SAN ANTONIO — September 21, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is ready to serve as a “teaming partner” for a U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office program. The Accelerating Scale-up and Pre-piloting of Emerging Chemical Technologies (ASPECT) program will provide up to $58 million for bench-scale and pre-pilot scale projects to enhance domestic supply chains and reduce America’s dependence on chemical imports. Through ASPECT, selected organizations can match with SwRI to advance their alternative or waste feedstock projects.

Researchers at Nanjing University have experimentally demonstrated a quantum communication protocol that enables three users to establish a shared secure key with substantially improved performance. By combining more efficient key generation with operation without phase locking, the work advances a key building block for future multiuser quantum networks.

X-ray light, tuned like a slide guitar: Researchers at TU Wien and UC San Diego have developed a tabletop source of bright, narrow-band X-ray harmonics whose frequency can be tuned continuously. The key is a six-metre gas-filled waveguide that helps produce tunable visible laser pulses, which then generate X-rays in helium. The technique could open new possibilities for precision spectroscopy, nuclear clocks and materials research.

Researchers have demonstrated a scalable 3.2 Tb/s O-band silicon photonic interconnect architecture designed to address the growing bandwidth demands of artificial intelligence (AI) computing. Published in PhotoniX Synergy, the work combines hybrid wavelength-port multiplexing with adaptive wavelength stabilization to enable high-bandwidth and robust optical I/O, providing a scalable pathway toward terabit-scale silicon photonic interconnects for next-generation AI computing systems.

Researchers led by Prof. MENG Guowen and Prof. TANG Haibin at the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed self-supported electrodes that improve the conversion rate of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and n-propanol.

A research team led by Prof. ZHANG Hongwen at the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed a portable surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensor that can rapidly detect trace amounts of sarin and other organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents.

The new sensor uses a specially designed molecular probe to recognize the P–C bond found in OP nerve agents. It can detect sarin in both liquid and gas phases, making it suitable for rapid on-site screening.

A research team led by Prof. WANG Zhenyang at the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed an electromagnetic wave-absorbing metastructure that can absorb microwaves over a broad frequency range while also supporting loads and removing ice through electrical heating.