In a world first, a team led by researchers at Penn State used two-dimensional materials, which are only an atom thick and retain their properties at that scale, unlike silicon, to develop a computer capable of simple operations. The advancement, published in Nature, represents a major leap toward the realization of thinner, faster and more energy-efficient electronics, the researchers said.

A research team at the University of Seville, Spain, developed a novel extension of virus machines, an emerging computing model that draws inspiration from how viruses propagate among hosts. These super virus machines, as the team calls them, address time efficiency limits in basic virus machines. This work was published under the title "Super Virus Machines: Faster Virus Transmission, More Efficiency Using Superchannels" on March 21 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal.

Here, researchers from Laval University, Harbin Institute of Technology, University of Toronto, University of L’ Aquila, and University of Rome proposed a frequency multiplexed photothermal correlation tomographic (FM-PCT) technique. This approach overcomes the limitations of 2D imaging modes in infrared thermography, as well as the challenges of low imaging speed, narrow field of view, and low resolution in photothermal imaging.

The leading researcher, Dr Andreas Mandelis, commented: “It is these conditions that, for the first time, make FM-PCT a leading candidate for implementation in fast-turn-around quality control situations, such as industrial manufacturing environments.”