Silicon

Researchers developed a nanospiked surface that was 96% effective in destroying a common virus responsible for causing respiratory illnesses in children. The technology could safeguard researchers, health workers and patients from viral spread.

Move over, macro: researchers have created the world’s smallest silicon LED and holographic microscope, and among its uses is a hack that'll let you use your smartphone to view objects as tiny as a single human skin cell in brilliant high resolution.

Three teams of scientists have achieved a major milestone in quantum computing. All three groups demonstrated better than 99 percent accuracy in silicon-based quantum devices, paving the way for practical, scalable, error-free quantum computers.

A team of researchershas advanced development of a nanochip device that can reprogram cells in the body to become new blood vessels and nerve cells. It could be used to repair brain damage resulting from a stroke or nerve damage caused by diabetes.

Quantum computers could one day outperform traditional machines, but hurdles remain. Now physicists have successfully entangled three silicon quantum dots for the first time, in a breakthrough that could help make quantum computers more practical.

Scientists have discovered a strange new form of crystal that was forged in the first nuclear weapons test. Known as a "quasicrystal," the curious creation is made out of desert sand and copper wiring arranged in an extremely rare atomic structure.

Particle accelerators could be incredibly useful for medicine – if they weren’t so huge. Now, scientists at Stanford have managed to shrink the tech down to fit on a computer chip, which could lead to more precise cancer radiation therapies.

Ask a smartphone user how to improve them, and it's a safe bet that longer battery life would top the list. Batteries with silicon anodes could help boost that, and now a team has shown that these batteries can be environmentally friendly too, sourced from glass bottles headed for the scrap heap.

While not quite as significant as the one-time accidental discovery of penicillin, 2016 did have its share of chance findings in the scientific community. Here we take a look at five of them.​

Yale scientists have created a method to significantly increase the power of laser light on a silicon chip by boosting it with sound waves. This new device promises more efficient fiber-optic communications and better data signal processing

To make solar energy more competitive, researchers from Norway have developed a method to bring down the amount of silicon used in solar cells by as much as 90 percent. The price of silicon is a major driver in the cost of solar panels.

Panasonic is reporting a 25.6 percent conversion efficiency for its HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar cells, which it claims as a world record for crystalline silicon-based solar cells of a "practical size."