A team of MIT scientists has developed a theory-guided strategy to directly measure an elusive quantum property in semiconductors — the electron-phonon interaction — using an often-ignored effect in neutron scattering.

Their approach, published this week in Materials Today Physics, reinterprets an interference effect, typically considered a nuisance in experiments, as a valuable signal. This enables researchers to probe electron-phonon interactions — a key factor influencing a material’s thermal, electrical, and optical behaviour — which until now have been extremely difficult to measure directly.

“Rather than discovering new spectroscopy techniques by pure accident, we can use theory to justify and inform the design of our experiments and our physical equipment,” said Mingda Li, senior author and associate professor at MIT, in a media statement.

By engineering the interference between nuclear and magnetic interactions during neutron scattering, the team demonstrated that the resulting signal is directly proportional to the electron-phonon coupling strength.

“Being able to directly measure the electron-phonon interaction opens the door to many new possibilities,” said MIT graduate student Artittaya Boonkird.

While the current setup produced a weak signal, the findings lay the groundwork for next-generation experiments at more powerful facilities like Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s proposed Second Target Station. The team sees this as a shift in materials science — using theoretical insights to unlock previously “invisible” properties for a range of advanced technologies, from quantum computing to medical devices.

In a major discovery, astronomers at MIT, Columbia University, and other institutions have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to uncover hidden black holes in dusty galaxies that violently “wake up” only when an unsuspecting star wanders too close.

The new study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks the first time JWST has captured clear signatures of tidal disruption events (TDEs) — catastrophic episodes where a star is torn apart by a galaxy’s central black hole, emitting a dramatic burst of energy.

“These are the first JWST observations of tidal disruption events, and they look nothing like what we’ve ever seen before,” said lead author Megan Masterson, a graduate student at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “We’ve learned these are indeed powered by black hole accretion, and they don’t look like environments around normal active black holes.”

Until now, nearly all TDEs detected since the 1990s were found in relatively dust-free galaxies using X-ray or optical telescopes. However, researchers suspected many more events remained hidden behind thick clouds of galactic dust. JWST’s powerful infrared vision has finally confirmed their hunch.

By analyzing four galaxies previously flagged as likely TDE candidates, the team detected distinct infrared fingerprints of black hole accretion — the process of material spiraling into a black hole, producing intense radiation. These signatures, invisible to optical telescopes, revealed that all four events stemmed not from persistently active black holes but dormant ones, roused only when a passing star came too close.

“There’s nothing else in the universe that can excite this gas to these energies, except for black hole accretion,” Masterson noted.

Among the four signals studied was the closest TDE ever detected, located 130 million light-years away. Another showed an initial optical flash that scientists had earlier suspected to be a supernova. JWST’s readings helped clarify the true cause.

“These four signals were as close as we could get to a sure thing,” said Masterson. “But the JWST data helped us say definitively these are bonafide TDEs.”

To determine whether the central black holes were inherently active or momentarily triggered by a star’s disruption, the team also mapped the dust patterns around them. Unlike the thick, donut-shaped clouds typical of active galaxies, these dusty environments appeared markedly different — further confirming the black holes were usually dormant.

“Together, these observations say the only thing these flares could be are TDEs,” Masterson said in a media statement.

The findings not only validate JWST’s unprecedented ability to study hidden cosmic phenomena but also open new pathways for understanding black holes that lurk quietly in dusty galactic centers — until they strike.

With future observations planned using JWST, NEOWISE, and other infrared tools, the team hopes to catalog many more such events. These cosmic feeding frenzies, they say, could unlock key clues about black hole mass, spin, and the very nature of their environments.

“The actual process of a black hole gobbling down all that stellar material takes a long time,” Masterson added. “And hopefully we can start to probe how long that process takes and what that environment looks like. No one knows because we just started discovering and studying these events.”

A team of MIT researchers has developed a groundbreaking wireless receiver that could transform the future of Internet of Things (IoT) devices by dramatically improving energy efficiency and resilience to signal interference.

Designed for use in compact, battery-powered smart gadgets—like health monitors, environmental sensors, and industrial trackers—the new chip consumes less than a milliwatt of power and is roughly 30 times more resistant to certain types of interference than conventional receivers.

“This receiver could help expand the capabilities of IoT gadgets,” said Soroush Araei, an electrical engineering graduate student at MIT and lead author of the study, in a media statement. “Devices could become smaller, last longer on a battery, and work more reliably in crowded wireless environments like factory floors or smart cities.”

The chip, recently unveiled at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium, stands out for its novel use of passive filtering and ultra-small capacitors controlled by tiny switches. These switches require far less power than those typically found in existing IoT receivers.

A key innovation lies in the chip’s clever use of a phenomenon called the Miller effect, which allows small capacitors to perform like larger ones. This means the receiver achieves necessary filtering without relying on bulky components, keeping the circuit size under 0.05 square millimeters.

Traditional IoT receivers rely on fixed-frequency filters to block interference, but next-generation 5G-compatible devices need to operate across wider frequency ranges. The MIT design meets this demand using an innovative on-chip switch-capacitor network that blocks unwanted harmonic interference early in the signal chain—before it gets amplified and digitized.

Another critical breakthrough is a technique called bootstrap clocking, which ensures the miniature switches operate correctly even at a low power supply of just 0.6 volts. This helps maintain reliability without adding complex circuitry or draining battery life.

The chip’s minimalist design—using fewer and smaller components—also reduces signal leakage and manufacturing costs, making it well-suited for mass production.

Looking ahead, the MIT team is exploring ways to run the receiver without any dedicated power source—possibly by harvesting ambient energy from nearby Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signals.

The research was conducted by Araei alongside Mohammad Barzgari, Haibo Yang, and senior author Professor Negar Reiskarimian of MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories.