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Wireless link carries 138.6 Gbit/s across 5.5 kilometres in Zurich

ETH Zurich researchers transmitted a net 138.6 gigabits per second wirelessly from Uetliberg to the ETH campus, a distance of 5.5 kilometres. Operating at 273 GHz, the link crossed urban terrain, waterways and forest. A resonant plasmonic modulator converted the weak incoming radio signal into light, while improvements to the optical receiver doubled its sensitivity.

The result demonstrates fibre-like capacity over a city-scale wireless connection, potentially useful where installing cable is difficult or for temporary backup links. Measurements covered about six and a half hours on one July afternoon and evening. Reliability across seasons and in rain remains to be tested.

The 5.5-kilometre experimental wireless link from Uetliberg to ETH Zurich. Figure: ETH Zurich IEF; satellite and elevation imagery: copyright Google Maps.

Piomic Medical raises USD 25M growth financing

Piomic Medical secured USD 25 million in growth financing led by Swisscanto to advance COMS One, its portable treatment for hard-to-heal wounds. Swisscanto committed CHF 10 million, with existing shareholders also participating. The financing brings Piomic’s total funding above USD 50 million across equity, convertible instruments and non-dilutive funding.

COMS One combines optical and magnetic stimulation. The proceeds support the MAVERICKS study, involving 224 patients at 30 US sites, and the European NAZARÉ trial, alongside preparations for a US approval filing. The device is CE-marked in Europe but remains investigational in the United States; its FDA Breakthrough Device designation is not marketing approval.

COMS One therapy unit and adapter. Image: Piomic Medical

Aylight raises EUR 4.5M pre-seed

Aylight raised EUR 4.5 million in pre-seed funding co-led by Elaia and Swisscom Ventures, with Verve Ventures and Plug and Play participating. The Zurich company will use the financing to produce its first foundry-manufactured prototypes and expand its research team.

Its semiconductor laser produces many precisely spaced wavelengths from one chip, replacing the separate light sources normally needed for parallel optical channels. The frequency-comb design targets data-centre interconnects and precision sensing; the announcement concerns prototype development, not volume production.

Aylight co-founders Dmitry Kazakov and Bahareh Marzban, left to right. Photo: Aylight

Tiny OLED pixels control the direction and polarisation of light

ETH Zurich researchers fabricated organic light-emitting diode pixels reaching the 100-nanometre size range using thin silicon-nitride stencil membranes. The method sharply reduces the feature sizes obtainable with conventional deposition masks. As a demonstration, the team made an ETH logo from 2,800 OLED pixels, each about 200 nanometres across, within a structure roughly the height of a human cell.

At these dimensions, closely spaced emitters can interact through optical wave effects. The researchers demonstrated control over emission direction and polarisation, extending the work beyond simple pixel miniaturisation. The Nature Photonics study points toward compact displays, sensing and electronically controlled optics. Individually addressing the nanoscale OLEDs remained an engineering objective, so the demonstration represents a fabrication and light-control platform rather than a finished high-resolution display.

Illustration of the nanoscale OLED ETH logo, with an enlarged detail and a cell-size comparison. Image: Amanda Paganini / ETH Zurich.

Stacked image sensors capture red, green and blue at each pixel

ETH Zurich and Empa researchers built two working thin-film image sensors that stack colour-sensitive perovskite layers vertically. By changing the material's chemical composition, each layer absorbs a selected part of the spectrum while passing other wavelengths onward. The arrangement lets each pixel measure red, green and blue without the side-by-side colour filters used in conventional silicon sensors.

The Nature study advanced the team's earlier single-pixel demonstrations into functioning sensor prototypes with different readout architectures. The approach promises better use of incoming light, more accurate colour reproduction and fewer demosaicing artefacts. Its theoretical threefold advantage in light collection and spatial resolution is a consequence of the stacked design. The prototypes still had pixels 0.5 to 1 millimetre across, leaving substantial lateral miniaturisation and readout development before consumer-camera applications.

One of the thin-film perovskite sensor prototypes. Image: Empa / ETH Zurich.

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