A team of physicists has taken pictures of a theorized but previously undetected magnetic wave, the discovery of which offers the potential to be an energy-efficient means to transfer data in consumer electronics.

Solar energy could be made cheaper if solar cells could be coaxed to generate more power. A huge gain in this direction has been made by a team of chemists that has found an ingenious way to make solar energy conversion more efficient. The researchers combined inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals with organic molecules to ‘upconvert’ photons in the visible and near-infrared regions of the solar spectrum.

Engineers have combined two promising solar cell materials together for the first time, creating a new platform for LED technology. The team designed a way to embed strongly luminescent nanoparticles called colloidal quantum dots into perovskite.

A new material design could make low-cost solar panels far more efficient by greatly enhancing their ability to collect the sun’s energy and release it as electricity.