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10.10

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 September  2010.  Items are excerpted from news releases generated by universities, government agencies and other research institutions. Highlighted topics include:

1. DARPA Looks to Inspire Next Generation of Defense Manufacturers

2. Spin Soliton Could Be a Hit in Cell Phone Communication

3. “Slow Light” on Chip Holds Promise For Optical Communications

4. Melding Wi-Fi With Digital TV “White Space”

5. NIST Finalizes Initial Set of Smart Grid Cyber Security Guidelines

6. Micro Rheometer is Latest Lab On a Chip Device

7. Ultra-Thin Solar Cells Hold Huge Power Potential

8. Nano-Antennas Capture and Funnel Solar Energy

9. New System Helps Forecast Effects of Weather on PV Power Plant Output

10. Artificial Leaf Produces Electricity

11. Organic Solar Cells Reduce Environmental Impacts

12. Study to Examine Use of Ceramic Materials for Mass Energy Storage

13. Capturing Computer Heat as an Energy Source

14. Magical BEANs Could Provide Mega-Sized Data Storage

15. New Research Improves Ability to Detect Malware in Cloud-Computing Systems

16. Researchers Create Nanoscale Piezoelectric Logic Devices

17. Engineers Make Artificial Skin out of Nanowires

1.  DARPA Looks to Inspire Next Generation of Defense Manufacturers

On 28 September, DARPA announced the launch of its Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) Initiative.  The four-year, $10 million outreach effort will contract multiple organizations to deploy a variety of programmable manufacturing equipment, such as 3D printers, to high schools throughout the country and orchestrate a series of prize-based challenges to encourage competition and collaboration within high school teams as they design and build cyber-electro-mechanical systems.

For more information, see: http://www.darpa.mil/news/2010/MENTORRelease.pdf

2.  Spin Soliton Could Be a Hit in Cell Phone Communication

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found theoretical evidence* of a new way to generate the high-frequency waves used in modern communication devices such as cell phones. Their analysis, if supported by experimental evidence, could contribute to a new generation of wireless technology that would be more secure and resistant to interference than conventional devices.

The team’s findings point toward an oscillator that would harness the spin of electrons to generate microwaves — electromagnetic waves in the frequencies used by mobile devices. Electron spin is a fundamental property, in addition to basic electrical charge, that can be used in electronic circuits. The discovery adds another potential effect to the list of spin’s capabilities.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/eeel/electromagnetics/soliton_091410.cfm

3.  “Slow Light” on Chip Holds Promise For Optical Communications

A tiny optical device built into a silicon chip has achieved the slowest light propagation on a chip to date, reducing the speed of light by a factor of 1,200 in a study reported in Nature Photonics.  The ability to control light pulses on an integrated chip-based platform is a major step toward the realization of all-optical quantum communication networks, with potentially vast improvements in ultra-low-power performance.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uoc—lo090210.php

4.  Melding Wi-Fi With Digital TV “White Space”

Rice University researchers have won a $1.8 million federal grant for one of the nation's first, real-world tests of technology that uses dynamic spectrum access — including dormant broadcast television channels — to deliver free, high-speed broadband Internet service. The five-year project calls for Rice and Houston nonprofit Technology For All to add "white space" technology to the wide-spectrum Wi-Fi network they jointly operate in Houston's working-class East End neighborhood.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ru-mww090210.php

5.  NIST Finalizes Initial Set of Smart Grid Cyber Security Guidelines

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued its first Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, which includes high-level security requirements, a framework for assessing risks, an evaluation of privacy issues at personal residences, and additional information for businesses and organizations to use as they craft strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors and other threats.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/eeel/grid_091410.cfm

6.  Micro Rheometer is Latest Lab On a Chip Device

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a microminiaturized device that can make complex viscosity measurements — critical data for a wide variety of fields dealing with things that have to flow — on sample sizes as small as a few nanoliters. Currently a table-top prototype, the NIST rheometer could be a particularly valuable tool for biotechnologists studying minute quantities of complex materials that must function in confined spaces.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/msel/polymers/rheometer_083110.cfm

7.  Ultra-Thin Solar Cells Hold Huge Power Potential

Ultra-thin solar cells can absorb sunlight more efficiently than the thicker, more expensive-to-make silicon cells used today, because light behaves differently at scales around a nanometer (a billionth of a meter), say Stanford engineers. They calculate that an organic polymer thin film could absorb as much as 10 times more energy from sunlight than was thought possible.

For more information, see: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/september/nanoscale-solar-cells-092710.html

8.  Nano-Antennas Capture and Funnel Solar Energy

Using carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms), MIT chemical engineers have found a way to concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a regular photovoltaic cell. Such nanotubes could form antennas that capture and focus light energy, potentially allowing much smaller and more powerful solar arrays.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/miot-mrd090810.php

9.  New System Helps Forecast Effects of Weather on PV Power Plant Output

Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed a new system to monitor how clouds affect large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants. By observing cloud shape, size and movement, the system provides a way for utility companies to predict and prepare for fluctuations in power output due to changes in weather. The resulting models will provide utility companies with valuable data to assess potential power plant locations, ramp rates and power output.

For more information, see: https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/predict-solar-pv-output/

10.  Artificial Leaf Produces Electricity

A team led by a North Carolina State University researcher has shown that water-gel-based solar devices — "artificial leaves" — can act like solar cells to produce electricity. The findings prove the concept for making solar cells that more closely mimic nature. They also have the potential to be less expensive and more environmentally friendly than the current standard-bearer: silicon-based solar cells.

For more information, see: http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/176mkvelevartificialleaves/

11.  Organic Solar Cells Reduce Environmental Impacts

To better understand the energy and environmental benefits and detriments of solar power, a research team from Rochester Institute of Technology has conducted one of the first life-cycle assessments of organic solar cells. The study found that the embodied energy — or the total energy required to make a product — is less for organic solar cells compared with conventional inorganic devices.

For more information, see: http://www.rit.edu/news/release.php?id=47796

12.  Study to Examine Use of Ceramic Materials for Mass Energy Storage

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are leading a new $2 million  NSF-funded study to help overcome a key bottleneck slowing the proliferation of large-scale wind and solar power generation.  The four-year study aims to develop novel ceramic materials for use in a new approach to energy storage. Rather than batteries, the researchers will develop nanostructured capacitors to store energy that is generated and converted by wind turbines and solar panels. With an extremely high power density and the ability to very quickly charge and discharge, these nanoengineered capacitors could be a game-changer impacting a wide range of applications, from energy production to electronics to national defense.

For more information, see: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2770

13.  Capturing Computer Heat as an Energy Source

Computers, light bulbs and even people generate heat — energy that ends up being wasted. Thermoelectric devices, which convert heat to electricity and vice versa, harness that energy. But they're not efficient enough for widespread commercial use or are made from expensive or environmentally harmful rare materials. Caltech researchers have developed a new type of material — a nanomesh, composed of a thin film with a grid-like arrangement of tiny holes — that could lead to efficient thermoelectric devices.

For more information, see:  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ciot-crd092310.php

14.  Magical BEANs Could Provide Mega-Sized Data Storage

Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered an entire new class of phase-change materials that could be applied to PCM and optical data storage technologies. The new materials, alloys of a metal and semiconductor, are called "BEANs," for binary eutectic-alloy nanostructures.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/09/16/magical-beans/

15.  New Research Improves Ability to Detect Malware in Cloud-Computing Systems

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new software that offers significantly enhanced security for cloud-computing systems. The software is much better at detecting viruses or other malware in the "hypervisors" that are critical to cloud computing, and does so without alerting the malware that it is being examined.

For more information, see: http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsninghypersentry/

16.  Researchers Create Nanoscale Piezoelectric Logic Devices

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of electronic logic device in which current is switched by an electric field generated by the application of mechanical strain to zinc oxide nanowires.  The devices, which include transistors and diodes, could be used in nanometer-scale robotics, nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS), micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfluidic devices.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/giot-rcn090110.php

17.  Engineers Make Artificial Skin out of Nanowires
UC Berkeley engineers have developed a pressure-sensitive electronic material from semiconductor nanowires that could one day be used as an artificial skin for robots and prosthetic limbs.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uoc—ema090910.php

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.