Imagine how much you could save on your electricity bill if
you could use the excess heat your computer generates to actually power the machine.
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science have taken an important step toward harnessing that heat
and converting it for practical use. The advance could lead to more
energy-efficient appliances and information processing devices.
The research team, led by Kang Wang, UCLA's Raytheon
Professor of Electrical Engineering, demonstrates how to add power to a
spintronics device, which uses the spin of electrons for energy rather than
their charge.