Purdue University July 16, 2018 Researchers at Purdue University developed a wafer-recyclable, environment-friendly transfer printing process that enables the wafer-scale separation of high-performance thin-film nanoelectronics in a defect-free manner that enables multiple reuses of the wafer. The interfacial delamination is enabled through a controllable cracking phenomenon in a water environment at room temperature. The technique cuts down manufacturing costs by using a single wafer to build a nearly infinite number of thin films. The film can peel off at room temperature… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Tag Archives: Sensors
Quantum-enhanced sensing of magnetic fields
Science Daily July 2, 2018 Transmon qubit is currently one of the leading candidates for a building block of large-scale quantum computers. An international team of researchers (Finland, Switzerland, Russia) has constructed an artificial atom with an intrinsic magnetic moment that is around 100’000 times larger than that of natural atoms or ions. The coupling of large moment to an external magnetic field makes it possible to accurately measure the strength of the field. The combination of harnessing quantum hardware and quantum algorithms in the context of quantum sensing provides an appealing route towards novel devices that, ultimately, promise to […]
Spectral cloaking could make objects invisible under realistic conditions
Phys.org June 28, 2018 Most current cloaking devices can fully conceal the object of interest only when the object is illuminated with just one color of light. Researchers in Canada propose a new conceptual approach enabling the realization of full-field broadband invisibility. This involves a customized and reversible redistribution of the illumination frequency content, allowing the wave to propagate through the object of interest while preventing any interaction between the wave and the object. They demonstrated the concealment of a broadband optical filter from detection with a phase-coherent light pulse of 500 GHz bandwidth, showing full restoration of the complex […]
New research could improve wireless sensing and communication
EurekAlert May 29, 2018 Researchers at Binghamton University are working on a project sponsored by ONR called “Supercapacitive micro-bio-photovoltaics for sustainable wireless sensor networks” to create a micro-device that uses bio-photovoltaic (BPV) technology to act as a supercapacitator capable of improving wireless sensing and communication. The idea is to use cyanobacterial photosynthesis process via a micro device to harness the sun’s energy and convert that into usable electricity. Once energy is harnessed the device is used as a supercapacitor. According to the researchers this will make wireless sensor networks sustainable… read more.
Cloaking devices — it’s not just ‘Star Trek’ anymore
Eurekalert May 10, 2018 Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have designed material to redirect approaching waves around an object without scattering the wave energy, concealing the object from the sound waves. They designed a 3-foot-tall pyramid out of perforated steel plates and placed the structure on the floor of a large underwater research tank. Inside the tank, a source hydrophone produced acoustic waves between 7,000 Hz and 12,000 Hz, several receiver hydrophones around the tank monitoring reflected acoustic waves. The wave reflected from the metamaterial matched the phase of the reflected wave from the surface demonstrating that the material could […]
Swarms of low-resource sensors to probe the ionosphere
Phys.org May 1, 2018 There are fundamental questions about energy and disturbances in plasmas that require measurements at many points in time to understand. NASA is sponsoring a team developing a new type of payload to collect ionospheric plasma data at multiple points near a suborbital main payload. These low-resource, easily reproducible payloads—called Bobs—were developed for the NASA Isinglass auroral sounding rocket mission. Each payload carries two thermal ion sensors (retarding potential analyzers) as well as a small commercial inertial measurement unit like that found in a handheld video game controller… read more.
Face recognition technology that works in the dark
Science Daily April 16, 2018 Researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory used advanced domain adaptation techniques based on deep neural networks to overcome the challenge of cross-spectrum, or heterogeneous, face recognition to process thermal image of a person’s face captured in low-light or nighttime conditions. The fundamental approach is composed of two key parts: a non-linear regression model that maps a given thermal image into a corresponding visible latent representation and an optimization problem that projects the latent projection back into the image space. In face verification experiments using a common open source deep neural network architecture, their approach […]
Depth-sensing imaging system can peer through fog (w/video )
MIT News March 20, 2018 Using a single photon avalanche diode camera that time-tags individual detected photons, researchers at MIT have demonstrated a technique that recovers reflectance and depth of a scene obstructed by dense, dynamic, and heterogeneous fog. They developed a probabilistic computational framework to estimate the fog properties from the measurement itself, and distinguished between background photons reflected from the fog and signal photons reflected from the target. In laboratory experiments the system was able to resolve images of objects and gauge their depth at a range of 57 centimeters. The system calculates a different gamma distribution for […]
Major discovery in controlling quantum states of single atoms
Science Daily February 16, 2018 To protect the quantum properties of a spin, control over its local environment, including energy relaxation and decoherence processes, is crucial. An international team of researchers (South Korea, USA – industry, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain) was able to precisely image individual iron atoms and measure and control the time that the iron atom can maintain its quantum behavior. They showed that the loss in quantum state superposition is mainly caused by nearby electrons that the researchers injected with extreme control into the iron atom. Understanding these destructive interactions allows us to avoid them in future […]
Researchers invented light-emitting nanoantennas based on halide perovskites
Nanowerk February 12, 2018 Using hybrid perovskite an international team of researchers (Russia, USA – UT Dallas, Australia) managed to combine a nanoantenna and a light source in a single nanoparticle. It can generate, enhance and route emission via excited resonant modes coupled with excitons. The study shows that combination of excitons with the Mie resonance in perovskite nanoparticles makes them efficient light sources at room temperature. In addition, the radiation spectrum of the nanoparticles can be changed by varying the anions in the composition of the material. The research makes the new nanoparticles a promising platform for creating compact […]