Most optical sensors record data from light and then transmit all of the raw data to a computer for processing. This typically consumes more energy than necessary, because in most applications, only a small amount of information relative to the raw data is needed. So, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Davis; and the University of Texas at Arlington are developing a less power-hungry approach, in which some data processing is conducted in the sensor itself, before the data is sent to a computer or processed by edge computing devices. The new sensor, called a “nanoscale hybrid,” stitches together nanostructures, such as nanotubes and nanowires. It is highly sensitive in part because the sensor’s nanoscale components are smaller than the wavelength of light.
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