Imagine a tiny integrated circuit so small it must be viewed through a microscope, but so powerful, fast and sturdy it can routinely transmit huge amounts of data at high speed in a highly radioactive environment, where temperatures might fall below an unimaginable 300 degrees F.
Yet despite those challenges, the circuit must dissipate very little heat and — because its location makes routine maintenance impossible — it must be highly reliable. An SMU team of physicists led by Jingbo Ye, an associate professor of physics, not only imagined it — they designed it.