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26 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2022 the smart connects as a universal control- ler. From there, it is possible that some form of machine learning could be implemented to dynamically interact with the system and make necessary process changes or decisions with- out requiring someone's input. With autono- mous wet processing lines, we would certainly see major growth in the PCB industry as they became more accessible. If technology contin- ues its current trend, we may see this become a reality sooner than we would expect. PCB007 Christopher Bonsell is a chemical process engineer at Chemcut. To read past columns or contact Bonsell, click here. • Robotics: To take care of loading and material handling typically required by manual labor • Smart connections: To control your equipment or receive updates anytime and anywhere • Real time data logging: To observe the dynamics of each system in relation to the final product (data collected from equipment controls and quality checks) To obtain an autonomous process, it seems that all these items just need to be brought together to form one united system that fol- lows the PCB from start to finish. e only thing le to do is to utilize data logging to pro- vide feedback into the system, perhaps with Researchers have discovered that light—in the form of a laser—an trigger a form of magnetism in a normally nonmagnetic material. This magnetism centers on the behavior of electrons. These sub- atomic particles have an electronic property called "spin," which has a potential application in quantum computing. The researchers found that electrons within the material became oriented in the same direction when illuminated by photons from a laser. The experiment, led by scientists at the Univer- sity of Washington, the University of Hong Kong and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, was pub- lished April 20 in Nature. By controlling and aligning electron spins at this level of detail and accuracy, this platform could have applications in the field of quantum simula- tion, according to co-senior author Xiaodong Xu, a Boeing Distinguished Professor at the UW in the Department of Physics and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "In this system, we can use photons essentially to control the 'ground state' properties—such as magnetism—of charges trapped within the semi- conductor material," said Xu, who is also a faculty researcher with the UW's Clean Energy Institute, the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute, and the Institute for Nano-engineered Systems. "This is a necessary level of control for developing cer- tain types of qubits—or 'quantum bits'—for quantum computing and other applications." The team worked with ultrathin sheets— each just three layers of atoms thick— of tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide. Both are semiconductor mate- rials, so named because electrons move through them at a rate between that of a fully conducting metal and an insula- tor, with potential uses in photonics and solar cells. Researchers stacked the two sheets to form a "moiré superlattice," a stacked structure made up of repeating units. (Source: University of Washington) Lasers Trigger Magnetism in Atomically Thin Quantum Materials