It is anticipated that, within just a few decades, the surging volume of digital data will constitute one of the world’s largest energy consumers. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have made a breakthrough that could shift the paradigm: an atomically thin material that enables two opposing magnetic forces to coexist – dramatically reducing energy consumption in memory devices by a factor of ten. This discovery could pave the way for a new generation of ultra-efficient, reliable memory solutions for AI, mobile technology and advanced data processing.

Rapid progress of advanced laser sources have accelerated the development of laser ranging technologies, focusing on two comprehensive strategies: one is appealing to the promotion of measurement performances, and the other is simplifying the complexities of system architectures. Beyond the coherent-light counterpart, optical chaos originating from the laser nonlinear dynamics has fueled scenarios toward the parallel ranging for breaking the severe channel jamming. It has raised one striking question of how the “parallel chaos” could be upgraded and then reshape the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) ecosystem. Here, we introduce a multi-color pulsed chaos, by leveraging the accessible noise-like evolution in nonlinear dissipative systems to elevate a “single-pixel” architecture for parallel ranging. By the spectro-temporal manipulation, the broadband chaos can be tailored into multi-color parallelization without high-speed optoelectronics. Based on this chaos, the parallel ranging system achieves submillimeter-level ranging accuracy and throughput of hundreds of megahertz, as well as enabling a simplified architecture of a single transmitter, reference, and receiver. Our approach emphasizes the advancement in both the parallel ranging and the single-pixel architecture. Notably, the pulsed form of optical chaos offers revolutionary potential and catalyzes the progression of massively parallel ranging towards a new era.

This work presents a miniaturized spectrometer spanning 5.2 THz across the full C-band by pairing a GHz-tunable laser with a stabilized Si₃N₄ soliton microcomb. The system achieves kHz-level frequency resolution and retrieves both amplitude and phase—resolving molecular absorption lines in a gas cell and extracting dispersion from integrated photonic devices. The demonstrated stability and precision, along with a simplified architecture, point toward fully integrated, chip-scale ultrabroadband spectroscopy in future implementations.

This discovery paves the way for more cost-effective and efficient catalysts that could significantly lower the barriers to industrial-scale CO₂ conversion processes. The technology holds promise for contributing to the development of renewable energy sources, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and mitigating the impacts of climate change. It may also inspire further research into other catalyst-support combinations, potentially leading to breakthroughs in various electrochemical applications.