1,024 floating-gate field-effect transistors that have channels made from monolayer molybdenum disulfide can be used to perform vector–matrix multiplication and discrete signal processing. The computer-generated image on the cover shows a section of a wafer used to prepare the processors, where the monolayer memories are arranged in 32 by 32 matrices.

See Migliato Marega et al.

A model for the force behaviour in generic solid/liquid-dielectric multilayer stacks that is based solely on the dielectric properties of the materials can be used to create actuators with a constant force output at low power loss. The photograph on the cover shows a setup used to test the capabilities of the actuators when employed as artificial muscles, where actuators with matched dielectrics can steadily support a 10 g weight.

See Sîrbu et al.

An Ising solver chip that is based on coupled ring oscillators and has an all-to-all connected array architecture with 48 spins has been fabricated in 65 nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The solver allows optimization problem graphs with up to 48 nodes to be directly mapped to the hardware. The illustration on the cover highlights how a combinatorial optimization problem is formulated using an undirected graphical representation, with vertices representing the spin states and edges representing the coupling weights.

See Lo et al.

An analogue in-memory compute chip that has 64 cores and is based on 14 nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology with backend-integrated phase-change memory can perform deep neural network inference tasks accurately and efficiently. The computer-generated image on the cover shows the chip — termed the IBM HERMES project chip — before completion of back-end-of-line processing, which leaves the mixed-signal compute cores, the digital processing units and the communication fabric visible.

See Le Gallo et al.

A wireless wearable biosensor that is powered by a flexible perovskite solar cell can be used to continuously monitor a person’s physicochemical data — glucose, pH, sodium ions, sweat rate and skin temperature — across indoor and outdoor activities. The photograph on the cover shows the wearable sweat sensor attached to an arm.

See Min et al. and News & Views by Hiltunen

A spintronic compute-in-memory macro can provide energy-efficient dot-product edge computing with secure access control and data protection capabilities. The cover shows a die photo of the macro, which is designed for use in artificial intelligence (AI) edge devices.

See Chiu et al. and News & Views by Cai et al.

The magnetism in twisted double bilayers of antiferromagnetic chromium triiodide can be controlled via twist angle, temperature and electrical gating. The optical microscopy image on the cover shows a back-gated chromium triiodide device in which flakes of bilayer chromium triiodide are encapsulated within flakes of hexagonal boron nitride and contacted via a few-layer graphene flake; this stack is placed on prepatterned gold electrodes on a silicon wafer.

See Cheng et al.

A spontaneous phase separation technique that mimics the silk-spinning processes of spiders can be used to make functional fibres for use in textile electronics. The computer-generated image on the cover highlights the phase separation technique, which operates at ambient pressure and temperature, used to create the fibres.

See Zhang et al.

Three-dimensional structures made of stretchable conductors can be printed using an emulsion-based composite ink. The computer-generated image on the cover highlights the capabilities of the approach, which can be used to create different three-dimensional geometries that have a minimum feature size of less than 100 μm and a stretchability of more than 150%.

See Lee et al. and News & Views by Zhou & Yuk

Micro-light-emitting-diode (microLED) chips can be accurately aligned on a substrate — and used to create active-matrix displays — by engineering the top and bottom faces of the chips so that they have a different van der Waals interaction with the substrate. The optical microscopy image on the cover shows the microLED chips on a silicon substrate, with the faces of the chips all aligned in the same direction.

See Hwang et al. and News & Views by Do et al.

Our 2023 technology of the year is brain–computer interfaces.

See Editorial

A circuit that incorporates 2,048 memristors and 30,080 transistors can implement Bayesian inference via an approach that performs computation locally and with minimal data movement. The optical microscopy image on the cover shows the die of the Bayesian system.

See Harabi et al.