Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it’s a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be.

MIT researchers have now replaced silicon with a magnetic semiconductor, creating a magnetic transistor that could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient circuits. The material’s magnetism strongly influences its electronic behavior, leading to more efficient control of the flow of electricity. 

The team used a novel magnetic material and an optimization process that reduces the material’s defects, which boosts the transistor’s performance.

The material’s unique magnetic properties also allow for transistors with built-in memory, which would simplify circuit design and unlock new applications for high-performance electronics.

“People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics. We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research,” says Chung-Tao Chou, an MIT graduate student in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Physics, and co-lead author of a paper on this advance.

Chou is joined on the paper by co-lead author Eugene Park, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE); Julian Klein, a DMSE research scientist; Josep Ingla-Aynes, a postdoc in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center; Jagadeesh S. Moodera, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics; and senior authors Frances Ross, TDK Professor in DMSE; and Luqiao Liu, an associate professor in EECS, and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics; as well as others at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. The paper appears today in Physical Review Letters.

Overcoming the limits

In an electronic device, silicon semiconductor transistors act like tiny light switches that turn a circuit on and off, or amplify weak signals in a communication system. They do this using a small input voltage.

But a fundamental physical limit of silicon semiconductors prevents a transistor from operating below a certain voltage, which hinders its energy efficiency.

To make more efficient electronics, researchers have spent decades working toward magnetic transistors that utilize electron spin to control the flow of electricity. Electron spin is a fundamental property that enables electrons to behave like tiny magnets.

So far, scientists have mostly been limited to using certain magnetic materials. These lack the favorable electronic properties of semiconductors, constraining device performance.

“In this work, we combine magnetism and semiconductor physics to realize useful spintronic devices,” Liu says.

The researchers replace the silicon in the surface layer of a transistor with chromium sulfur bromide, a two-dimensional material that acts as a magnetic semiconductor.

Due to the material’s structure, researchers can switch between two magnetic states very cleanly. This makes it ideal for use in a transistor that smoothly switches between “on” and “off.”

“One of the biggest challenges we faced was finding the right material. We tried many other materials that didn’t work,” Chou says.

They discovered that changing these magnetic states modifies the material’s electronic properties, enabling low-energy operation. And unlike many other 2D materials, chromium sulfur bromide remains stable in air.

To make a transistor, the researchers pattern electrodes onto a silicon substrate, then carefully align and transfer the 2D material on top. They use tape to pick up a tiny piece of material, only a few tens of nanometers thick, and place it onto the substrate.

“A lot of researchers will use solvents or glue to do the transfer, but transistors require a very clean surface. We eliminate all those risks by simplifying this step,” Chou says.

Leveraging magnetism

This lack of contamination enables their device to outperform existing magnetic transistors. Most others can only create a weak magnetic effect, changing the flow of current by a few percent or less. Their new transistor can switch or amplify the electric current by a factor of 10.

They use an external magnetic field to change the magnetic state of the material, switching the transistor using significantly less energy than would usually be required.

The material also allows them to control the magnetic states with electric current. This is important because engineers cannot apply magnetic fields to individual transistors in an electronic device. They need to control each one electrically.

The material’s magnetic properties could also enable transistors with built-in memory, simplifying the design of logic or memory circuits.

A typical memory device has a magnetic cell to store information and a transistor to read it out. Their method can combine both into one magnetic transistor.

“Now, not only are transistors turning on and off, they are also remembering information. And because we can switch the transistor with greater magnitude, the signal is much stronger so we can read out the information faster, and in a much more reliable way,” Liu says.

Building on this demonstration, the researchers plan to further study the use of electrical current to control the device. They are also working to make their method scalable so they can fabricate arrays of transistors.

This research was supported, in part, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The work was partially carried out at the MIT.nano facilities.

Some AI-based video age-verification checks can be fooled with a fake mustache.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02650-9

The link between temperature and child maltreatment in Africa remains unexplored. This study demonstrates a substantial association, particularly among socio-economically disadvantaged families, driven by behavioural changes, occupational exposure and reduced household resources.

MIT master’s student Sunshine Jiang ’25 and Rupert Li ’24 are recipients of this year’s Knight-Hennessy Scholarship. Now in its ninth year, the highly competitive scholarship provides up to three years of financial support for graduate studies at Stanford University. 

Sunshine Jiang  ’25

Sunshine Jiang, from Hangzhou, China, graduated from MIT in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree as a double major in physics and electrical engineering and computer science, along with minors in mathematics and economics. She will receive her master of engineering degree this month and will start her PhD in computer science at Stanford School of Engineering this fall. 

Jiang researches embodied artificial intelligence and robotics, developing data-efficient, adaptive systems for general-purpose robots that broaden accessibility. She has presented her research at major conferences, including the Conference on Robot Learning, the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, and the International Conference on Learning Representations. 

Jiang led the development of AI-powered systems that provide access to traditional Chinese art in rural classrooms, founded cross-country programs that expand girls’ access to STEM education, and created a Covid-19 documentary amplifying community voices, which was featured on China Daily.

Rupert Li ’24

Rupert Li, from Portland, Oregon, is currently pursuing a PhD in mathematics at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He graduated from MIT in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree, double majoring in mathematics and computer science, economics, and data science. Along with his bachelor’s degree, he also received a master’s degree in data science. Li then traveled to the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar, where he earned a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Cambridge.

Li’s research interests lie in probability, discrete geometry, and combinatorics. He enjoys serving as a mentor for MIT PRIMES-USA, a high school math research program, and previously served as an advisor for the Duluth REU, an undergraduate math research program. In addition to the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship and the Marshall Scholarship, he has been awarded the Hertz Fellowship, P.D. Soros Fellowship, and the Goldwater Scholarship, and he received honorable mention for the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize.

MIT class 2.72/2.270 (Elements of Mechanical Design) offers undergraduate and graduate students advanced study of modeling, design, and integration, along with best practices for use of machine elements like bearings, bolts, belts, flexures, and gears.

“[Students] learn how to use basically everything from the MechE undergraduate curriculum to build hardcore advanced machines,” says Martin Culpepper, the Ralph E. and Eloise F. Cross Professor in Manufacturing and professor of mechanical engineering (MechE) at MIT.

The course employs modeling and analysis exercises based on rigorous application of physics, mathematics, and core mechanical engineering principles, which are then reinforced through lab experiences and a mechanical system design project.

Culpepper, known to students and colleagues as Marty, says one of his main goals in the course is to “make students into stronger engineers.” His methods involve a mix of teaching and coaching techniques that push students to explore the bounds of what’s possible. 

“Marty likes to say that ‘as long as something doesn't break the laws of physics, it’s possible. You just have to figure out how to engineer it,’” says Yasin Hamed, a teaching assistant for the course.

For the system design projects, students build a lathe that can meet repeatability, accuracy, and functional requirements, and that can also “pass ‘Marty’s death test,’” says MechE graduate student Sarah Stoops. “What that means practically,” explains fellow graduate student Amber Velez, “is, at the end of class, Marty takes all our lathes and drops them and hits them with a hammer, and if they explode, you don’t pass the class.”

This final test may seem harsh, but it is an important part of the process and helps build to additional, critical skills: resilience and perseverance.

“The students are very resilient. They learn to persevere and take some time to try and figure things out, and through that process … you learn so much,” says Hannah Gazdus, a teaching assistant for the course.

Before the so-called “death test,” students tackle two other challenges: precision and material removal. “All of our lathes are required to cut to within 50 microns of precision,” explains Velez. In the material removal rate competition, teams compete to see who can turn down a piece of stock by one inch the fastest. Velez’s team completed the later task in approximately 27 seconds.

“The core classes are important — things like mechanics, materials, dynamics, controls — but many of them have a degree of abstraction that separates the content within those courses from the mechanical elements that you use in designing an actual machine,” says Hamed. “I feel like this class serves very well to bridge that [and] inspire that confidence as working engineers.”

When Akorfa Dagadu arrived at MIT, she had a solution in mind: a mobile app to improve recycling and environmental engagement in her home country of Ghana. The project, called Ishara, aimed to make it easier for people to participate in local recycling systems while creating economic opportunities.

“I grew up in what people often call the trash capital of Accra,” she recalls. “I thought I knew what would fix it. So [my Ishara co-founders and I] built a solution — an app — behind some desk in a library … We did what I thought was market research, but looking back, we were basically asking people what they thought about our idea instead of asking how things actually worked … Implementation humbled us very quickly.”

On the ground, Dagadu encountered a reality very different than she anticipated.

“Informal networks of waste pickers and aggregators were already doing the work,” she explains. They’d developed a system that was already working, but it was “invisible, undervalued, and excluded from larger recycling conversations.” 

From technical solutions to systems change 

Soon after arriving at MIT, Dagadu discovered the PKG Center for Social Impact as a place that could help her pivot, taking a step back from her technical solution to understand the systemic context of the problem she was trying to solve.

As a first-year student, Dagadu received a PKG Fellowship, which provides funding and mentorship for students to pursue community-engaged research and development. This early support positioned Dagadu to apply to PKG’s IDEAS Social Innovation Incubator to further refine her social enterprise, Ishara. Dagadu was one of few first-year students selected for IDEAS among an applicant pool dominated by MBA and other graduate students. 

“At MIT, there are a lot of opportunities focused on entrepreneurship. But not as many that emphasize how you can do something for the environment or your community,” says Dagadu. IDEAS trains technical founders in systems change for social impact and community-engaged innovation.

Dagadu obtained another PKG Fellowship to iterate on Ishara the following summer, and was accepted to the IDEAS incubator a second time. Eventually, she refined her app from a technical solution the community didn’t need to one that connects existing recycling networks to the broader value chain, in ways that are transparent and fair, using a blockchain-enabled buyback center. 

“The biggest thing PKG has given me is a way of thinking,” Dagadu explains. “The systems thinking mindset really stays with you. You start to see everything as connected. Technical solutions are not just technical; they have social and economic implications. I find myself applying that in all my classes. Whether I am designing a reactor system or working through a materials problem, I am always asking how this fits into the larger system and who it affects.” 

Community-engaged chemical engineering

Dagadu says that “PKG has shaped both how I do research and how I think about it.” She grew to understand the importance of research grounded in local partnerships, and points to her collaboration with Chanja Datti, a recycling company in Nigeria, as a prime example. 

“That collaboration has directly informed my research,” says Dagadu. “What started as a PKG-supported exploration has now grown into a full undergraduate-led research project at MIT, supported by D-Lab, focused on one of the hardest questions in recycling: what to do with multilayer plastic waste.”

“This is where my chemical engineering and materials background comes in,” explains Dagadu, who studies how random heteropolymers can stabilize enzymes for plastic degradation through the Alexander-Katz Lab. “Thinking about polymer structure, processing, and what is actually feasible,” is critical to her work on the ground. “But it is also shaped by everything PKG emphasizes. You cannot separate the material from the system it lives in.”

Dagadu also appreciates the personal community she’s developed through her journey at MIT, especially as her venture evolved and her co-founders stepped away. “I went from being part of a strong team of three to building Ishara largely on my own,” she recalls. “That’s when I understood what people mean by entrepreneurship being lonely. The doubt, the weight of decisions — it became very real, very quickly.”

She drew on relationships developed through PKG and the Kuo Sharper Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship, where Dagadu is a student fellow, to ground her and remind her of her personal mission. “It’s not just about having a team,” she realized. “It’s about having a community that can hold you through the moments when things fall apart.” 

The PKG Center’s assistant dean, Alison Hynd, who supported Dagadu through multiple PKG Fellowships, sees Dagadu’s ability to create community as a tremendous asset: “As a first-year student, she came through the door with an intellectual vision and drive to do this work, but at MIT, she’s found her voice to pull other people into it.”

Same question, different scale

Next year, Dagadu will broaden her community still more, as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing. While the context of her studies will change, her motivation remains the same as when she entered MIT.

“I want to keep asking the same question that’s shaped so much of my work so far,” she says, “not just how we design better materials, but how we design systems where those materials can actually work. That means zooming out and exploring the policy and economics of material flow.” 

Through Ishara, Dagadu’s social enterprise, she’s seen how systems intersect and function on the ground in the case of recycling in Ghana. “Now, I want to understand forces at a much larger scale,” she says, “and I can’t think of a better place to explore this question than in China, the manufacturing hub of the world.”

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:

• I’m giving a virtual talk on “The Security of Trust in the Age of AI,” hosted by the Financial Women’s Association of New York, at 6:00 PM ET on May 21, 2026.
• I’m speaking at the Potsdam Conference on National Cybersecurity at the Hasso Plattner Institut in Potsdam, Germany. The event runs June 24–25, 2026, and my talk will be the evening of June 24.
• I’m speaking at the Digital Humanism Conference in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday, June 26, 2026.
• I’m speaking at the ...

This week, MIT launches a new initiative — titled Science Is Curiosity on a Mission — to make the case for the long-horizon, curiosity-driven science that has powered generations of American innovation. Through stories of scientists pursuing open-ended questions, the project highlights how fundamental discovery research sparks advances in medicine, technology, national security, and economic growth.

MIT News spoke with Alfred Ironside, the Institute’s vice president for communications, about what inspired the effort, what’s at stake for the U.S. research enterprise, and why curiosity remains one of America’s greatest strengths.

Q: What is “Science Is Curiosity on a Mission,” and why launch it now?

A: Science has been under threat for some time now, and public investment in discovery science has been flagging. We want to remind people in Washington and across the country what curiosity-driven science is all about, and why it matters so much in our individual lives and in the life of the country. 

Science begins with curiosity — someone asking a question and refusing to let it go. History’s most important discoveries did not begin with a commercial objective or a guaranteed outcome. They began because someone wanted to understand how the world works. Think Ben Franklin and his kite: This drive to discover goes back to the beginnings of the United States. 

That’s the story we want to tell, but in today’s terms. We’re spotlighting researchers whose years-long pursuit of core questions has seeded breakthroughs that have changed lives for the better.

We’re launching this storytelling initiative now because public investment is declining, and in all the debates about funding what’s gotten lost is an appreciation for the incredible gifts of curiosity-driven discovery science. 

Over generations, the United States became the world’s scientific leader by investing in research of this kind, especially at universities, where long-term scientific undertakings have time and space to thrive. In turn, those investments have created an extraordinary pipeline of innovation, the envy of the world.

When public investment in basic science falters, the long-term losses start right away — and cascade. Labs close. Young scientists leave the field. Entire avenues of discovery go unexplored. Those losses are not always immediately visible, but eventually we feel them through what’s missing: treatments that never arrive, industries that never emerge, talent that migrates elsewhere.

Other countries understand this. They’re watching us stumble — and they’re growing their research investments aggressively. America’s scientific leadership has been built over decades — and maintaining it requires similar commitment.

It’s important to note that while this initiative to tell the story of discovery science was sparked at MIT, it is not about MIT. We want to spotlight university-based scientists across the country whose work is critical in advancing discovery, educating talent, and fueling innovation that benefits all of us.

Q: Why emphasize the idea of “curiosity”?

A: We start with curiosity for two reasons. First, it’s a human experience we’ve all had, so everyone can relate to it. Everyone knows the feeling of just wanting to know why something happens or how something works. Second, it’s the essential fuel that drives discovery science. 

There’s sometimes a tendency to talk about science in terms of outputs: breakthroughs, startups, commercial applications. Those things matter enormously, but they usually come much later. The beginning is more human. It’s someone wondering why something behaves the way it does, or whether a seemingly impossible problem might have an answer.

Some of the most transformative breakthroughs arose from questions that once appeared disconnected from practical use. MRI technology grew from research on atomic nuclei. The foundations of immunotherapy came from scientists trying to understand how the immune system works. GPS depends on what was once viewed as purely theoretical physics.

Curiosity fuels scientific discovery by pushing people to keep pursuing deep questions because they simply need to know: How does the brain work? How does cancer start? What is the universe made of?

That’s why the second half of the phrase matters: “on a mission.” University researchers are not indulging in idle speculation. They are pursuing knowledge to expand our understanding — and that new knowledge can be the key to startling new solutions.

Universities are uniquely important environments for this work. They bring together people from different disciplines and backgrounds who challenge assumptions and generate new questions. That concentration of talent and openness is extraordinarily productive.

After World War II, the American research university system became one of the most successful engines of discovery in human history. Public investment in university research has helped produce new medicines, computing technologies, communications networks, energy systems, and entire industries that shape modern life.

This effort aims to reconnect all of us with that story.

Q: What’s at stake if the U.S. fails to sustain support for basic research?

A: What’s at stake is not just scientific leadership, but the future pace of American innovation and opportunity.

The innovation pipeline operates across long time horizons. The discoveries powering today’s companies and medical treatments often crystallized 10, 20, or 30 years ago. The breakthroughs that will define the 2040s and 2050s are being explored in laboratories right now.

Basic research is the foundation of that pipeline, and private-sector innovation depends on it. Private investment plays a critical role, but it naturally gravitates toward projects with clearer commercial returns. Public funding supports the earliest, highest-risk stages of inquiry, where outcomes are uncertain but the potential benefit to society is enormous.

If that pipeline dries up, the consequences are stark. Fewer discoveries lead to fewer technologies, startups, and industries. We also risk losing scientific talent to countries that are watching our shifting national priorities — and making larger and more sustained investments in advancing science.

At the same time, there is enormous reason for optimism. The American scientific enterprise remains one of the great achievements of the modern era. It has delivered extraordinary gains in health, prosperity, and quality of life. Millions of people are alive today because of advances rooted in publicly supported research.

This system was built through sustained national commitment across generations. The question now is whether the country will continue investing in curiosity, discovery, and the people pursuing the new knowledge that will allow us to solve the intractable problems of tomorrow.

When curiosity is given room to run, the results can be life-changing for us all.

Last month, Anthropic made a remarkable announcement about its new model, Claude Mythos Preview: it was so good at finding security vulnerabilities in software that the company would not release it to the general public. Instead, it would only be available to a select group of companies to scan and fix their own software.

The announcement requires context—but it contained an essential truth.

While Anthropic’s model is really good at finding software vulnerabilities, so are other models. The UK’s AI Security Institute found that OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, already generally available, is comparable in capability. The company Aisle ...

The conservative justice, who owns significant sums of oil and gas stock, has not recused himself from a major climate change case that could benefit the fossil fuel industry.

FEMA will no longer challenge court decisions that had invalidated its effort to force states to comply with immigration enforcement.

The Iran war is driving countries toward Chinese EVs, solar and batteries — strengthening China's hand as Trump seeks trade wins in Beijing.

A $100 million program approved by state lawmakers Wednesday will help thousands protect against roof damage from hail and wind.

The pushback from the Senate's top EPA appropriator follows similar skepticism of massive budget cuts from her House Republican counterparts.

The investments show growing confidence in a renewable energy that has roots in oil and gas fields.

The analysis determined that a quarter of games will likely be risky.

Intense, concentrated rainstorms have been on the rise for decades. And those bigger storms turn out to have a counterintuitive effect.

King Charles III has announced the government’s agenda for the next parliament.

The energy crisis is incentivizing ambitious solar power decisions across Southeast Asia.

Among the deals, Kenya Airways and Rubis Energy agreed to jointly develop Africa's first sustainable aviation fuel production facility in Kenya.