Professor Chao XIANG, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering under the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has been honoured with the 2025 Croucher Tak Wah Mak Innovation Award for his pioneering research in silicon photonics, specifically his work on “integrating lasers for advanced photonic integrated circuits".

In a breakthrough that blends biology and robotics, researchers at The University of Osaka have created a new type of insect cyborg that can navigate autonomously—without wires, surgery, or stress-inducing electrical shocks. The system uses a small ultraviolet (UV) light helmet to steer cockroaches by taking advantage of their natural tendency to avoid bright light, especially in the UV range. This method not only preserves the insect’s sensory organs but also maintains consistent control over time.

A research team led by Prof. ZHU Yingjie from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed the neural mechanisms by which social rank influences vulnerability to drug addiction.

Fungi are considered a promising source of biodegradable materials. Empa researchers have developed a new material based on a fungal mycelium and its own extracellular matrix. This gives the biomaterial particularly advantageous properties.

A new technique enables the use of, for example, cooking oil from fast-food restaurants to dissolve and separate silver. The process requires light and diluted hydrogen peroxide. The technique makes it possible to secure the supply of silver and reduce the burden on the environment.

A research team from Kumamoto University has developed a promising deep learning model that significantly enhances the accuracy of subgraph matching — a critical task in fields ranging from drug discovery to natural language processing.

    Led by Assistant Professor Kou Li, a research group in Chuo University, Japan, has developed an all-printable device fabrication strategy to resolve the existing technical limitations of multi-functional image sensor sheets for non-destructive inspections, with a recent paper publication in npj Flexible Electronics.

　While photo-thermoelectric (PTE) sensors and their ultrabroadband monitoring facilitate non-destructive testing, their conventional fabrication is insufficient for high-yield integration. Specifically, PTE devices faced challenges in their crucial spatial-misalignment for separate fabrication processes per constituent. Herein, this work demonstrates mechanically alignable and all-dispenser-printable integration of carbon nanotube (CNT) functional PTE sensor devices by designing them with solution-processable ink-materials. This technique first accurately prints CNT channels, essential in PTE conversion, using higher-concentration inks, and integrates remaining constituents (dopants and conductive pastes) into single device structures at high-yield. This work further demonstrates that employing higher-concentration CNT inks, suitable for mechanical channel printing, also designs sensitive PTE sensors. These sensors serve stably as integrated devices on diverse functional substrates, facilitating ubiquitous non-destructive monitoring depending on features. Therefore, this work designs such CNT PTE integrated devices and the associated functional inspection appropriately for structures, sizes, and external environments (e.g., temperature and humidity) of monitoring targets.