Computing goes green—or is that brown?

Illustration of Cosmic Strings. Credit: Royalty-free stock illustration ID: 1613674900
Current silicon-based computing technology is energy-inefficient. Information and communications technology is projected to use over 20% of global electricity production by 2030. So finding ways to decarbonise technology is an obvious target for energy savings. Professor Paolo Radaelli from Oxford's Department of Physics, working with Diamond Light Source, the U.K."s national synchrotron, has been leading research into more efficient alternatives to silicon. His group's surprising findings are published in Nature in an article titled "Antiferromagnetic half-skyrmions and bimerons at room temperature." Some of the antiferromagnetic textures they have found could emerge as prime candidates for low-energy antiferromagnetic spintronics at...