function, this mechanism is intrinsic to the material, making it stable and repeatable even across different manufacturing batches.
“This is a robust and scalable approach,” said Mr. Yang. “Silicon carbide is already widely used in electric vehicles and power grids, so we can use existing industrial foundries to produce these cryogenic chips on 300-mm (11.8-inch) wafers.”
Enabling complex cryogenic networks
The study shows that these artificial neurons can be cascaded to form larger networks, allowing for complex, local data processing at ultra-low temperatures. This advancement is expected to greatly improve quantum error correction and real-time quantum control, both crucial for advancing quantum computing technology.
Applications in deep-space exploration
Beyond quantum computing, these rugged circuits have potential uses in deep-space missions, where electronics must withstand extreme cold, such as on the lunar surface or in the outer solar system.
The full findings appear in Nature Communications, in a paper titled “Cryogenic neuromorphic circuits using gate-controlled negative differential resistance in silicon carbide.”
Saronic and Castelion, two defense technology companies, have announced plans to combine an autonomous warship with a hypersonic strike weapon. They said this is the first attempt to put a hypersonic vehicle on an unmanned surface vessel.
Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic system will be launched from Saronic’s Marauder medium unmanned surface vessel, with a demonstration at sea planned for 2027.
By combining an unmanned vessel with a hypersonic strike system, the companies hope to give commanders more choices for future naval missions.
Autonomous vessel meets hypersonic firepower
According to the agreement, Saronic’s Marauder unmanned vessel will launch Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic vehicle. The companies said this is an important step toward creating strike systems that work without crews on board.
“Launching a Castelion hypersonic from a Marauder MUSV significantly changes the approach for any adversary calculating where and how the U.S. can strike,” Dino Mavrookas, co-founder and CEO of Saronic, said in a statement. “Deterrence is ultimately a function of capability, capacity, and credibility. Saronic and Castelion are working to increase all three by combining autonomous maritime and hypersonic strike capabilities that are more scalable, more affordable, and faster to field.”
The idea is to equip autonomous ships with advanced weapons that can operate across large areas of the ocean. These ships could offer more launch points for weapons and help keep people out of danger.
Castelion is also increasing production of the Blackbeard system and plans to make several thousand missiles each year. Last October, the company said Blackbeard had won several awards to help it work with both Army and Navy platforms.
Blackbeard production ramps up
By producing more Blackbeard missiles, Castelion hopes to deploy the weapon across more branches of the military. The company says using Blackbeard with Marauder could make operations more flexible and easier to deploy.
“Blackbeard and Marauder will give our warfighters more shots, from more places, with fewer constraints,” Bryon Hargis, co-founder and CEO of Castelion, said in a statement.
This partnership comes as defense leaders look for ways to use more precision strike systems without raising costs. Autonomous ships capable of carrying advanced weapons are becoming an important part of this plan.
Marauder advances toward operational testing
The announcement arrives during a busy period for Saronic. The company is currently expanding a shipyard in Louisiana, a project expected to be completed by the end of this year. Once finished, the facility will have the capacity to produce up to 20 Marauder vessels annually.
Late in May, Saronic revealed that the 180-foot-long Marauder had entered on-water trials. The vessel is designed to carry payloads weighing up to 150 metric tons, giving it the capacity to support a range of military missions.
The U.S. Navy is also evaluating the platform. Last month, the service confirmed that Saronic was among seven companies selected for its MUSV marketplace initiative. Participants will conduct at-sea testing this summer, and those who successfully complete the evaluation phase by October will receive $15 million and become eligible for future production contracts.
Growing role for unmanned naval systems
Beyond Marauder, Saronic has developed several autonomous surface vessels, including the Corsair. According to the company, the vessel can transport payloads of up to 1,000 pounds over distances exceeding 1,000 nautical miles.
The Navy’s Task Force 59, which focuses on unmanned maritime operations in Bahrain, began fielding Corsair vessels in March. The platform recently played a role in a real-world rescue mission.
On Monday, U.S. Central Command said Navy units, including Task Force 59, assisted in rescuing two crew members from a US Army AH-64 Apache helicopter that went down near the coast of Oman.
A new study has supported the concept of physically and operationally integrating a molten salt reactor (MSR) into a large vehicle carrier ship. Lloyd’s Register (LR) is working with Hyundai Heavy Industries, Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering (KSOE), and others to explore an advanced small modular reactor (SMR) installation on a pure car and truck carrier (PCTC).
The latest work examined the internal arrangement and segregation of the reactor system, shielding requirements, and the impact on cargo deck layout and vehicle capacity, alongside stability and trim implications linked to the reactor’s weight and positioning.
Nuclear propulsion at early stage of development
“While nuclear propulsion is still at an early stage of development, this project shows the importance of building technical understanding now to support future progress,” said Sung-Gu Park, President – North East Asia, Lloyd’s Register.
“Establishing feasibility at concept stage is a valuable step forward, particularly in areas such as cargo optimization, vessel stability and integrated safety design.”
The partners also assessed propulsion system configuration and power delivery, as well as operational flexibility compared with conventionally fueled PCTCs, where trade routes and port calls can be tightly constrained.
SMR-powered ships
“With global environmental regulations becoming increasingly stringent and no definitive net-zero fuel yet available, SMR-powered ships can serve as a highly effective alternative, representing a pioneering next-generation maritime technology capable of complying with GHG emission regulations while allowing lifetime operation without refueling, and HD HHI will remain at the forefront of sustainable maritime technology development,” said Hong-Ryeul Ryu, CTO and Senior Executive Vice President at HD HHI.
It’s also revealed that a key focus of the project has been safety. LR led hazard identification (HAZID) and preliminary risk assessment work, focusing on containment, onboard safety systems and potential operability constraints tied to nuclear technology at sea.
Technical feasibility of nuclear-assisted propulsion
Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) also considers the latest study a meaningful achievement in assessing the potential application of SMRs in the maritime sector, taking actual ship operating environments into account. The study is particularly significant because it examined the technical feasibility of applying an MSR type marine SMR to a specific target vessel, namely a PCTC, according to KAERI.
Bayou Metals, a manufacturing partner of defense shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), has stood up a dedicated production line for the Romulus uncrewed surface vessel (USV), a move intended to compress delivery timelines and increase throughput for the US Navy’s growing unmanned maritime program.
The production line is located in Slidell, Louisiana. Bayou Metals is also serving as a strategic marine-grade aluminum supplier to the HII.
A purpose-built line for an uncrewed hull
Rather than routing Romulus components through a generalized fabrication workflow, Bayou Metals configured a dedicated manufacturing line specifically for the vessel’s metalwork and structural assemblies. This single-product-line architecture reduces setup changeover time and allows process engineers to optimize fixturing, weld sequencing, and quality inspection around a single repeating geometry—a standard lean-manufacturing approach when volume and schedule pressure justify the capital allocation.
The Romulus family of USVs is designed for a wide range of mission sets, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), mine countermeasures, strike operations, and counter-unmanned systems. It can also serve as a mother-ship to launch and recover unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It is centered on HII’s Odyssey autonomy software suite and open systems architecture.
HII has been developing the platform as part of the broader US Navy push to field autonomous and semi-autonomous surface vessels capable of operating alongside crewed combatants. Romulus is being developed in partnership with Breaux Brothers, Shield AI, Beier Integrated Systems, and Incat Crowther.
Supply chain structure for unmanned programs
The Bayou Metals arrangement illustrates how prime defense contractors are structuring supply chains for unmanned platforms differently from traditional crewed ships. Because USVs are expected to be procured in larger numbers at lower per-unit cost than destroyers or frigates, the production economics demand a more industrialized approach from tier-one and tier-two suppliers early in the program lifecycle — before the Navy has necessarily committed to a high-rate production contract.
HII’s unmanned systems portfolio
HII has been expanding its unmanned and autonomous systems work through its Mission Technologies division, positioning itself beyond traditional nuclear shipbuilding. The Romulus program sits within that strategic push.
By anchoring a dedicated supplier line, HII is attempting to demonstrate production readiness — a factor the Navy weighs when evaluating whether a program can transition from development and low-rate initial production to full-rate procurement.
Production readiness reviews assess not just the prime contractor’s internal capacity but the depth and reliability of the supplier base. A named, dedicated manufacturing line at a partner facility is a tangible data point in that evaluation criteria.
What comes next
In addition to the vessel currently under construction, four additional Romulus 151 vessels will be built by Breaux Brothers Enterprises in Louisiana. This effort for HII also supports the expansion of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base by growing Gulf Coast manufacturing capacity.
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins in North America, Hyundai Motor Company has launched its biggest mobility and robotics operation for a global sporting event. The company has sent over 1,500 vehicles and advanced robots to support logistics, security, and facility management in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
This project is a big step forward in Hyundai’s partnership with FIFA and shows how robotics and autonomous technology are becoming more common at large public events. Four custom Spot robot dogs from Boston Dynamics, which is owned by Hyundai Motor Group, are leading the effort.
Spot robot dogs head to World Cup venues
The main technology on show is four Spot robot dogs working at two key tournament locations. Hyundai confirmed the robots will be at the International Broadcast Center in Dallas and at stadiums in New York and New Jersey.
These robot dogs can navigate busy, complex spaces independently while performing different tasks. According to Hyundai, Spot will patrol, carry out real-time inspections, and help monitor areas where large crowds are expected during the tournament.
This is the first time Spot robot dogs are being used at a FIFA World Cup, making it an important milestone for Hyundai as FIFA’s Official Robotics Partner.
The company views the tournament as an opportunity to demonstrate how robots can help venue staff and security teams manage large crowds and complex event setups.
— Hyundai Worldwide (@Hyundai_Global) June 5, 2026
Testing robotics beyond factory floors
Industrial robots have long been used in factories, where conditions are highly controlled. But event venues are much more unpredictable and challenging.
World Cup stadiums and broadcast centers will welcome thousands of visitors, staff, and media. These busy places are always changing, so robots need to move around people, obstacles, and ongoing events.
The tournament is a real-world test for autonomous technology in places where safety, reliability, and constant monitoring matter most. Experts see this as a key step in bringing robots into new roles beyond factories.
This move is part of a larger trend, as more tech companies look for practical ways to use autonomous systems in public places.
Fleet of more than 1,500 vehicles
In addition to its robotics program, the company is managing a large transportation effort to support logistics across all 16 host cities.
It is providing a fleet of 994 passenger vehicles and 506 buses. These vehicles transport teams, tournament officials, media representatives, and operational staff throughout the competition.
The fleet features a variety of Hyundai and Genesis models, so organizers can choose vehicles that meet their specific needs.
Selected vehicles are also available in hybrid versions as part of Hyundai’s broader push toward electrified mobility technologies.
Supporting the largest World Cup ever
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is expected to be the biggest edition of the tournament in history, creating unprecedented transportation and operational demands across three countries.
Managing movement between venues, training facilities, hotels, and media centers will require extensive coordination. Hyundai’s combined deployment of vehicles and robotics is intended to help address those challenges while showcasing technologies that could play larger roles in future global events.
Engineers at the Titan-2 Holding, the construction company tasked with building the third unit at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in Russia, recently oversaw the installation of a 120-tonne (132 U.S. tons) core catcher in the reactor containment building. This construction is part of phase II of the Leningrad plant, one of the largest nuclear facilities in Russia.
With an eye on climate goals, countries are turning back to nuclear energy to meet their energy demands without releasing carbon into the atmosphere. While this is a major shift for other countries, for Russia, it is just a matter of upgrading its nuclear facilities with more powerful home-built reactors.
The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, for instance, is one of the largest power facilities in Russia, providing about 55 percent of the electricity demand in the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region at large. With an installed capacity of 4,400 MWe, the nuclear power plant singlehandedly meets 30 percent of the electricity demand of northwest Russia.
After over five decades of operation, the original nuclear reactors have been shut down, and their replacement is being built as Phase II of the Leningrad Power Plant.
Construction in Phase II
The Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant consisted of four RBMK units, one of the earliest Generation II reactors, some of which are still operational elsewhere. At Leningrad, the first two units were shut down in 2018 and 2020, after 45 years of operation each.
In Phase II, Russia is building VVER-1200 reactors with an estimated service life of 60 years, with a possibility of an extension of another 20 years. This will see the reactors in operation, well beyond the 2080s. The first two units at Leningrad Phase II (Leningrad II-1 and II-2) are commonly known as Units 5 and 6, while the other two units, Leningrad II-3 and II-4, are referred to as Units 7 and 8.
While Units 3 and 4 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant remain operational, work to replace them has already begun, with concrete pouring for Units 7 and 8 scheduled to start in March 2024 and March 2025, respectively. The core catcher for Unit 7 (Leningrad II-3) was completed recently.
What is the core catcher?
Made out of thermally resistant steel, the core catcher is a safety device that springs into action in the event of an emergency. In a situation where the core has melted, the core catcher is designed to hold the radioactive material within the containment of the reactor and not let it spill out.
Engineers at Titan-2 oversaw the installation of the core catcher into a concrete shaft of the reactor containment building for Unit 7.
“The likelihood that this passive safety system will ever be truly needed is extremely low,” said Alexey Mochalov, Deputy Chief Engineer for the Construction of New Power Units at Leningrad.
“All the decisions made in the design of domestic power units with VVER-1200 reactors, the high-quality construction, installation, and commissioning work, as well as the highly qualified and responsible personnel of the nuclear power plant, will leave the trap in standby mode for the entire design life of the unit.”
The construction will now proceed to install the thermal insulation, support and thrust trusses, and other equipment and measuring channels to enable reactor vessel assembly as early as next year.
While China dominates humanoid robotics headlines, a Korean firm showcased a humanoid learning complex motions through an open-source AI framework.
In a recent demonstration, ROBOTIS’ AI Sapiens learned the famous CORTIS REDRED Challenge motion using only smartphone video, eliminating the need for professional motion-capture systems.
The process combined video-based motion capture, motion retargeting, simulation-based reinforcement learning, and Sim2Real transfer.
According to the firm, the demonstration highlights how open-source tools can simplify humanoid robot training, enabling users to generate, learn, and execute full-body motions more easily.
Humanoid learns motion
ROBOTIS has demonstrated the capabilities of its AI Sapiens humanoid robot, an open-source platform for physical AI powered by DYNAMIXEL-Q actuators. The project is designed to make humanoid robot motion learning more accessible by using widely available hardware and open-source software tools.
In the demonstration, AI Sapiens learns and performs a complex full-body motion known as the CORTIS REDRED Challenge. Instead of relying on expensive professional motion-capture systems, the robot learns the movement from video recorded using a standard smartphone camera. This significantly reduces the cost and complexity of collecting training data for humanoid robots.
The motion-learning process begins with video-based motion capture. Human movements recorded on a smartphone are converted into digital motion data that can be processed by software. The captured motions are then passed through a motion retargeting stage, where the human movements are adapted to match the physical structure and joint limitations of the humanoid robot.
After retargeting, the robot is trained in a simulation environment using reinforcement learning. During this stage, the AI repeatedly practices the motion in a virtual world, allowing it to improve balance, coordination, and movement accuracy without risking damage to physical hardware. Simulation training also enables rapid testing and optimization before deploying the motion to the real robot.
Once training is complete, the learned behavior is transferred from simulation to the physical AI Sapiens robot through a Sim2Real pipeline. This process helps ensure that motions developed in the virtual environment can be executed successfully in the real world, despite differences between the simulation and the physical hardware.
Accessible AI robotics
ROBOTIS plans to release the motion generation and learning pipeline as open-source software, giving researchers, developers, educators, and hobbyists access to the tools used in the demonstration. The goal is to lower barriers to humanoid robotics development and enable a wider community to experiment with motion learning and physical AI systems.
According to ROBOTIS, AI Sapiens is a fully open-source humanoid robot platform designed for physical AI research and development. Standing 1.3 meters tall and weighing 34 kilograms, the robot features 23 degrees of freedom across its body, enabling a wide range of human-like movements.
The platform is powered by 23 next-generation DYNAMIXEL-Q quasi-direct-drive (QDD) actuators, including 14 QM-060 units and 9 QM-080 units. These actuators combine low gear reduction ratios, high-torque motors, and integrated control electronics to deliver high backdrivability, low impedance, and precise torque control, making them suitable for dynamic and compliant humanoid motion.
AI Sapiens is powered by an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB computer, delivering up to 100 TOPS of AI performance for advanced robotics tasks. It supports Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, dual Ethernet ports, USB connectivity, and 24V/12V power outputs for connecting additional hardware.
The robot is powered by a 46.8V, 9000mAh battery. It is supported by a fully open-source ecosystem that includes hardware bills of materials, CAD files, source code, simulation assets, and development tutorials, enabling researchers and developers to customize and expand the platform.
The world’s first nuclear clocks have ticked. A team of physicists has demonstrated a working timekeeping device regulated not by orbiting electrons — as in conventional atomic clocks — but by transitions within an atomic nucleus itself, a feat decades in the making.
How a nuclear clock differs from an atomic clock
Standard atomic clocks measure time by tracking the frequency at which electrons in atoms like cesium or rubidium flip between energy states. These devices are extraordinarily accurate, losing roughly 1 second every 300 million years. A nuclear clock operates on a fundamentally different principle: it uses the energy transition of a nucleus rather than its electron shell.
The specific nucleus involved is thorium-229, which has a uniquely low-energy nuclear transition — known as an isomeric transition — that falls within the range of ultraviolet lasers.
Most nuclear transitions release gamma rays at energies far too high for laser control, making them impractical for timekeeping. Thorium-229 is a rare exception: its ground state and isomeric state are separated by only about 8.4 electron volts, allowing researchers to drive the transition optically.
In the nuclear clock, a laser is tuned to match this precise transition frequency. When the nucleus absorbs and re-emits photons at that frequency, those oscillations serve as the clock’s ticks.
Because the nucleus is thousands of times smaller than an electron orbit, it is far less sensitive to external electromagnetic interference — a property that could, in principle, allow nuclear clocks to surpass atomic clocks in long-term stability.
Why thorium-229 took so long to harness
The nuclear clock concept was first proposed in the 1970s, but the exact energy of the thorium-229 isomeric transition was not known with sufficient precision to target with a laser until recently. A series of measurements over the past decade progressively narrowed the uncertainty.
In 2024, a team at JILA — a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) — pinned down the transition frequency precisely enough to enable laser excitation of the nucleus.
The current demonstration confirms that thorium-229 nuclei embedded in a calcium fluoride crystal can be repeatedly excited and interrogated using vacuum ultraviolet light.
The calcium fluoride host is transparent at the required wavelength and holds the nuclei in a rigid lattice that minimizes vibrational noise. The clock signal emerges from the collective oscillation of many nuclei simultaneously, which improves the measurement statistics.
According to researchers involved in the work, the present prototype is not yet more accurate than the best optical atomic clocks, but the architecture is now proven. Refinements in laser linewidth and crystal quality are expected to further improve precision.
Probing physics beyond the standard model
The appeal of a nuclear clock extends beyond timekeeping. Because the nucleus interacts strongly with the weak and strong fundamental forces, a thorium-229 clock is sensitive to variations in fundamental constants — quantities like the fine-structure constant and the strong-force coupling — in ways that electron-based clocks are not.
This makes the device a potential instrument for detecting ultralight dark matter. Certain dark matter candidates are theorized to cause tiny, periodic fluctuations in fundamental constants as the Earth moves through a dark matter field.
Comparing a nuclear clock against an optical atomic clock over time could reveal such oscillations. The approach complements particle detector experiments and quantum sensors now used to detect phenomena once considered beyond measurement.
A nuclear clock could also serve as a testbed for whether fundamental constants drift over cosmological timescales — a question with direct implications for theories of dark energy and the evolution of the universe.
In the urgent race to cool a warming planet, scientists have long dreamed of turning a major villain into a valuable asset. The challenge has always been the sheer amount of energy required to force stable greenhouse gases into a more useful state.
Now, University of Nottingham scientists have developed a solar-powered reactor that couples two novel catalyst materials to drive two independent reactions at once.
Powered entirely by sunlight, the system simultaneously transforms carbon dioxide into a valuable chemical while converting biomass waste into the essential building blocks for sustainable plastics.
This device accomplishes the feat by extracting two distinct, valuable chemical products from the energy of a single photon of light.
The split-chamber reactor
The machine is known as a bias-free photoelectrochemical (PEC) reactor.
It works through a twin-compartment design, effectively splitting a single solar interaction down the middle to achieve two goals at once.
The dual-compartment reactor uses a single photon of sunlight to drive a highly efficient chain reaction.
“At the heart of the process is a nanostructured photoanode made of carbon nitride and tungsten oxide semiconductors, enhanced with a cobalt oxide layer, which is coupled to a cathode in the second compartment,” said Dr Madasamy Thangamuthu, Research Fellow at the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, who designed the PEC reactor and catalysts.
The solar-driven process begins when a photon of light strikes the photoanode, generating a freed electron and an atomic vacancy called a hole.
While the electron travels to the cathode to reduce carbon dioxide, the remaining hole simultaneously oxidizes the biomass molecule 5-Hydroxymethyl-2-furoic acid (HMFA), thereby executing two distinct chemical upgrades at the same time.
When light hits the first compartment, it oxidizes a biowaste molecule into a precursor for next-generation plastics. This reaction releases an electron, which travels to the second compartment to reduce carbon dioxide into formate, a versatile chemical used in textiles, paints, and pharmaceuticals.
Tailored for the real world
Operating purely on solar energy, without requiring external heat or electricity, the reactor achieves approximately 93 percent conversion for carbon dioxide and 95 percent oxidation for biomass.
The use of photon energy offers a highly efficient and sustainable blueprint for zero-emission chemical manufacturing.
Furthermore, many modern lab breakthroughs use rare, hyper-expensive metals like platinum or iridium to drive their chemistry. These materials look wonderful in academic journals but are completely impractical for global industrial scaling.
The Nottingham team engineered their materials entirely from earth-abundant, inexpensive elements.
The scientists kept production costs low while maintaining high efficiency rates through a unique method: they assembled the catalyst‘s metal atoms into custom-tailored sizes and shapes directly on the reactor surfaces.
A full life cycle assessment has already validated the system’s low-carbon footprint.
The long-term vision is a decentralized manufacturing network. These modular reactors can eventually be connected directly to active factory smokestacks and local agricultural biorefineries.
Ultimately, the team views this discovery as a vital step toward meeting global net-zero targets by directly harnessing solar energy to tackle the dual challenges of greenhouse gas reduction and waste valorization.
The study was published in the journal Communications Materials on June 12.
Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have built a jacket that captures moisture from the surrounding air and converts it into drinkable water — a development that could have practical consequences for soldiers, hikers, and disaster-relief workers operating far from any water source.
How the textile works
The jacket uses a hygroscopic sorbent woven directly into the fabric. These materials have a strong thermodynamic affinity for water vapor, adsorbing moisture from the atmosphere even at relatively low humidity levels.
Once the sorbent is saturated, a low-grade heat source — potentially body heat or a small solar element integrated into the garment — triggers desorption, releasing the captured water vapor into a compact condensation chamber where it accumulates as liquid. The resulting water is then channeled through a filtration stage before it is considered safe to drink.
The design avoids the energy-intensive refrigeration cycles that conventional atmospheric water generators rely on, which makes a wearable form factor physically plausible.
Traditional atmospheric water-harvesting systems typically require significant electrical input to cool a surface below the dew point; this jacket sidesteps that requirement by using sorption-desorption kinetics.
Material selection and engineering constraints
Choosing the right sorbent is the central engineering problem. The material must adsorb water rapidly, release it cleanly under mild thermal stimulation, survive repeated wetting-and-drying cycles without degrading, and remain flexible enough not to compromise the garment’s wearability.
Outdoor AWH testing of fiber clothing.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and certain hydrogel composites have emerged as candidate materials in the broader atmospheric water-harvesting literature, and similar classes of materials are likely candidates for this type of application, though the specific formulation used by the UT Austin team is detailed in their official announcement.
Yield rate is a genuine constraint. The volume of water a garment-scale sorbent can collect per day is governed by the exposed surface area, the ambient relative humidity, and the cycling frequency of adsorption and desorption.
In arid environments — precisely where a portable water supply is most critical — lower atmospheric humidity directly limits output, so the technology performs best in humid or semi-arid conditions rather than true desert climates.
Structural integration with the garment
Embedding a functional water-harvesting system into a garment without making it impractical to wear requires careful attention to weight distribution, vapor permeability, and thermal management. If the outer layer is too occlusive, it traps sweat, raising the wearer’s core temperature.
The UT Austin design must balance the need to expose the sorbent to ambient air against the thermal comfort requirements of the person wearing it — a tradeoff that textile engineers working on responsive smart fabrics have encountered in other contexts.
Contamination risk and water quality
Atmospheric water harvesting is not inherently free of contamination risk. Air in industrial or wildfire-affected areas can carry particulates, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals, which a sorbent material may co-adsorb with water vapor.
The filtration stage integrated into the jacket’s collection system is therefore not a minor accessory — it is a critical safety component. Whether the filtration approach is sufficient across a range of realistic environmental conditions, and how the filter itself is serviced or replaced in the field, are questions that field trials will need to address before the technology sees wide deployment.
Potential applications and near-term limitations
Military logistics, backcountry search-and-rescue, and humanitarian response in regions with disrupted water infrastructure are the most direct use cases. Each imposes different durability, laundering, and maintenance requirements.
A garment that can survive the wash cycles of standard military field use while retaining its hygroscopic function is a considerably harder engineering target than a laboratory prototype.
This research was first published in the journal Science Advances.
NUBURU Inc., a developer of advanced blue-laser technologies and defense-focused photonics solutions, has announced a significant step forward in underwater energy transmission through a new collaboration with Italian technology company SunCubes.
The initiative will see NUBURU, through its subsidiary Lyocon S.r.l., design specialized blue-laser technology for integration into SunCubes’ DEEP LIGHT underwater wireless power platform.
Underwater laser-based power transmission system
The project represents the first concrete application emerging from a recently signed agreement between NUBURU and SunCubes. It aims to develop an underwater laser-based power transmission system capable of delivering energy wirelessly to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and other subsea systems, potentially transforming the way underwater assets are powered and operated.
The DEEP LIGHT platform is designed around a high-power laser transmitter and receiver architecture that enables contactless energy transfer underwater. Unlike traditional underwater charging methods that require physical docking or cable connections, the system seeks to transmit power over distances of several tens of meters using laser beams operating in the blue-green optical spectrum.
This wavelength range is particularly important because blue and blue-green light experiences lower attenuation in water than many other wavelengths, allowing energy and data to travel more efficiently through underwater environments. By leveraging NUBURU’s expertise in blue-laser technology, the collaboration aims to improve the efficiency, reliability, and scalability of underwater wireless power systems.
Blue-laser technology
Lyocon, acquired by NUBURU earlier this year, will serve as the laser-source design and integration partner for the project. The company brings established expertise in laser manufacturing, photonics engineering, and systems integration, positioning it as a key contributor to the development of the DEEP LIGHT platform.
Under the planned arrangement, Lyocon is expected to design and potentially supply the blue-laser technology layer required for the platform. Its responsibilities may include laser-source development, optical integration, system validation, and support for future industrial-scale deployment.
The collaboration highlights growing interest in underwater autonomy, subsea infrastructure protection, maritime security, and offshore energy applications. As governments and commercial operators increasingly deploy autonomous underwater systems, the need for reliable long-range power delivery and recharging solutions continues to grow.
NUBURU believes the partnership could open access to a multi-billion-dollar addressable market spanning autonomous underwater vehicles, subsea sensors, offshore inspection systems, underwater communications networks, and critical maritime infrastructure. The company also views underwater laser power transmission as a strategic extension of its broader defense and security technology portfolio.
The DEEP LIGHT project has received recognition within Italy’s underwater technology ecosystem and was presented during activities associated with the National Underwater Dimension Hub (PNS), supported by the Italian Navy. SunCubes has also attracted investment support from entities linked to CDP Venture Capital, reinforcing the project’s strategic relevance within Italy’s national innovation framework.
While the collaboration remains subject to definitive agreements, regulatory approvals, and technical validation, it marks an important milestone in the development of next-generation underwater energy systems. If successful, the integration of NUBURU’s blue-laser technology into the DEEP LIGHT platform could pave the way for longer-duration underwater missions, reduced operational constraints, and new capabilities across defense, research, and commercial maritime sectors.
As underwater autonomy and subsea infrastructure become increasingly critical to national security and industrial operations, the NUBURU–SunCubes partnership demonstrates how advanced photonics technologies may help redefine the future of underwater power transmission.
For years, companies have injected carbon dioxide into concrete to trap emissions and improve early performance. The construction industry embraced the approach even though researchers could not fully explain why it worked. Now, scientists at MIT say they have finally watched the chemistry unfold in real time.
Using laser-based imaging, the team captured the rapid reactions that occur when carbon dioxide meets fresh cement paste. The observations revealed a temporary chemical pathway that reshapes how the material hardens. The process produces a more evenly distributed binding structure and boosts early strength.
The findings could help engineers fine-tune low-carbon concrete technologies already entering the market across the United States. The work also offers a clearer picture of how cement, one of the world’s most carbon-intensive materials, can store captured carbon while maintaining performance.
Tracking hidden reactions
Researchers from MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering used Raman confocal microscopy to monitor cement samples continuously during their first 24 hours of curing. The technique identifies materials by analyzing how laser light interacts with chemical bonds. Each compound leaves behind a distinct spectral signature.
Previous studies relied largely on theory and indirect measurements because the reactions happened too quickly for conventional tools to detect. “We’ve used Raman spectroscopy to better understand some of the most interesting materials in history, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Ancient Roman concrete,” Associate Professor Admir Masic said.
“Cement paste may seem less glamorous in comparison, but pointing a laser at CO2-injected cement paste as it hardens allows us to visualize things that haven’t been seen before.” The team discovered that carbon dioxide initially captures calcium released during cement dissolution. That temporary shift slows normal hydration and changes the environment inside the paste.
The disappearing template
As calcium becomes tied up, dissolved silicates spread through the material and assemble into an interconnected silica gel network. The gel survives only briefly.
Once the injected carbon dioxide fully mineralizes several hours later, standard hydration resumes. Calcium hydroxide forms and immediately reacts with the silica network. That reaction produces calcium silicate hydrate, or C-S-H, the compound responsible for cement’s binding strength.
Unlike conventional cement, however, this new C-S-H develops throughout the material rather than clustering around cement particles. “At first, the fleeting nature of the silica gel looked like a fluke in the Raman data,” graduate student Marcin Hajduczek said.
“But it quickly became clear that its sudden disappearance was a consistent, undeniable feature of every CO2-injected sample.” Stronger concrete, new possibilities
The altered pathway leaves behind a more uniform internal structure. In tests, cement paste containing carbon dioxide equal to 1 percent of cement weight achieved an average of 13 percent higher compressive strength after 24 hours than reference samples.
The findings also challenge previous assumptions. Researchers found calcium carbonate particles acted more like spectators than drivers of strength development. “We’ve been injecting CO2 into cement products for years without fully understanding what it was doing inside,” Masic said.
“Now that we understand the mechanism behind the improved performance, we can start to control it.” The researchers caution that dosage remains critical. Excessive carbon dioxide can lock away too much calcium and disrupt beneficial reactions. Even so, the work offers engineers a roadmap for designing stronger, lower-carbon cement products for future infrastructure projects.
Researchers have developed a soft robotic gripper that can inspect fruit for ripeness and harvest it without causing damage, a capability that could help reduce food waste and improve harvesting efficiency.
The device uses soft silicone and polyurethane fingers equipped with multiple sensors to measure a fruit’s size, shape, color and firmness before deciding whether it is ready to be picked. The system was tested on strawberries and can remove the fruit by twisting its stem rather than cutting it.
The gripper was developed by a team that includes Anand Mishra, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering at West Virginia University. The research began at Cornell University and is continuing at WVU.
The technology addresses a major challenge in agriculture: harvesting delicate fruits at the right stage of ripeness. Fruits such as strawberries and raspberries have a narrow harvest window and can bruise easily during picking, transportation and storage.
Gentle grip, smart sensing
“Our gripper’s quick, accurate inspections and harvesting can reduce spoilage of fruits and lower supply chain costs,” Mishra said.
“Fruit inspections are critical for harvesting decisions that have traditionally been made by human workers. However, using human workers for harvesting involves challenges such as labor shortages, health concerns and inaccuracies in picking.”
Agricultural robots have been proposed as a solution, but many existing systems are designed for controlled greenhouse environments rather than outdoor farms. Traditional robotic grippers can also damage soft fruit because of their rigid structures.
The new system combines tactile and visual sensing in a soft robotic design. Stretchable optical fibers embedded inside each finger act as tactile and curvature sensors, while a miniature camera and distance sensor are mounted in the palm.
The five-fingered gripper can identify a fruit’s shape, stiffness and ripeness while also detecting slippage during handling. Researchers reported that the device can open and close in less than two seconds, lift loads weighing up to one kilogram and achieve nearly 100 percent accuracy in shape prediction.
According to the team, the technology could be particularly useful for fruits that do not show obvious visual signs of ripeness. Avocados are one example, where growers often rely on touch rather than appearance to determine harvest timing.
Beyond the orchard
“My research group at WVU is called the Robiotics Lab because we focus on robots that mimic biology,” Mishra said.
“We design squishy, squeezy, rubbery robots inspired by animals.”
The gripper’s design draws inspiration from biological systems and resembles both a human hand and a starfish. Researchers say the soft structure allows it to absorb forces differently than conventional rigid robots, making it better suited for handling delicate objects.
Beyond agriculture, the sensing technology could find use in other fields that require careful manipulation.
“This system offers applications in space exploration, health care, food handling and underwater manipulation,” Mishra said.
“In biomedical robotics, for instance, the integration of curvature and tactile sensing could enhance wearable and rehabilitation devices.”
Researchers believe the combination of soft materials and integrated sensing could help robots interact more safely and effectively with both objects and their surroundings.
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