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

1. Forty-Six Centers Named to Conduct Cutting Edge Energy Research

2. Diatoms Offer New Approach to Solar Energy

3. Virus Battery Could Power Cars, Electronic Devices

4. Iron-Arsenide Superconductors Use Unique Superconducting Mechanism

5. Intregrated “Sensor is Structure” Program Moves to Demonstration Phase

6. New Light-Scrambling Technique May Lead to Sharper Images

7. New Technology Enables Brighter, Full-Color Electronic Readers

8. DARPA Advances Research into Programmable Matter

9. Conference Explores Metrology for Nano-sized Electronics

10. Work on Silver Niobate Opens Door to Improved Electronic Components

11. Research Explores New Approach to Creating a Ferroelectric Transistor

12. NASA “Electronic Nose” May Help Detect Brain Cancer

13. Nano-Mechanical Sensors 'Wired' by Photonics

14. Researchers Develop Nanoneedle With Multiple Applications

15. New LED Design Offers Cheaper, Brighter Light

16. World’s Brightest X-Ray Machine Comes OnLine

17. New 167-Processor Chip is Super-fast, Ultra Energy-Efficient

18. Self-assembled Nanowires Could Make Chips Smaller and Faster

19. Novel Technique Shrinks Size of Nanotechnology Circuitry

20. NIST Develops Powerful Method of Suppressing Quantum Computing Errors

21. New Method Developed for Verifying Safety of Computer-Controlled Devices

22. New Guidelines Offered for Agency-wide Password Management

23. Open Source Software Improves P2P Privacy by Hiding in the Crowd

24. LLNL Explores New Approach to Biomass Fuel

1. Forty-Six Centers Named to Conduct Cutting Edge Energy Research

The White House today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science will invest $777 million in Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) over the next five years. In a major effort to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build a new 21st-century energy economy, 46 new multi-million-dollar EFRCs will be established at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation. The EFRCs will bring together groups of leading scientists to address fundamental issues in fields ranging from solar energy and electricity storage to materials sciences, biofuels, advanced nuclear systems, and carbon capture and sequestration.

For more information, see: www.sc.doe.gov/bes/EFRC.html

2. Diatoms Offer New Approach to Solar Energy

By using biology instead of conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches, researchers at Oregon State University and Portland State University have created a new way to make "dye-sensitized" solar cells, in which photons bounce around like they were in a pinball machine, striking these dyes and producing electricity. The new system is based on living diatoms, which are extremely small, single-celled algae, which already have shells with the nanostructure that is needed. They are allowed to settle on a transparent conductive glass surface, and then the living organic material is removed, leaving behind the tiny skeletons of the diatoms to form a template.

The physics of this process are not fully understood — but it clearly works. More so than materials in a simple flat layer, the tiny holes in diatom shells appear to increase the interaction between photons and the dye to promote the conversion of light to electricity, and improve energy production in the process.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/osu-adl040809.php

3. Virus Battery Could Power Cars, Electronic Devices

MIT researchers have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power a range of personal electronic devices, said Angela Belcher, the MIT materials scientist who led the research team.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/miot-mvb033109.php

4. Iron-Arsenide Superconductors Use Unique Superconducting Mechanism

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have experimentally demonstrated that the superconductivity mechanism in the recently-discovered iron-arsenide superconductors is unique compared to all other known classes of superconductors. These findings — combined with iron-arsenide's potential good ability to carry current due to their low anisotropy — may open a door to exciting possible applications in zero-resistance power transmission.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/dl-isi042909.php

5. Integrated “Sensor is Structure” Program Moves to Demonstration Phase

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, Calif., to develop the Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS) phase 3 demonstration system. Raytheon Co., El Segundo, Calif., is a key team member. DARPA’s ISIS program is developing a sensor of unprecedented proportions that is fully integrated into a stratospheric airship. ISIS will revolutionize theater-wide surveillance, tracking and fire-control, and enable engagement of hundreds of time-critical air and ground targets simultaneously in both urban and rural environments.

DARPA’s ISIS program is making significant advancements in the nation’s technology and manufacturing capabilities in order to successfully fabricate the extremely large, very lightweight radars that an operational ISIS would use. In an operational system, these radars would be approximately 6,000 square meters in size (the size of 15-story building), and would be embedded into the structure of the airship, which would cruise in the stratosphere (at altitudes of more than six miles above the earth) and stay on station for years. An operational ISIS would be able to detect and track extremely small cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that are up to 600 kilometers away, dismounted soldiers that are up to 300 kilometers away, and small vehicles under foliage up to 300 kilometers away – capabilities not possible from existing or planned air or space assets.

For more information, see: www.darpa.mil/news/2009/ISIS_ph3.pdf

6. New Light-Scrambling Technique May Lead to Sharper Images

When photographers zoom in on an object to see it better, they lose the wide-angle perspective -- they are forced to trade off "big picture" context for detail. But now an imaging method developed by Princeton researchers could lead to lenses that show all parts of the scene at once in the same high detail. The new method could help build more powerful microscopes and other optical devices.
"It allows you to take a closer look at an object without narrowing your field of view," said Jason Fleischer, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Princeton who led the research.

The new method addresses the shortcomings of small apertures by taking advantage of the unusual properties of substances called nonlinear optical materials. In conventional lens materials such as glass or plastic, rays of light pass through without interacting with one another. In nonlinear materials, light rays mix with each other in complex ways. Rays that don't reach the camera may pass along some of their information to rays that do get recorded by it. Thanks to the mixing of rays, information that would otherwise be lost manages to reach the camera.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/pues-ntt042109.php

7. New Technology Enables Brighter, Full-Color Electronic Readers

An international collaboration of the University of Cincinnati, Sun Chemical, Polymer Vision and Gamma Dynamics has announced Electrofluidic Display Technology, the first technology to electrically switch the appearance of pigments in a manner that provides visual brilliance equal to conventional printed media. Electrofluidic Display Technology is expected to put electronic book readers ahead by a wide margin, giving "e-paper" the brilliance of printed media.
For more information, see: www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=10068

8. DARPA Advances Research into Programmable Matter

Te Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has successfully completed key research milestones in the first phase of the Programmable Matter research program. DARPA funded five university research teams that are using diverse scientific approaches to demonstrate that macroscopic, three-dimensional solid objects can theoretically be constructed and disassembled using mesoscale particles with manufacturable properties.

The overall goal of DARPA’s Programmable Matter program is to develop new forms of material that can reversibly assemble into complex, functional three-dimensional objects upon external command.

“The concept of creating dynamic new materials that reversibly change their fundamental properties on demand offers the potential for revolutionary new capabilities for our men and women in uniform,” said DARPA Program Manager Mitchell Zakin, Ph.D. “Imagine the possibilities: an entire toolbox originating from a single material form, or flexible clothing or equipment that can adapt to the immediate and changing needs of the warfighter, perhaps even ‘smart’ bandages embedded with diagnostic sensing capabilities. The possibilities are endless, and so we have decided to move into the 18-month-long second phase of this program.”

For more information, see: www.darpa.mil/news/2009/ProgrMatter.pdf

9. Conference Explores Metrology for Nano-sized Electronics

New methods for exploring the behavior of the high-performance electronics materials and devices that will shape the future of the electronics industry will be the focus of the International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics, to be held the week of May 11-15, 2009, at the University at Albany.

As the electronics industry creates ever-smaller and faster chips and moves beyond silicon technology, it looks to the scientific community to provide novel measurement methods and innovative ways of using them to increase performance. Scientists and engineers from around the world will converge on the university’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to discuss the challenges of exploring and characterizing these new innovations.

“The most attractive conference sessions for journalists to attend are likely the first two,” said David Seiler, chief of the Semiconductor Electronics Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which is co-sponsoring the conference. The two sessions on May 12 will include keynote talks from industry leaders and an overview of nanoelectronics technology.

A full conference program with registration information is available at www.eeel.nist.gov/812/conference/.

10. Work on Silver Niobate Opens Door to Improved Electronic Components

By combining the results of a number of powerful techniques for studying material structure at the nanoscale, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with colleagues in other federal labs and abroad, believe they have settled a long-standing debate over the source of the unique electronic properties of a material with potentially great importance for wireless communications.

The new study of silver niobate not only opens the door to engineering improved electronic components for smaller, higher performance wireless devices, but also serves as an example of understanding how subtle nanoscale features of a material can give rise to major changes in its physical properties.

Silver niobate is a ceramic dielectric, a class of materials used to make capacitors, filters and other basic components of wireless communications equipment and other high-frequency electronic devices. A useful dielectric needs to have a large dielectric constant—roughly, a measure of the material’s ability to hold an electric charge—that is stable in the operating temperature range. The material also should have low dielectric losses—which means that it does not waste energy as heat and preserves much of its intended signal strength. In the important gigahertz range of the radio spectrum—used for a wide variety of wireless applications—silver niobate-based ceramics are the only materials known that combine a high, temperature-stable dielectric constant with sufficiently low dielectric losses.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/nios-ncr040809.php

11. Research Explores New Approach to Creating a Ferroelectric Transistor

Low-power, high-efficiency electronic memory could be the long-term result of collaborative research led by Cornell materials scientist Darrell Schlom. The research, published in the journal Science (Vol. 324, No. 5925), involves taking a well-known oxide, strontium titanate, and depositing it on silicon in such a way that the silicon squeezes it into a special state called ferroelectric – a result that could prove key to next-generation memory devices.

Ferroelectric materials are found today in "smart cards" used in many subways and ski resorts. The credit card-sized devices are made with such materials as lead zirconium titanate or strontium bismuth tantalate, which can instantly switch between different memory states using very little electric power. A tiny microwave antenna inside the card, when waved before a reader, reveals and updates stored information.

For more than half a century, scientists have wanted to use ferroelectric materials in transistors, which could lead to "instant-on" computing – no more rebooting the operating system or accessing memory slowly from the hard drive. No one has yet achieved a ferroelectric transistor that works.

"Adding new functionality to transistors can lead to improved computing and devices that are lower power, higher speed and more convenient to use," said Schlom, professor of materials science and engineering. "Several hybrid transistors have been proposed specifically with ferroelectrics in mind. By creating a ferroelectric directly on silicon, we are bringing this possibility closer to realization."

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/cu-pts041509.php

12. NASA “Electronic Nose” May Help Detect Brain Cancer

An unlikely multidisciplinary scientific collaboration has discovered that an electronic nose developed for air quality monitoring on Space Shuttle Endeavour can also be used to detect odour differences in normal and cancerous brain cells. The results of the pilot study open up new possibilities for neurosurgeons in the fight against brain cancer.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/e-nen042909.php

13. Nano-Mechanical Sensors 'Wired' by Photonics

As researchers push towards detection of single molecules, single electron spins and the smallest amounts of mass and movement, Yale researchers have demonstrated silicon-based nanocantilevers, smaller than the wavelength of light, that operate on photonic principles eliminating the need for electric transducers and expensive laser setups. The work reported in an April 26 advance online publication of Nature Nanotechnology ushers in a new generation of tools for ultra-sensitive measurements at the atomic level.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/yu-ctl042309.php

14. Researchers Develop Nanoneedle With Multiple Applications

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a membrane-penetrating nanoneedle for the targeted delivery of one or more molecules into the cytoplasm or the nucleus of living cells. In addition to ferrying tiny amounts of cargo, the nanoneedle can also be used as an electrochemical probe and as an optical biosensor.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/uoia-nis042809.php

15. New LED Design Offers Cheaper, Brighter Light

In the latest issue of Journal of Applied Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), a group of scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is reporting an important step towards that goal with their development of a new type of light emitting diode (LED) made from inexpensive, plastic like organic materials. Designed with a simplified "tandem" structure, it can produce twice as much light as a normal LED -- including the white light desired for home and office lighting.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/aiop-cae040709.php

16. World’s Brightest X-Ray Machine Comes Online

After years of design and construction, the world's brightest X-ray machine has come to life at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in the hills near Stanford University.

The mile-long machine produces a laser beam made of X-rays instead of visible light. Its laser bursts are so bright and so brief that researchers will use them as an ultrafast stop-motion camera to capture the minute details of things previously unseen, such as the arrangement of atoms in metals, semiconductors, ceramics, polymers and proteins.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/su-wbx042109.php

17. New 167-Processor Chip is Super-fast, Ultra Energy-Efficient

A new, extremely energy-efficient processor chip that provides breakthrough speeds for a variety of computing tasks has been designed by a group at UC Davis. The chip, dubbed AsAP, is ultra-small, fully reprogrammable and highly configurable, so it can be widely adapted to a number of applications.

The chip is designed for digital signal processing. While not the principal kind of processor chip used in desktop computers, digital signal processing chips are found in a myriad of everyday and specialized devices such as cell phones, MP3 music players, video equipment, anti-lock brakes and ultrasound and MRI medical imaging machines.

Maximum clock speed for the 167-processor AsAP is 1.2 gigahertz (GHz), but at slower speeds its energy efficiency soars. Twelve chips working together could perform more than half-a-trillion operations per second (.52 Tera-ops/sec) while using less power than a 7-watt light bulb.

For more information, see: www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9082

18. Self-assembled Nanowires Could Make Chips Smaller and Faster

Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a new way to make transistors smaller and faster. The technique uses self-assembled, self-aligned and defect-free nanowire channels made of gallium arsenide.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/uoia-snc042009.php

19. Novel Technique Shrinks Size of Nanotechnology Circuitry

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has developed a new method of shrinking the size of circuitry used in nanotechnology devices like computer chips and solar cells by using two separate colors of light -- one to inscribe patterns, the other to erase their edges to create smaller structures.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/uoca-nct041609.php

20. NIST Develops Powerful Method of Suppressing Quantum Computing Errors

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a technique for efficiently suppressing errors in quantum computers. The advance could eventually make it much easier to build useful versions of these potentially powerful but highly fragile machines, which theoretically could solve important problems that are intractable using today’s computers. The new error-suppression method, described in the April 23 issue of Nature, was demonstrated using an array of about 1,000 ultracold beryllium ions (electrically charged atoms) trapped by electric and magnetic fields. Each ion can act as a quantum bit (qubit) for storing information in a quantum computer. The new NIST technique counteracts a major threat to the reliability of quantum memories: the potential for small disturbances, such as stray electric or magnetic fields, to create random errors in the qubits. The NIST team applied customized sequences of microwave pulses to reverse the accumulation of such random errors in all qubits simultaneously.

For more information, see: www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/quantum_042209.html

21. New Method Developed for Verifying Safety of Computer-Controlled Devices

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science have developed a new method for systematically identifying bugs in aircraft collision avoidance systems, high-speed train controls and other complex, computer-controlled devices, collectively known as cyber-physical systems (CPS).

The approach, developed by University Professor of Computer Science Edmund M. Clarke and Andre Platzer, assistant professor of computer science, already has detected a flaw in aircraft collision avoidance maneuvers —since corrected — that could have caused mid-air collisions. It also has verified the soundness of the European Train Control System. Ultimately, the method could be used on other cyber-physical systems, such as robotic surgery devices and nano-level manufacturing equipment.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/cmu-cms042009.php

22. New Guidelines Offered for Agency-wide Password Management

When an employee has so many complex passwords to remember that he keeps them on a sticky note attached to his computer screen, that could be a sign that your organization needs a wiser policy for passwords, one that balances risk and complexity, explains computer scientist Karen Scarfone. Scarfone is co-author of new guidelines for agency-wide password management issued for public comment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Designed for federal government agencies, the new Guide to Enterprise Password Management (NIST Special Publication 800-118) can be useful to industry as well to aid in understanding common threats against character-based passwords and how to mitigate those threats within the organization. The guide covers defining and implementing password policy, educating users and measuring the effectiveness of password policies.

NIST is inviting public comment on the initial draft, which is available for review at: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-118/draft-sp800-118.pdf

23. Open Source Software Improves P2P Privacy by Hiding in the Crowd

Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University have identified a new "guilt-by-association" threat to privacy in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that would enable an eavesdropper to accurately classify groups of users with similar download behavior. To thwart this threat, they have released publicly available, open source software that restores privacy by masking a user's real download activity in such a manner as to disrupt classification.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/nu-si040809.php

24. LLNL Explores New Approach to Biomass Fuel

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have discovered a potential chink in the armor of fibers that make the cell walls of certain inedible plant materials so tough. The insight ultimately could lead to a cost-effective and energy-efficient strategy for turning biomass into alternative fuels.

For more information, see: www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/16342

 

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