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12.09

Tech News Digest
Compiled By IEEE-USA Staff

The following is a roundup of news and notable developments in electrical engineering and computer or information technology reported during November 2009.  Items are excerpted from news releases generated by research universities and government agencies. Highlighted topics include:

1. Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Launched

2. Technology Innovation Program Seeks Comments on Potential Future Funding

3. Advanced Nuclear Fuel Sets Global Performance Record

4. 3-D System Based on Optical Fiber Could Provide New Options for Photovoltaics

5. New 'finFETS' Promising for Smaller Transistors, More Powerful Chips

6. Researchers Take the Lead Out of Piezoelectrics

7. New Transparent Insulating Film Could Enable Energy-Efficient Displays

8. Small Optical Force Can Nudge Nanoscale Objects

9. Understanding Mechanical Properties of Silicon Nanowires Paves Way For Nanodevices

10. Pinning Down Superconductivity To a Single Layer

11. Smartphone App Illuminates Power Consumption

12. Study Explores Why Women Leave Engineering Careers

13. Girls 'Disengage' From High School Science

14. New Research Funded

1.  Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Launched
On 19 Nov., the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held the inaugural meeting of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), a new stakeholder forum to provide technical support to NIST as it coordinates standards for a modernized electric power system.  Established by NIST with the assistance of EnerNex, under a contact enabled by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the new consensus-driven organization provides an open process for businesses and other stakeholder groups to participate in coordinating and accelerating development of standards for the evolving Smart Grid.  more

2.  Technology Innovation Program Seeks Comments on Potential Future Funding
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking public comment on four white papers that outline potential areas for research funding grants under the Institute’s Technology Innovation Program (TIP). The papers outline national needs for new and improved technologies in the areas of monitoring and repair of the civil infrastructure, manufacturing technologies for advanced materials, enabling technologies for an electric power “smart grid,” and technologies for health care based on proteomics, data analysis and biomanufacturing.  more

3.  Advanced Nuclear Fuel Sets Global Performance Record
Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Program has set a new world record with next-generation particle fuel for use in high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs)..  Using Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) in a nearly three-year experiment to subject more than 300,000 nuclear fuel particles to an intense neutron field and temperatures around 1,250 degrees Celsius, INL researchers say the fuel experiment set the record for particle fuel by consuming approximately 19 percent of its low-enriched uranium — more than double the previous record set by similar experiments run by German scientists in the 1980s and more than three times that achieved by current light water reactor (LWR) fuel.  more

4.  3-D System Based on Optical Fiber Could Provide New Options for Photovoltaics
Converting sunlight to electricity might no longer mean large panels of photovoltaic cells atop flat surfaces like roofs.  Using zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of three-dimensional photovoltaic system. The approach could allow PV systems to be hidden from view and located away from traditional locations such as rooftops.  more

5.  New 'finFETS' Promising for Smaller Transistors, More Powerful Chips
Purdue University researchers are making progress in developing a new type of transistor that uses a finlike structure instead of the conventional flat design, possibly enabling engineers to create faster and more compact circuits and computer chips.   more

6.  Researchers Take the Lead Out of Piezoelectrics
By applying epitaxial strain to thin films of bismuth ferrite, Berkeley Lab researchers have produced a lead-free alternative to the current crop of piezoelectric materials.  more

7.  New Transparent Insulating Film Could Enable Energy-Efficient Displays
Johns Hopkins materials scientists have found a new use for a chemical compound that has traditionally been viewed as an electrical conductor, a substance that allows electricity to flow through it. By orienting the compound in a different way, the researchers have turned it into a thin film insulator, which instead blocks the flow of electricity, but can induce large electric currents elsewhere. The material, called solution-deposited beta-alumina, could have important applications in transistor technology and in devices such as electronic books.  more

8.  Small Optical Force Can Nudge Nanoscale Objects
With a bit of leverage, Cornell researchers have used a very tiny beam of light with as little as 1 milliwatt of power to move a silicon structure up to 12 nanometers. That's enough to completely switch the optical properties of the structure from opaque to transparent.  more

9.  Understanding Mechanical Properties of Silicon Nanowires Paves Way For Nanodevices
Silicon nanowires are attracting attention from the electronics industry due to the drive for smaller devices, from cell phones to computers. The operation of these devices, and an array of additional applications, will depend on the mechanical properties of these nanowires. Research from North Carolina State University shows that silicon nanowires are far more resilient than their larger counterparts, a finding that paves the way for smaller, sturdier nanoelectronics, nanosensors, light-emitting diodes and other applications.  more

10.  Pinning Down Superconductivity To a Single Layer
Using precision techniques for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a single layer responsible for one such material's ability to become superconducting, i.e., carry electrical current with no energy loss. The technique could be used to engineer ultrathin films with "tunable" superconductivity for higher-efficiency electronic devices.  more

11.  Smartphone App Illuminates Power Consumption
A new application for the Android smartphone shows users and software developers how much power their applications are consuming. PowerTutor was developed by doctoral students and professors at the University of Michigan.  more

12.  Study Explores Why Women Leave Engineering Careers
A study getting under way at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee is the first systematic study of women's retention in engineering. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study, POWER (Project on Women Engineers' Retention) includes an online survey open to all women who have completed at least a bachelor's degree in engineering, whether or not they have worked as engineers.  more

13.  Girls 'Disengage' From High School Science
High school girls are bored, disengaged and stressed in science classes when compared to boys, Northern Illinois University researchers say. And teachers might not be doing enough to change the situation. Funded by a three-year, $476,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Jennifer Schmidt and M. Cecil Smith expect their research eventually will help high school science teachers design and deliver lesson plans that best engage and electrify girls as well as boys.  more

14.  New Research Funded

• Battling Cancer With Engineering:  The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has funded the new Center on the Microenvironment and Metastasis, at Cornell University.  The center will focus on using nanobiotechnology and other related physical science and engineering approaches to advance the research on cancer.  more

• Ocean Robots:  To develop control systems for "swarms" of miniature robotic ocean explorers that could one day help predict where ocean currents will carry oil spills, engineers at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering recently won a nearly $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.  more

• Security of Mobile Devices:  Georgia Tech computer science faculty members recently received a National Science Foundation grant to develop tools that improve the security of mobile devices and the telecommunications networks on which they operate.  more

• Carbon Capture:  Lehigh University has received a Department of Energy grant to develop methods of recovering and reusing heat generated by the compression of CO2 in a carbon-capture system. The goal is to facilitate carbon capture and sequestration and limit the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants.  more

• Goethermal Energy:  Initiatives to provide geothermal heating or power at the Pueblo of Jemez and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology campus are receiving Los Alamos National Laboratory assistance, thanks to recent American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funding.  more

• Green Vehicles:  The Department of Energy is providing up to $5.5 million in funding to support the X PRIZE Foundation’s work to inspire a new generation of energy efficient vehicles.  more

• Industrial Energy Efficiency:  The Department of Energy is awarding more than $155 million for 41 industrial energy efficiency projects across the country.  These awards include funding for industrial combined heat and power systems, district energy systems for industrial facilities, and grants to support technical and financial assistance to local industry.  The industrial sector uses more than 30 percent of U.S. energy and is responsible for nearly 30 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.  more

• Next Generation Magnets:  The University of Delaware has won a $4.4 million grant from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency to lead a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research project to develop the next generation of high-performance permanent magnets.  more

• Women and Under-Represented Minorities in STEM:  A program at Case Western Reserve University to encourage career advancement of women and underrepresented minority men in sciences and engineering is expanding to five public institutions of higher education through a three-year, nearly $1 million National Science Foundation grant.  more

• Tracking Energy Consumption:  Carnegie Mellon's Lucio Soibelman, H. Scott Matthews and Jose M.F. Moura received a three-year $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to identify inexpensive ways to track energy consumption.  more

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.