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Monday, December 30, 2002

"MUSIC: Composer harnesses artificial intelligence to create music"
Just as IBM's Deep Blue showed the world a computer can play chess as well as a human master, Eduardo Reck Miranda, a researcher for the Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc., aims to demonstrate a computer program able to compose original music. So far, neural networks have succeeded in imitating distinct musical styles, but truly original compositions have remained elusive. Miranda is tackling that problem with an orchestra of virtual musicians � called agents � that interact to compose original music.
Text: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021230S0015

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

"NANOTECH: Deposition technique spins metal salt into pure gold"
Researchers at Purdue University have tapped an inexpensive wet-chemistry method to deposit nanoscale patterns of gold, platinum or palladium directly on top of semiconductor chips. While limited at present to gallium arsenide and germanium substrates, the work could enable a low-cost alternative to current metal deposition methods in chip manufacturing. It may also hold promise for the development of single-chip biohazard sensors to combat terrorism.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021217S0032

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

"COGNIZER: Darpa puts thought into cognitive computing"
A program that may push cognitive technology to a new level is being launched by the Department of Defense. The DOD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a longtime supporter and user of artificial-intelligence systems, aims to build what it is calling an "enduring personalized cognitive assistant," or Epca. The system will be able to "reason, use represented knowledge, learn from experience, accumulate knowledge, explain itself, accept direction, be aware of its own behavior and capabilities as well as respond in a robust manner to surprises," according to a Darpa's Broad Agency Announcement.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021209S0062

Monday, December 02, 2002

"QUANTUM: Error correction may stall quantum computing"
According to University of Arkansas physics professor Julio Gea-Banacloche, quantum computers may be further off than previously believed because error correction will generate more energy than microchips can dissipate.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021202S0077

Monday, November 25, 2002

"NO-NUKE: Researchers show solid-state Geiger counter costing $10"
Professor Douglas McGregor at Kansas State University discusses his gallium arsenide diodes that are being used to build real-time nuclear-radiation detectors that promise to be as small and cheap as today's non-real-time "dosimeter" badges. The button-size single-chip detectors will give on-the-spot readings of radiation levels, as Geiger counters do, but without the Geiger counters' expense and heft. In the current version, a round gallium arsenide sensor chip outputs a pulse for every 13th radioactive particle it encounters. A model on the drawing board would sense every fifth thermal neutron and cost roughly $10.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021125S0055

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

"QUANTUM: Hackers beware, uncrackable encryption is coming"
Quantum encryption pioneers promise to put the world's first uncrackably secure networks online by early 2003. Based on the quantum properties of photons, quantum encryption guarantees absolutely secure optical communications.Three independent experiments recently have demonstrated such systems. Geneva-based id Quantique SA encoded a secure transmission on a 70-kilometer fiber-optic link in Europe; MajiQ Technologies Inc., here, used a 30-km link; and researchers at Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) demonstrated a 250-Mbit/second quantum encrypted transmission over a short link.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021111S0036

Thursday, November 07, 2002

"QUANTUM: securing high-speed data streams with quantum encryption"
Northwestern professors Prem Kumar and Horace Yuen demonstrate a quantum encryption system that encodes entire high-speed data streams and could potentially encrypt data sent at Internet backbones speeds. The approach ups-the-ante for secure networks by using quantum codes to encrypt the signal transmitted down the Internet's optical fiber backbone rather than just using quantum logic to secure the encryption key.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021107S0031

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

"QUANTUM: Magiq employs quantum technology for secure encryption"
Alexei Trifonov, vice president of research and development at Magiq Technologies Inc. describes a quantum information processing technique for uncrackable encryption of communication lines, slated for delivery early next year. The fiber-optic link updates its encryption key, encoded as quantum bits (qubits), every second and cannot be eavesdropped on without the receiver knowing.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20021105S0019

Monday, November 04, 2002

"MEMS: Radioactive isotopes fuel microscopic battery "
Cornell professor Amit Lal uses radioactive isotopes as fuel for a tiny battery developed that could turn out to be an ideal power source for remote sensors or other small-scale systems. Microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) technology creates a millimeter-size battery that can run for decades. The research team plans to scale the prototype to even smaller dimensions so that it could become a power source for MEMS sensors.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021104S0040

Friday, October 25, 2002

"NANOCOMPUTER: cascading molecules drive IBM's smallest computer"
IBM researchers have created a simple computation engine that's more than 250,000 times smaller than the most advanced silicon circuitry. Called the world's smallest computer, the system relies on a "molecular cascade" that pushes a handful of carbon monoxide molecules across a copper surface to perform digital logic functions.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021024S0047

Friday, October 18, 2002

"AMORPHOUS: study reveals nanoscale structure in amorphous material"
Professor James Martin repeals the common view that amorphous materials are simply jumbled collections of atoms, instead suggesting that a more ordered theory of the materials' formation may be in order, according to his experiments conducted at the University of North Carolina. Studies of an amorphous form of zinc chloride have revealed an unexpected order at nanoscale distances that may lead to new engineered materials in a wide number of industries.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021017S0040

Tuesday, October 15, 2002

"NANODIODE: Polymers self-assemble to form 2.5-nm diode"
Chicago professor Luping Yu, who called it the world's smallest. The operation of the polymer-based p-n junction diode, synthesized using organic chemistry by postdoctoral assistant Man-Kit Ng, was verified with a scanning tunneling microscope.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021015S0040

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

"NANOREPAIR: IBM to liscene 100-femtosecond mask repair tool"
High-speed physics researcher Richard Haight of IBM Corp.'s T.J. Watson Research Center announces that IBM is releasing its sub-100-nanometer lithographic mask repair technology for general license.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20021008S0036

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

"NANO-WELDING: E-beam welding eyed for dense nanoscale circuits
An international consortium of researchers believes its electron-beam method for joining nanotubes could be applied to the construction of ultradense circuits. Rather than add a "glue" material between nanotubes, the electron beam knocks out atoms from between touching nanotubes. The tubes heal the defect by sharing an atom and thereby create a weld between them.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020930S0061
"NANOTECH: E-beam welding eyed for dense nanoscale circuits"
An international consortium of researchers believes its electron-beam method for joining nanotubes could be applied to the construction of ultradense circuits. Rather than add a "glue" material between nanotubes, the electron beam knocks out atoms from between touching nanotubes. The tubes heal the defect by sharing an atom and thereby create a weld between them. Researchers from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Mexico and the United States cooperated to demonstrate how the welding technique can yield both crossbar and transistor-like three-terminal devices.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020930S0061

Monday, September 30, 2002

"NANO-CROSSBAR: IBM grows nanotube patterns on silicon wafers"
IBM Corp. has grown catalyst-free nanotube networks on silicon carbide substrates, the company said last week. With atomic-force microscopy verifying the results, researchers at the T.J. Watson Research Center set up grids of nanotubes (in rows and columns), bringing the promise of nanotube transistors arrayed across silicon chips one step closer to reality,. IBM also announced a patent for its "cookbook" that shows how to grow the pure, catalyst-free nanotubes needed in electronics manufacturing, as opposed to the bulk nanotubes that other suppliers are offering for sale today.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020930S0013

Friday, September 13, 2002

"NANO Q&A: Philip Wong of IBM Research Predicts Future"
An interview with Philip Wong, senior manager of Nanoscale Material Process and Devices, IBM Research Laboratory, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

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Story in EE Times: http://eetimes.com/reshaping/nanotech/OEG20020911S0057

Thursday, September 12, 2002

"NANOTECH: Star Trek technology comes alive at IDF"
Star Trek's William Shatner shared the podium with Intel Corp. CTO Patrick Gelsinger at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) here Thursday (Sept. 12), where the chief technology officer disclosed Intel's explorations in the areas of software radios, sensors and silicon photonics. "It's refreshing to be at a conference where the technology is not made of papier-m�ch�," said Shatner. Shatner was there to promote his new book, "I'm Working on That: A Trek from Science Fiction to Science Fact," but his quip was a fitting intro to Gelsinger's keynote address, "Expanding Moore's Law with Silicon Nanotechnology."

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020912S0050
"NANOTECH: rebuilding electronics one atom at a time"
Molecular nanotechnology � or "nanotech" as it is popularly called � is the technology of manipulating materials at the molecular level or the "nanoscale (a nanometer spans only three or four atoms.)" And while that may appear futuristic, it is not: Design rules of silicon chips have already dropped below 100 nanometers.

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Story in EE Times: http://eetimes.com/reshaping/nanotech/OEG20020911S0056

Monday, September 09, 2002

"SMART-DUST: Silicon nanoparticles eyed for chemical detection"
Smart dust results from nanostructuring micron-sized porous-silicon particles so that they have a selective response to light when sensing dangerous chemicals or biological agents. Developed here at the University of California, the process creates a special reflective layer � called a rugate filter � on the surface of the particles. The layer only reflects light in a narrow spectral band. The reflection bands vary, creating a medium that has a 20-bit code, enabling millions of tests to be performed simultaneously. Any given chemical will change the reflectivity of some particles in a cloud, creating a unique signature that can be detected from a distance.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020909S0082

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

"PHOTONIC: Unnatural optics create precise photonic lens"
Optical experiments using arrays of nanowires are demonstrating that the concept of a negative refractive index could be realized in practical systems. The work, done at Purdue University, attempts to reproduce results similar to those shown last year at the University of California at San Diego using microwave radiation. A negative refractive index, which is not found in nature, would allow scientists to construct new types of microscopes with unprecedented resolution and could allow the creation of novel photonic devices.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020826S0041

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

"MRAMs: Nanoscale metal deposition eyed for magnetic tunnel junctions"
A new technique for fabricating magnetic tunnel junctions would enable magnetoresistive random-access memories (MRAMs) to be economically manufactured, according to researchers here at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Acting on theoretical evidence uncovered by Sandia National Laboratory solid-state theorist Dwight Jennison, PNNL chief scientist Scott Chambers formed atomically flat crystalline films of metal measuring only a few atoms thick on sapphire (aluminum oxide).

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Story in EE Times:

Thursday, August 08, 2002

"SUB-NANO: Adaptive electron scope makes angstrom-scale measures"
Using adaptive optics techniques employed by advanced astronomical telescopes, researchers at IBM Corp.'s Thomas J. Watson Research Center have developed an electron microscope that can make sub-angstrom measurements in finer detail using less power than previous systems.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020807S0020

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

"Q-BITS: Quantum computer called possible with today's tech"
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison claim to have created the world's first successful simulation of a quantum-computer architecture that uses existing silicon fabrication techniques. By harnessing both vertical and horizontal tunneling through dual top and bottom gates, the architecture lays out interacting, 50-nanometer-square, single-electron quantum dots across a chip.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020806S0030

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

EUV: tabletop system generates extreme-UV laser light
Margaret Murnane describes a small, inexpensive tabletop laser system that can produce coherent extreme-ultraviolet laser light has been built by a research team at the University of Colorado. The system uses a hollow optical fiber filled with argon gas as a nonlinear optical waveguide that upconverts visible laser light into the extreme-ultraviolet range � a critical part of the spectrum for advanced lithography systems.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020730S0041

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

"NANOPARTICLES: synthesis of nanoparticles coming into focus"
Scientists are fast gaining control over the building of tiny particles, accomplishing nanoparticle synthesis in both inorganic and organic chemistries. University of Arkansas researchers here have devised a "green" chemical process that offers tight control over the size of nanoparticles and eliminates toxic by-products. And a team at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) is developing dendrimer-based fluorescent particles to monitor human cell damage from radiation.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020716S0023

Wednesday, June 26, 2002

NANOTRANSISTOR: Cornell demos single-atom transistor
Using a single cobalt atom as a switch, a research team at Cornell University has demonstrated a working transistor only 1.3 nanometers in length. Silicon transistors today are generally more than 100 nm long.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020625S0043

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

NANOMEM: IBM nanotechnology creates 1-terabit memory chip
ZURICH, Switzerland � IBM Corp. has developed a prototype terabit memory that stores a trillion bits of data, or twenty times more than a current disk drive, in a square inch. Created with micromachining techniques, IBM said the Millipede non-volatile memory is only the beginning of even denser memories. The Millipede chip uses silicon micromachining techniques to precisely move a silicon substrate coated with a thin-film polymer beneath an array of 1,024 parallel activated 20-nanometer read/write heads, which were also etched from silicon.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020611S0018

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

NANOWIRE: Researchers demo self-assembling nanowires
Researchers at Aarhus University here have demonstrated a nanometer-scale fabrication technique that self-assembles tiny wires atop substrates, with an eye toward interconnecting molecular electronic circuits in the future.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020604S0011

Thursday, May 23, 2002

NANOTUBES: IBM says experimental carbon-based transistor beats silicon
The next generation of semiconductors will be carbon-based if researchers at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center here have their way. IBM revealed details Monday (May 20) about what it is calling "the world's best transistor," based on a single carbon nanotube measuring 1.4-nanometers in diameter. Fabricated with conventional MOSFET processing technology, IBM characterized both n-type and p-type FETs using carbon nanotubes as the channel.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020520S0020

Monday, May 20, 2002

"CLEAN-FAB: Researchers seek 'green' chip-fabrication techniques"
A research team at the University of Arizona is working to develop environmentally friendly chip-fabrication chemistries that consume fewer resources and produce fewer hazardous byproducts than conventional techniques.

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Story in EE Times: http://EET.com/at/news/OEG20020520S0055

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

"ANTI-TERROR: Sandia enlists MEMS sensors to fight terrorism"
On Sept. 11, 2001, a think tank at Sandia National Laboratories started assessing its advanced technologies against the threat of terrorism. In response to that study, Sandia recently funded a program to counter terrorist threats with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) � not only to sense dangerous chemical, biological and nuclear agents, but also to identify and track the danger itself � the terrorists.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020514S0033
"NANOTECH: Researchers lengthen carbon nanotubes"
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated the world's longest carbon nanotubes. Using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the standard process for semiconductor fabrication, researchers discovered that adding hydrogen and sulfur compounds produced high yields of wires as long as eight inches.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020514S0024

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

"FPGA: auto-configured by souped up C compiler"
Win Bohm discusses a C compiler developed for systems that use a microprocessor and a field-programmable-gate-array coprocessor. The Single-Assignment C compiler not only speeds up computationally intensive algorithms but does so without a software developer's needing to know the specifics of the FPGA architecture.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020507S0033
"NON-BATTERY: Thermogenerator tech could power 'smart clothing"
German semiconductor giant Infineon Technologies AG is developing thermogenerator technology to power the microelectronic devices that it expects to go into 'smart clothing.' Infineon's thermogenerator uses the temperature differential between the human body's surface and the clothing a person is wearing to generate electrical power.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020507S0012

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

"NANOTUBES: Light flash restructures carbon nanotubes"
In an accidental discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, materials researchers have found that carbon nanotubes can be restructured using light.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020430S0014

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

"NANO-CVD: chip-making process tames carbon nanotube growth"
A chemical-vapor deposition technique has been applied to carbon nanotubes to give them unusual electronic properties, according to Ganapathiraman Ramanath here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The treated nanotubes could be used by chip makers to interconnect single-electron transistors with high-efficiency wires. The group aims to build a nanotube architecture that will exhibit near-superconducting speeds at room temperature, plus the ability to pack devices tighter and control quantum effects.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020416S0014

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

"CIRCUIT PAINTING: scientist makes photonic circuits with inkjet printer "
A new family of organic polymers demonstrated at the University of Arizona can "paint" computer displays and photocell arrays onto most any surface, and could enable self-contained "computerless" niche devices that are cheaper and more flexible than what's available today.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020410S0013

Tuesday, April 09, 2002

"ENCRYPTION: scales to fit smaller RF ID tags"
Armed with a simplified mathematical approach to public-key encryption, NTRU Cryptosystems Inc. here is introducing intellectual property that can add security to virtually any circuit. The most recent product based on the approach is a circuit block that can be added to small wireless products such as smart cards and point-of-sale ID tags. NTRU claims the approach is as secure as the popular RSA public-key encryption system but is computationally much simpler.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020408S0058

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

"QUANTUM COMPUTING: Researchers demo secure storage of quantum data"
With the successful transfer of quantum information encoded in laser beams into a physical system and the subsequent retrieval of that information unaltered, Harvard University researchers have succeeded in bringing practical quantum computers one step closer to reality.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020401S0032

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

"NANOTECH: Nanotubes self-assemble into circuit elements"
Hicham Fenniri describes his experimental nanotubes measuring just 100 atoms in diameter have been created from designer molecules that were customized to self-assemble into angstrom-sized circuit elements, according to researchers at Purdue University.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020326S0038

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

"FPGAs: Self-configuring array enables atomic-scale fabrication"
A next-generation configurable circuit architecture is being proposed by a group of designers at startup Cell Matrix Corp. The architecture goes beyond basic FPGAs by building arrays of "cells" rather than simply reconfigurable gates. Each cell has a small amount of logic and local memory and communicates with its nearest neighbor. The company is building small prototype chips based on the concept.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020319S0029

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

"ANTHRAX: detects in 5 minutes"
Curtis Mowry discusses his five-minute handheld biological agent detector--the ultimate goal of a Sandia National Laboratories research project that recently reported having successfully tested all of its subcomponents. A football-sized analysis unit was made possible by microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based components, enabling all but one subsystems necessary for the device to be integrated into a single handheld unit.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020312S0069

Friday, March 08, 2002

"REVERSE COMPUTATION: unsnarls net knots"
Christopher Carothers discusses his Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute research on reversible computer simulations--the elixir for unsnarling tough networking problems, such as the illusive 1,000,000 node TCP simulator. He recently won a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation for Networking Research on reversible computing.

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Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020305S0050

Thursday, February 28, 2002

"PLASTIC HDs: Magnetized polymer eyed as storage medium"
The world's first photo-induced magnetism in a polymer was demonstrated by researchers here at Ohio State University and at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. In the experiment, a blue laser raised the magnetism of the polymer by 50 percent; a green laser brought it back to nominal. The pure-research finding, at 75 K (325�F below zero), could lead to room-temperature storage devices, such as hard disks, that could be written at high densities by laser-based read/write heads, the researchers said.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020226S0030
"INTEL LONG-VIEW: reveals long-term goals for silicon photonics, sensors"
Intel Corp. chief technology officer Patrick Gelsinger will reveal several research breakthroughs that extend the reach of silicon devices in his keynote address Thursday (Feb. 28) at the Intel Developer Forum. They include wirelessCMOS-radio-based sensor networks, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and photonics chips that compute with photons instead of electrons.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020228S0033

Monday, February 25, 2002

"NANOPARTICLES: enable microscopic lasers/on-chip optics"
Munir Nayfeh discusses his method of producing fluorescent red, blue, green and yellow nanoparticles from plain-vanilla silicon wafers. The new materials could yield microscopic lasers. They also hold the promise of putting optical communications on electronic chips.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020225S0070

Thursday, February 21, 2002

"PHOTONICS: Material converts IR waves into visible light"
A team from the University of Buffalo has developed an organic material which is capable of absorbing three photons at infrared (IR) wavelengths and re-emitting the light in the visible spectrum. The group, led by Professor Paras Prasad of the university's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, designed the material specifically with the aim of developing three-photon absorption at 1.3 micrometers, a frequency used for fibre optic communications.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020220S0014

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

"NANO-PATENT: HP researchers close to delivering molecular circuits"
Ratcheting up the pace, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories has announced two patents that are said to solve some small but nettlesome problems with a molecular FPGA approach based on a switching molecule called rotaxane. The HP patents detail a practical method for connecting molecular-scale circuits to the outside world and a method for defining circuit sub-blocks in a massive crossbar array of nanowires. A third patent describes an approach to memory arrays using rotaxane.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020215S0063

Friday, February 08, 2002

"NANO: Glowing nanoparticles offer memory prospects"
A U.S. research team has discovered a family of discrete-sized ultra-bright nanoparticles in the red, green and blue range that could be useful for biomedical tagging, displays, and flash memories. Discrete sizes of 1.0 (Si29), 1.67 (Si123), 2.15, 2.9, and 3.7nm diameters were measured. The smallest four sizes were found to be ultra-bright blue, green, yellow, and red luminescent particles. Reproducibly fabricating size, shape and orientation-controlled fluorescent Si nanoparticles in the range 1 to 3nm could be important to the understanding of nanostructures and would be of interest in fields such as microelectronics, optoelectonics and biomedicine.

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Story in EE Times: http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020207S0007

Wednesday, February 06, 2002

"ROBOTS: Intel eyes robotic-controller sockets for Xscale"
Intel Corp. may have uncovered a new direction for its chip-making expertise: low-power, high-performance robotic controllers. The interest generated by such products surfaced at a recent symposium that Intel held on the possibilities of robotic uses for its Xscale microarchitecture.

Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020206S0025

Thursday, January 24, 2002

"SILICON GUNPOWDER: to power nanoscale robots"
Michael Sailor describes his accidental discovery of a silicon form of "gunpowder" that is pointing the way toward integrating nanoscale explosives onto silicon chips, a technology that might provide microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with a means for rocket propulsion.


Audio interviews: http://ampcast.com/RColinJohnson

Interview CDs: http://mp3.com/RColinJohnson

Story in EE Times: http://eet.com/story/OEG20020122S0070

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

"ROBOTS: Flying robotic insect slated to explore Mars"
Motivated by the notion that the Mars landscape may prove easier to navigate by air than with ground-based rovers, NASA is backing a research project to build toy-sized flying robots, modeled on the entomology of insects, that can hover like helicopters. Patented as "entomopters," the robots are on the drawing board of University of Missouri professor Kakkattukuzhy Isaac.

Audio interviews: http://ampcast.com/RColinJohnson

Interview CDs: http://mp3.com/RColinJohnson

Story in EE Times: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020114S0081

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

"ON-LINE HELP: Johns Hopkins Web site tutors EEs"
A Java-powered educational Web site at Johns Hopkins University offers fledgling EEs a chance to brush up on their electrical-engineering skills. The site, Signals, Systems and Control, uses interactive demonstrations to provide tutoring on 20 difficult electrical-engineering concepts.

TEXT: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020116S0060

Sunday, January 06, 2002

"ANTI-TERROR: Infrared camera enlisted to battle bioterrorism"
A compact, powerful way to perform infrared spectroscopy could speed the quest for ubiquitous organic sensors to head off bioterrorist attacks. In 10 milliseconds, the shoe-box sized planar-array infrared (PA-IR) spectrograph identifies airborne chemical and biological weapons by deriving a unique "signature." By contrast, today's methods, using laboratory-scale Fourier Transform IR (FT-IR) spectrographs, can take up to 30 minutes.

Text: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020102S0032