https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190115121117.htm

Computers need an upgrade. From smartwatches to data centers, all computers feature similar kinds of components, including processors and memory. These semiconductor chips comprise minuscule electronic transistors on beds of silicon. Such devices cannot be made much smaller because of how matter behaves at the quantum scale they're approaching. For this reason and more, engineers devise new ways and materials to perform logic and memory functions.

Doctoral student Keiichi Yano, Lecturer Yoshimitsu Itoh and Professor Takuzo Aida from the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Tokyo and their team developed a device which demonstrates functions useful to computation. Conventional computers use electric charge to represent binary digits (1's and 0's), but the engineers' device uses electric fields and UV light. These allow for lower power operation and create less heat than logic based on electric charge.