A significant breakthrough in the development of the highly prized semiconductor gallium nitride as a building block for nanotechnology has been achieved by a team of scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley.
For the first time ever, the researchers have been able control the direction in which a gallium nitride nanowire grows. Growth direction is critical to determining the
Crude oil imported to the United States costs more than $100 billion per year. As these reserves become depleted, synthetic alternatives may provide the best opportunities to displace these imports with indigenous products, including ethanol from corn, bio-diesel from vegetable oils, and oil from coal. However, it has been difficult to bring this new alternative fuel technology to the United States. A new study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found that by changing existing roadbloc
Background noise that interferes with cellphone conversations could be a thing of the past thanks to a dual microphone system developed at the University of Toronto.
“In typical environments there is background noise and reverberations that make it hard to carry on a cellphone conversation,” says lead researcher Professor Parham Aarabi of U of T’s Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “This system employs two microphones that, just like the two human ears,
A research team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created a new type of reflector that has dramatically improved LED (light-emitting diodes) luminance. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded the research team a three-year, $210,000 grant to move the patented omni-directional reflector to market.
“We have developed an omni-directional reflector (ODR) for LEDs that will accelerate the replacement of conventional lighting used for a multitude of applications, such as lig
James Bond-style technologies such as cell phones the size of earpieces and invisible sensors sprinkled about to detect toxins are closer to reality. University of Michigan researchers have figured out how to build wireless systems even smaller while still retaining range and power efficiency.
One obstacle to further shrink small wireless devices has been trying to fit all the components onto one chip but U-M researchers have built a tiny silicon-compatible antenna and frequency resonator
UH researchers developing efficient, practical power source alternatives
As temperatures soar this summer, so do electric bills. Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing those costs with the next revolution in power generation.
Imagine a power source so small, yet so efficient, that it could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete while lowering your electric bill. A breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is curren
Add a deceptively simple twist to a tiny fiber of glass and you get a versatile new class of optical devices to filter light; sense changes in temperature, pressure or other environmental factors; or transmit information via powerful, inexpensive lasers, according to researchers at Chiral Photonics Inc. of Clifton, N.J. Writing in the July 2 issue of Science, the company describes a new class of devices called chiral gratings that were developed with support from the Advanced Technology Program at t
’we can supply a group of previously unavailable materials to the nanotechnology community’
A University of Southern California engineer has discovered a way to manufacture composite “nanocables” from a potent new class of substances with extraordinary properties called Transition Metal Oxides (TMOs).
Chongwu Zhou, an assistant professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Electrical Engineering, is creating dense arrays of ultrafine wires made of magn
As previously informed, Vestas has experienced a series of problems with the operation of the offshore project Horns Reef located in the North Sea, 15 kilometres off the shore near Esbjerg located on the Danish west coast.
Harsh environment
The environment at Horns Reef is harsh and it has been ascertained that all transformers and a number of generators had to be changed. In close and constructive collaboration with the customer, the Danish utility Elsam, Vestas and ABB a
Spiraling glass fibers provide new way to control behavior of light By twisting fiber optic strands into helical shapes, researchers have created unique structures that can precisely filter, polarize or scatter light. Compatible with standard fiber optic lines, these hair-like structures may replace bulky components in sensors, gyroscopes and other devices. While researchers are still probing the unusual properties of the new fibers, tests show the strands impart a chiral, or
To become the world’s most competitive powerhouse, Europe must lead the transition of the micro-electronics sector to the next generation of nano-electronics, with co-ordinated public and private investments of at least €6 billion per year. This is the message from a report drawn up by CEOs of leading companies and research organisations and presented today to European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin and Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen. Smarter and smaller elec
A strain of yeast developed at Purdue University more effectively makes ethanol from agricultural residues that would otherwise be discarded or used as animal feed, and the first license for the yeast has been issued to the biotechnology company Iogen Corp.
Purdue’s genetically altered yeast allows about 40 percent more ethanol to be made from sugars derived from agricultural residues, such as corn stalks and wheat straw, compared with “wild-type” yeasts that occur in nature.
In the June 2004 issue of Mechanical Engineering, a publication of ASME, the magazine reports on a fuel cell that cleans domestic wastewater while producing electrical energy.
This new type of microbial fuel cell, which is in the early stages of research at Pennsylvania State University, takes the high concentration of organic matter found in wastewater and coverts it to energy. “Where a typical fuel cell runs on hydrogen, a microbial fuel cell relies in the anaerobic oxidation of organic ma
Marriage of quantum well, quantum dots could produce white light
A wireless nanodevice that functions like a fluorescent light – but potentially far more efficiently – has been developed in a joint project between the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.
The experimental success, reported in the June 10 issue of Nature, efficiently causes nanocrystals to emit light when placed on top of a nearby energy source, eliminating the ne
The University of North Dakota (UND) Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) has begun a demonstration project to determine the economic viability and environmental advantage of generating power using a 30-kilowatt microturbine fueled with sour (impure) natural gas often produced along with oil.
The project is being demonstrated at an oil field in Newburg, North Dakota, operated by Amerada Hess Corporation, an international petroleum company with 461 active wells in North Dakota. A Cap
“Nanodumbells” – gold-tipped nanocrystals which can be used as highly-efficient building blocks for devices in the emerging nanotechnology revolution – have been developed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The technology, developed by a research group headed by Prof. Uri Banin of the Department of Physical Chemistry and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the Hebrew University, is described in an article in the current issue of Science magazine.
The
Feedback
