Electrical/​Electronics

Top 5 Tech Briefs Quizzes of 2025

Learn which of our little tests were the most popular this year. Find out which five quizzes topped our 2025 list. Thanks for yet another year of loyal readership; we appreciate your devotion to Tech Briefs. Happy Holidays!

Manufacturing the World's Tiniest Light-Emitting Diodes

Miniaturization ranks as the driving force behind the semiconductor industry. The tremendous gains in computer performance since the 1950s are largely due to the fact that ever smaller...

Scientists Create Superconducting Semiconductor Material

Scientists have long sought to make semiconductors that are also superconducting, thereby enhancing their speed and energy efficiency and enabling new quantum technologies. However,...

New Cooling Technique Could Make Computer Chips More Powerful

As more devices get piled onto computer chips to increase processing power capacity, heat generation becomes increasingly concentrated. This heat must be removed to keep chip...

An Electronic Fiber for Stretchable Sensing

The phrase ‘liquid metal’ may bring to mind something hazardous, like mercury or molten steel. But in the Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fiber Devices (FIMAP) in EPFL’s School of...

Researchers Give New Meaning to the Term “Microwave Brain”

Cornell researchers have developed a low-power microchip they call a “microwave brain,” the first processor to compute on both ultrafast data signals and wireless communication signals by harnessing the physics of microwaves. Read on to learn more about it.

Robotic System for Assembly and Maintenance of Lightweight Reconfigurable Structures

Missions to the moon and other planets will require large-scale infrastructure that would benefit from autonomous assembly by robots without on-site human intervention. NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel and efficient mobile bipedal robot system to construct low-mass, high precision, and largescale infrastructure. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including Plasmatreat's HydroPlasma, a solution for the removal of stubborn contaminants from glass and metal surfaces; TDK Corporation's 3000-watt TDK-Lambda brand HWS3000G programmable AC-DC power supplies; Zircotec's new range of proprietary ceramic coatings; Thermo Fisher Scientific's expanded solutions for battery manufacturers; and more.

Vote for Tech Briefs’ 30th Annual Readers’ Choice Awards

Each month, our editors choose a Product of the Month that has exceptional technical merit and practical value for our design engineering readers. Those 11 products are the nominees for the 2025 Tech Briefs' Readers’ Choice Product of the Year. You’re invited to cast your vote for the one product among the 11 listed in this article that you feel was the most important new product introduced to the engineering community in 2025.

NASA Mission to Test Organic Electro-Optic Materials in Space

NLM Photonics has confirmed that its patented silicon organic hybrid (SOH) photonic chips, featuring Selerion-HTX™ and JRD1, have successfully arrived at the International...

Showcasing Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs: Innovations at the 2025 Create the Future Design Contest

The 23rd annual Create the Future Design Contest was held November 7 in New York City. Read on to find out who took home the $25,000 grand prize!

A New Way to Build Soft Robots That Can Walk on Water

Imagine a tiny robot, no bigger than a leaf, gliding across a pond’s surface like a water strider. One day, devices like this could track pollutants, collect water samples or scout...

Cutting-Edge Computing Goes Spaceborne

Hewlett Packard Enterprise worked with Ames Research Center to send a computer to space that was radiation-hardened with software. Now the approach is making fast, low-cost radiation hardening available to commercial space companies, allowing the use of cutting-edge computers in space.

Solving Space, Power Challenges with PoE-Enabled Panel PCs

Semiconductor manufacturers are turning to panel PCs — integrated computing solutions built for demanding production environments.

Powerful and Precise Multi-color Lasers Now Fit on a Single Chip

A few years ago, researchers in Michal Lipson’s Columbia Engineering lab noticed something remarkable. They were working on a project to design high-power chips that could...

Breaking the Thermal Conductivity Barrier with Boron Arsenide

University of Houston researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery in thermal conductivity, overturning an existing theory that boron arsenide (BAs) couldn’t compete with...

Using Streetlamps as EV Chargers

Electric vehicles (EVs) can have lower fuel costs and reduce emissions relative to cars that use gasoline, but they are only a practical option if drivers have convenient ways to charge them. For people who...

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including an artificial neuron made of conductive plastics that can perform advanced functions similar to those of biological nerve cells; a new method that significantly boosts the performance and stability of solar cells; and more.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including Boker’s stamped metal components custom manufactured to fit into developed mold designs; the CRH03 tactical-grade gyroscope from Silicon Sensing Systems; Keysight Technologies' enhanced physical layer compliance test solution for high-definition multimedia interface; and more.

Upper Body Robotic Exoskeleton

This lightweight, portable garment is designed for active shoulder and elbow positioning.

Printable Heat Shield Formulations Advance Spacecraft Construction

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed additively manufactured thermal protection system (AMTPS) comprised of two printable heat shield material formulations. This technology could significantly decrease heat shield or thermal protection system (TPS) fabrication cost and time. Read on to learn more.