The following is a roundup of news and notable developments in electrical engineering and computer or information technology during late July-August 2008. Items are excerpted from news releases generated by research universities and government agencies. Highlighted topics include:

1. Olympic Gold at the Nanoscale

2. LLNL Demonstrates Integrated Sensor Circuit Based on Nanowire Arrays

3. New Metamaterials Bend Light Backwards, Offer Cloaking Applications

4. Penn State Researchers Explore Solid State Refrigerator

5. Nanoantenna Arrays Used to Capture Solar Energy

6. Ferroelectric Polymer Capacitors Offer Flexible Electrical Storage

7. Self-assembling Polymer Arrays Improve Data Storage Potential

8. Research Confirms Superconductor-Based Electric Transmission Strategy

9. Human Eye Inspires New Type of Camera

10. Telemedicine Enables Better Quick Response Stroke Treatment Decisions

11. Censoring Software Seeks to Ensure Patient Privacy

12. NSF-Funded Center to Explore “Intractable” Computing Problems

13. Rutgers Initiative to Apply Engineering To Stem Cell Research

14. Grant Supports Emerging Field of Massive Data Analysis and Visual Analytics

15. Computation Institute Receives Grant for Petascale Computer

16. 3D-Imaging Breakthrough For Computer Game Backgrounds

17. MIT Researchers Mimic Photosynthesis To Unleash Solar Power

18. New Ion-Conducting Material Shows Potential for More Efficient Fuel Cells

19. Nanoscale Mass Sensor Weighs Individual Atoms and Molecules

20. MSU Developing Biofuels Database

1.  Olympic Gold at the Nanoscale

Northwestern University nanoscientists have mass-produced the 2008 Summer Olympics logo 15,000 times in one square centimeter of space. The researchers printed the logos as well as an integrated gold circuit using a new printing technique, called Polymer Pen Lithography, which can write on the nanometer, micrometer and millimeter length scales using only one device. It is fast, inexpensive and simple and could find use in computational tools, medical diagnostics and the pharmaceutical industry.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/nu-nct081308.php

2.  LLNL Demonstrates Integrated Sensor Circuit Based on Nanowire Arrays

With DARPA support, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have created the world's first all-integrated sensor circuit based on nanowire arrays, combining light sensors and electronics made of different crystalline materials. Their method can be used to reproduce numerous such devices with high uniformity.

"Our integration of arrays of nanowires that perform separate functions and are made of heterogeneous substances — and doing this in a way that can be reproduced on a large scale in a controlled way — is a first," says Ali Javey, who led the research team. Javey is a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD) and an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at UC Berkeley. He and his colleagues reported their work in the August 1 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Results of the Javey group's integrated nanowire circuit showed successful photoresponse in 80 percent of the circuits, with fairly small variations among them. Where circuits did fail, the causes were due to defects in fabrication of the circuit connections (10 percent), failure in photosensor printing (5 percent), or defective nanowires (5 percent). The relatively high yield of complex operational circuits proved the potential of the technology, with improvements readily achievable by optimizing nanowire synthesis and fabrication of the devices.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/dbnl-afi080208.php

3.  New Metamaterials Bend Light Backwards, Offer Cloaking Applications

UC Berkeley scientists have for the first time engineered 3-D bulk materials that can reverse the natural direction of visible and near-infrared light, a development that could help form the basis for higher resolution optical imaging, nanocircuits for high-powered computers, and, to the delight of science-fiction and fantasy buffs, cloaking devices that could render objects invisible to the human eye.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/uoc—nmt080808.php

4.  Penn State Researchers Explore Solid State Refrigerator

Refrigerators and other cooling devices may one day lose their compressors and coils of piping and become solid state, according to Penn State researchers who are investigating electrically induced heat effects of some ferroelectric polymers.

"This is the first step in the development of an electric field refrigeration unit," says Qiming Zhang, distinguished professor of electrical engineering. "For the future, we can envision a flat panel refrigerator. No more coils, no more compressors, just solid polymer with appropriate heat exchangers."

Conventional cooling systems — refrigerators or air conditioners — rely on the properties of gases to cool and most systems use the change in density of gases at changing pressures to cool. The coolants commonly used are either harmful to people or the environment. Freon, one of the fluorochlorocarbons banned because of the damage it did to the ozone layer, was the most commonly used refrigerant. Now, a variety of coolants is available. Nevertheless, all have problems and require energy-eating compressors and lots of heating coils.

Zhang's approach uses the change form disorganized to organized that occurs in some polarpolymers when placed in an electric field. The natural state of these materials is disorganized with the various molecules randomly positioned. When electricity is applied, the molecules become highly ordered and the material gives off heat and becomes colder. When the electricity is turned off, the material reverts to its disordered state and absorbs heat.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/ps-crm080408.php

5.  Nanoantenna Arrays Used to Capture Solar Energy

Researchers have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources. The technology, developed at the Idaho National Laboratory, is the first step toward a solar energy collector that could be mass-produced on flexible materials, say the researchers, who reported their findings Aug. 13 at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2008 2nd International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Jacksonville, Fla.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/dnl-fna080808.php

6.  Ferroelectric Polymer Capacitors Offer Flexible Electrical Storage

The proliferation of solar, wind and even tidal electric generation and the rapid emergence of hybrid electric automobiles demands flexible and reliable methods of high-capacity electrical storage. Now a team of Penn State materials scientists is developing ferroelectric polymer-based capacitors that can deliver power more rapidly and are much lighter than conventional batteries.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/ps-pes081408.php

7.  Self-assembling Polymer Arrays Improve Data Storage Potential

A new manufacturing approach holds the potential to overcome the technological limitations currently facing the microelectronics and data-storage industries, paving the way to smaller electronic devices and higher-capacity hard drives. Researchers combined the lithography techniques traditionally used to pattern microelectronics with novel self-assembling materials called block copolymers. When added to a lithographically patterned surface, the copolymers' long molecular chains spontaneously assemble into the designated arrangements.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/uow-spa080808.php

8.  Research Confirms Superconductor-Based Electric Transmission Strategy

John R. Clem, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, has developed a theory that will help build future superconducting alternating-current fault-current limiters for electricity transmission and distribution systems. Clem’s work identifies design strategies that can reduce costs and improve efficiency in a bifilar fault-current limiter, a new and promising type of superconducting fault-current limiter.

“I was able to theoretically confirm that planned design changes to the current bifilar fault-current limiter being developed by Siemens and American Superconductor would decrease AC losses in the system,” said Clem. “My calculations are good news for the future of the device.”

Fault-current limiters protect power grids from sudden spikes in power, much like household surge protectors are used to save televisions and computers from damage during a lightning strike. Limiting fault currents is becoming an increasingly critical issue for large urban utilities, since these currents grow along with growing electric power loads. Superconductors enable a novel and very promising type of fault current limiter — or “firewall” — that rapidly switches to a resistive state when current exceeds the superconductors critical current. At the same time, in normal operation, the superconductors’ near-zero AC resistance minimizes power loss and makes the fault current limiter effectively “invisible” in the electric grid.

“Clem’s result was not obvious since there are competing mechanisms for AC loss in the bifilar configuration. It turns out that for typical parameters, when the spacing between adjacent tapes is small enough, the result is very simple: AC losses decrease as the tape width increases and the spacing decreases,” said Alex Malozemoff, chief technical officer of American Superconductor. “This result is helping to guide us and our partner Siemens in an optimized design for a fault- current limiter in a major DOE-sponsored program, and it is expected to open a path to a commercial product in the future.”

For more information, see: www.ameslab.gov/final/News/2008rel/Clem.html

9.  Human Eye Inspires New Type of Camera

New technology inspired by the human eye could push the photographic image farther forward by producing improved images with a wider field of view. Northwestern University and University of Illinois researchers have figured out an effective way to transfer electronics from a flat surface to a curved one. Like the human eye, the curved surface can then act as the focal plane array of a camera. Early images obtained using this curved array in an electronic eye-type camera indicate large-scale pictures that are much clearer than those obtained with similar, but planar, cameras, when simple imaging optics are used.

In addition to opening new possibilities for advanced camera design, the work also foreshadows artificial retinas for bionic eyes similar in concept to those in the movie "Terminator" and other popular science fiction.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/nu-ntc080408.php and www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/uoia-ssc080408.php

10.  Telemedicine Enables Better Quick Response Stroke Treatment Decisions

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center say that their first-of-its-kind study of a telemedicine program which transports stroke specialists via computer desktop or even laptop to the patient's bedside, using highly sophisticated video, audio and Internet technology, could have an immediate and profound impact on the treatment of stroke patients throughout the world.

Rapid decision-making about treatment is critical in stroke patients, who can benefit greatly from appropriate treatment if it is administered within a narrow window of time. This can be hampered when patients are being evaluated in hospitals in rural or underserved areas without a dedicated stroke team, or located too far away from practitioners with such expertise to rapidly treat a stroke patient. One-third of the U.S. population lives in such a rural area.

STRokE DOC (Stroke Team Remote Evaluation using a Digital Observation Camera) connects stroke experts located at a “hub” site to the patient at a remote but connected “spoke” site via the Internet. The audio/video teleconsultation system allows the stroke expert real-time visual and audio access to the patient, medical team and medical data at the remote site.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/uoc—tlt073108.php

11.  Censoring Software Seeks to Ensure Patent Privacy

Newly developed software developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with support from NIH, could help to allay medical patients' fears about who has access to their confidential data. The computer program acts as a censor, deleting details from medical records which may identify patients, while leaving important medical information intact.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/bc-ppa072208.php

12.  Rutgers Initiative to Apply Engineering To Stem Cell Research

Rutgers University has received a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to apply engineering, physical science and mathematical disciplines to stem cell research. In funding 70 doctoral fellowships, the program can equip experts in fields such as cell and molecular biology, computational modeling and biomaterials to move stem-cell breakthroughs from the biology lab into practical and commercially viable therapies.

For more information, see: http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/news-releases/2008/08/3-2-million-for-rutg-20080819

13.  NSF-Funded Center to Explore “Intractable” Computing Problems

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $10M grant to a partnership of groups (Princeton, Rutgers, New York University and the Institute for Advanced Study), that will fund research on "intractabile" computing problems — a concept that has profound implications for a broad range of fields, from e-commerce to quantum computing. Based at Princeton, the new Center for Theoretical Computer Science will serve as an international hub, sponsoring visiting professorships, workshops, summer schools, popular lectures and Web-based teaching material.

Intractability is defined as a fundamental problem that cuts across science and industry. It limits the ability of scientists to understand nature and restricts the ability of engineers to design systems. By studying intractability, computer scientists and mathematicians hope to establish more clearly which kinds of problems can, or cannot, be solved efficiently by computers. Even with the exponential increase in computing power of recent decades, thousands of mathematical problems are so difficult that they are considered "intractable," or essentially unsolvable — even if the world's most clever and powerful computers were harnessed together in an attempt to solve them.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/pues-tt082008.php and www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/ru-raf082108.php

14.  Grant Supports Emerging Field of Massive Data Analysis and Visual Analytics

The National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security have awarded a five-year, $3 million grant to the Georgia Institute of Technology to coordinate a new initiative that will develop foundational research in massive data analysis and visual analytics. A research team headed by Haesun Park, a professor and associate chair in the Computational Science and Engineering Division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing, will investigate ways to improve the visual analytics of massive data sets through machine learning, numerical algorithms and optimization, computational statistics, and information visualization. Data and visual analytics help sift through data sets being generated in health care, computational biology, homeland security and other areas to find and put together individual pieces of a picture.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/giot-gse080508.php

15.  Computation Institute Receives Grant for Petascale Research Computer

The Computation Institute, a joint effort of the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, has received a grant for a computer system that will enable researchers to store, access and analyze massive datasets.

The system is made possible by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which includes cost-sharing support from the University of Chicago. The new system is called the Petascale Active Data Store (PADS), which has been optimized for rapid data transactions, both on campus and around the globe.

Petascale computing involves the manipulation of petabytes of data. A petabyte is the equivalent of data contained on 1.5 million CD-ROMs.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/dnl-cit080508.php

16.  3D-Imaging Breakthrough For Computer Game Backgrounds

The images of rocks, clouds, marble and other textures that serve as background images and details for 3-D video games are often hand painted and thus costly to generate. A breakthrough from a UC San Diego computer science undergraduate now offers video game developers the possibility of high quality yet lightweight images for 3-D video games that are generated "on the fly," and are free of stretch marks, flickering and other artifacts.

For more information, see: www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=761

17.  MIT Researchers Mimic Photosynthesis To Unleash Solar Power

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis. The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/miot-df073008.php

18.  New Ion-Conducting Material Shows Potential for More Efficient Fuel Cells

A new material characterized at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could open a pathway toward more efficient fuel cells. The material, a super-lattice developed by researchers in Spain, improves ionic conductivity near room temperature by a factor of almost 100 million, representing "a colossal increase in ionic conduction properties," said Maria Varela of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division, who characterized the material's structure with senior researcher Stephen Pennycook.

The analysis was done with ORNL's 300 kilovolt Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscope, which can achieve aberration-corrected resolutions near 0.6 angstrom, until recently a world record. The direct images show the crystal structure that accounts for the material's conductivity.

Solid oxide fuel cell technology requires ion-conducting materials — solid electrolytes — that allow oxygen ions to travel from cathode to anode. However, existing materials have not provided atom-scale voids large enough to easily accommodate the path of a conducted ion, which is much bigger than, for example, an electron.

"The new layered material solves this problem by combining two materials with very different crystal structures. The mismatch triggers a distortion of the atomic arrangement at their interface and creates a pathway through which ions can easily travel," Varela said.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/drnl-ora073108.php

19.  Nanoscale Mass Sensor Weighs Individual Atoms and Molecules

Using the same technology with which they created the world's first fully functional nanotube radio, Berkeley Lab researchers have fashioned a nanoelectromechanical system that can function as a scale sensitive enough to measure the weight of a single atom of gold. This NEMS scale could prove especially useful for measuring the mass of proteins and other molecules which don't fare well in mass spectrometry.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/dbnl-gs072808.php

20.  MSU Developing Biofuels Database

With DOE funding, Michigan State University scientists are developing a Web-based genomic database with information on plants useful in production of ethanol fuel.

"Developing cost-effective means of producing cellulosic biofuels on a national scale poses major scientific challenges,” DOE’s Undersecretary for Science Raymond Orbach explained, “(and) these grants will help in developing the type of transformational breakthroughs needed in basic science to make this happen."

For more information on MSU’s biofuel and bioenergy research, visit: www.bioeconomy.msu.edu.
 

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