Tracking the risks of wildfire smoke
Yale researchers, led by Professor Drew Gentner, studied the air quality in New York City while it was heavily affected by Canadian wildfires over several days in 2023. Their findings revealed that time and distance transformed the chemical makeup of the smoke, and that these chemical reactions may have amplified some of the smoke’s health risks. The researchers said the results emphasize the importance of understanding the full extent of wildfire smoke’s effects, even when it’s a long distance from the fires. This is especially true, they said, as wildfires will likely continue to increase due to climate change.
Advancing quantum technology
With a grant from the National Science Foundation, a Yale-led project aims to substantially eliminate the kind of errors in quantum computing that currently pose a major challenge for scientists. Erasure Qubits and Dynamic Circuits for Quantum Advantage (ERASE), a pilot project led by Yale physicist Steven Girvin, is a collaboration between academia and an industrial hardware partner, Quantum Circuits, Inc. Yale and state officials noted that the project helps advance the goals of QuantumCT, a unique private-public partnership led by Yale and the University of Connecticut created to accelerate quantum research and to position the state as a global quantum technology hub.
New appointment for professor
Fengnian Xia, who has conducted pioneering work in low-dimensional quantum materials and devices, was appointed the Tso-Ping Ma Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Among his many discoveries, Xia made an important breakthrough in graphene photodetectors, which opened up a new field of graphene optoelectronics. In 2014 he was one of the first to identify and demonstrate the great potential of black phosphorus as a 2D semiconductor with a sizable bandgap. He recently introduced a new sensing concept called Geometric Deep Sensing, which is founded on two key cornerstones: the reconfigurability of semiconductor devices and the integration of artificial intelligence.
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