Synthetic 'tree' promises to catch carbon
The thought of an artificial tree usually excites memories of building and ornamenting a Christmas centerpiece. But here's an innovation that will put those plastic branches to shame: scientists at Columbia University are developing a structure that can capture carbon 1,000 times faster than a real tree.
The carbon-capturing structure looks more like a cylinder than a soaring Redwood.
Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at the university, has been working on the project since 1998, according to a CNN report, and is optimistic about a near-future application.
Modern improvements in coal-fired power plants have reduced carbon emissions, but Lackner is seeking a different function. The "tree" would be used to trap carbon that has already been emitted into the air by car gasoline or airplane fuel, CNN reports.
Unlike the real thing, the synthetic "tree" doesn't need direct sunlight, water, a trunk, or branches to function, as it looks more like a cylinder than a soaring Redwood. The concept, which Lackner says is flexible in size and can be placed nearly anywhere, works by collecting carbon dioxide on a sorbent, cleaning and pressurizing the gas, and releasing it. Similar to the way a sponge collects water, the sorbent would collect carbon dioxide.
Each synthetic tree would absorb one ton of carbon dioxide per day, eliminating an amount of gas equivalent to that produced by 20 cars. Lackner is also co-founder and chairman of Tuscon, Ariz.-based Global Research Technologies, which is working on the technology.
Although the prospect of this is exciting, manufacturing the structures would be expensive, as each unit would reportedly cost about $30,000 to make.
There are 135,932,930 cars on the road in the United States, according to the U.S Department of Transportation. To offset their combined emissions, we'd need about 6.8 million of these "trees." Given the current economy, the United States, for one, probably can't afford to make this happen--at least, not for a while.
Nonetheless, Lackner and his team are pushing the project full-force. CNN says he has already met with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu to discuss the concept, which Lackner says will have a prototype within three years. He is also writing a proposal for the Department of Energy in a continuous effort to raise attention for a concept, which he explains is several hundred times more effective than the traditional windmill.
Another breakthrough concept to fight global warming and ozone depletion
Source
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
6 Bright Ideas for the Future of Energy
6 Bright Ideas for the Future of Energy
To find innovative new solutions to the world's toughest technical challenges, we called some of America's smartest engineers and scientists for their quick fixes and long-term plans. Here, we look at six bright ideas to make a cleaner, more efficient, safer energy future using fusion, CO2 as fuel, trash as power and super-efficient homes.
1. Sequester Carbon in Limestone
Geologist Peter Kelemen, photographed for Popular Mechanics on April 1, 2009, holding a chunk of peridotite, a rock that could hold the key to mineral carbon sequestration.
More than a decade ago, when geologist Peter Kelemen first saw bleached-white rock formations in Oman, he wasn’t happy. The normally dark-hued rocks were peridotite whose composition he was trying to investigate. But every time Kelemen found an exposed surface, it had reacted with carbon dioxide in the air to form a carbonate similar to limestone. Goodbye, samples. “I ran in the other direction as fast as I could,” he says. That outlook changed in 2004, when Kelemen had a eureka moment while talking with colleagues at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory about ways to sequester CO2 underground and slow the pace of global warming. Most sequestration plans risk creating a carbon-dioxide time bomb, with the greenhouse gas stored underground and always threatening to bubble out. Kelemen thought the peridotite might provide a longer-lasting solution. His idea is to drill into massive rock formations, heat them and then pump in CO2-enriched water. The rock would then turn to carbonate, trapping the gas in enduring, solid form. Kelemen stresses that the real-world practicality of his plan still needs to be proven. But field observations in Oman, which has more than 3000 cubic miles of peridotite, have been promising. Next up: investigating the idea in the United States.
2.Use Fusion to Zap Nuclear Waste
A new hybrid fission–fusion reactor design was developed by this University of Texas team: Erich Schneider of the mechanical engineering department (second from right) and (from left) Michael Kotschenreuther, Swadesh Mahajan and Prashant Valanju, all from the school’s Institute for Fusion Studies.
The quest for controlled fusion power, that most future-topian of engineering feats, requires patience and enduring faith. Progress is being made, but workable reactors are decades off. While we wait, fusion may as well make itself useful. Researchers at the University of Texas recently unveiled a design for a hybrid fission–fusion reactor, a best-of-both-worlds device that would dispose of the deadliest waste from traditional nuclear power plants while generating power along the way. Most nuclear waste can be reprocessed for use as fuel in standard fission reactors, although that’s not currently the practice in the United States. The hybrid reactor would be a next step. It would employ fusion reactions to flood the remaining, highly dangerous transuranic waste with neutrons, allowing it to be burned in a fission process. One-third of the resulting energy would be fed back into the fusion process and the remaining 700 megawatts would be fed into the grid. According to senior research scientist Swadesh Mahajan, at the end of the process, about 99 percent of all nuclear waste could be eliminated. “What we really want to do is to tell the world, Please allow the expansion of nuclear energy, through standard light-water reactors,” Mahajan says. “It’s the only thing that can be ramped up quickly enough to replace coal. Do not worry about the waste. Because we’re going to give you the solution in 20 years. We will make it in time.”
3. Build Homes that Don’t Need Furnaces
Heat exchanger (left): Airflow in and out of the house is carefully controlled. Fresh air is routed through a heat exchanger; it is warmed by air being vented outside.
Continuous insulation (top right): Loft insulation is used between studs. An unbroken layer of insulation on the outside wall ensures that the studs don’t act as thermal bridges, conducting heat outside.
Triple-pane windows (bottom right): Window frames are surrounded by multiple layers of foam; gaskets have some flexibility, ensuring a tight, enduring fit.
The conventional American home bleeds heat from under doors and around window sashes—and right through underinsulated walls. While wind turbines and solar panels are impressive green technologies, the way to really slash one’s bills and environmental impact is to live in a hyperefficient house—and it doesn’t get more hyper than the “passive houses” now being developed. These are essentially maximum-security prisons for thermal energy, with thick insulation that leaves no unprotected studs to conduct heat to the outdoors, triple-pane windows and an overall approach to airtightness that lunar colonies could aspire to. In Europe, as many as 6000 homes have been passive-house-certified in the past decade, with thousands more approaching, though not quite meeting, the rigorous requirements. According to energy-efficiency consultant David White, a passive house in the northeastern United States could consume 90 percent less heat than equivalent homes. “Passive houses have been shown to be among the most reliable and cost-effective approaches to efficiency,” White says. In Germany, off-the-shelf windows, gaskets and other passive-house-certified products have brought construction costs to within 5 percent of those for conventional homes. In the United States, that price premium can be 11 percent or more. White sees that number coming down. Since quitting his job at a green design firm to concentrate on passive housing projects, he’s been working 18-hour days to keep up with an influx of new customers. The housing market may have crashed, but passive houses are on the rise.
4. Keep Working on Fusion Energy
After decades spent watching short-lived bursts of plasma sputter in research-oriented magnetic tokamak reactors, it would be easy to abandon the dream of fusion power. But the ultimate clean-energy technology may be getting closer. ITER (the letters don’t stand for anything, but the word means “the way” in Latin) is expected to be the world’s biggest tokamak when it’s completed in southern France in 2018, and it could lead to efficient prototype power plants. Next year, the array of 192 lasers that form the heart of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will begin firing at a tiny hydrogen target, testing a magnet-free fusion scheme. NIF director Ed Moses hopes that within a few years, the machine will release 20 times more energy than it consumes. “If this works, over the next couple of decades we can change the geopolitical story,” he says.
5. Turn Trash Into Power
The Green Energy Machine, or GEM, is an unlikely alt-fuel hero. Yet the dumpster-size cargo container jutting from a building in Waltham, Mass., can heat and power 200,000 square feet of space on a daily diet of 3 tons of garbage. The $850,000 system, which incorporates a Rube Goldberg–like array of devices, can pay for itself in three years, according to Michael Cushman, vice president of IST Energy, which makes GEMs. It can save some 540 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually and—unlike much alt-energy tech—it’s ready now. “We welcome revolutionary technology, but this is an evolutionary solution with substantial potential for high impact,” Cushman says. “We don’t need a 10-year-off solution, we need a today solution.”
6. Conjure Fuel from CO2
Nanotube arrays can increase the surface area of a catalyst, and thus are one of the many “next big things” in energy research, especially for batteries. But Craig Grimes, an electrical engineer at Penn State, has another use for them. In combination with sunlight, his nanotube membrane converts water and carbon dioxide into liquid fuel, such as butane and methane. If the technology were integrated into power plants, Grimes says, “it would basically be a closed loop—you have a fuel, you burn it, you collect the reactants, convert them back into fuel, and then feed that right back into the plant.” He calculates that 4 square inches of the current version of the membrane could yield more than 130 gallons of fuel daily, squeezing a second act out of hydrocarbons before they enter the atmosphere.
Source
To find innovative new solutions to the world's toughest technical challenges, we called some of America's smartest engineers and scientists for their quick fixes and long-term plans. Here, we look at six bright ideas to make a cleaner, more efficient, safer energy future using fusion, CO2 as fuel, trash as power and super-efficient homes.
1. Sequester Carbon in Limestone
Geologist Peter Kelemen, photographed for Popular Mechanics on April 1, 2009, holding a chunk of peridotite, a rock that could hold the key to mineral carbon sequestration.
More than a decade ago, when geologist Peter Kelemen first saw bleached-white rock formations in Oman, he wasn’t happy. The normally dark-hued rocks were peridotite whose composition he was trying to investigate. But every time Kelemen found an exposed surface, it had reacted with carbon dioxide in the air to form a carbonate similar to limestone. Goodbye, samples. “I ran in the other direction as fast as I could,” he says. That outlook changed in 2004, when Kelemen had a eureka moment while talking with colleagues at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory about ways to sequester CO2 underground and slow the pace of global warming. Most sequestration plans risk creating a carbon-dioxide time bomb, with the greenhouse gas stored underground and always threatening to bubble out. Kelemen thought the peridotite might provide a longer-lasting solution. His idea is to drill into massive rock formations, heat them and then pump in CO2-enriched water. The rock would then turn to carbonate, trapping the gas in enduring, solid form. Kelemen stresses that the real-world practicality of his plan still needs to be proven. But field observations in Oman, which has more than 3000 cubic miles of peridotite, have been promising. Next up: investigating the idea in the United States.
2.Use Fusion to Zap Nuclear Waste
A new hybrid fission–fusion reactor design was developed by this University of Texas team: Erich Schneider of the mechanical engineering department (second from right) and (from left) Michael Kotschenreuther, Swadesh Mahajan and Prashant Valanju, all from the school’s Institute for Fusion Studies.
The quest for controlled fusion power, that most future-topian of engineering feats, requires patience and enduring faith. Progress is being made, but workable reactors are decades off. While we wait, fusion may as well make itself useful. Researchers at the University of Texas recently unveiled a design for a hybrid fission–fusion reactor, a best-of-both-worlds device that would dispose of the deadliest waste from traditional nuclear power plants while generating power along the way. Most nuclear waste can be reprocessed for use as fuel in standard fission reactors, although that’s not currently the practice in the United States. The hybrid reactor would be a next step. It would employ fusion reactions to flood the remaining, highly dangerous transuranic waste with neutrons, allowing it to be burned in a fission process. One-third of the resulting energy would be fed back into the fusion process and the remaining 700 megawatts would be fed into the grid. According to senior research scientist Swadesh Mahajan, at the end of the process, about 99 percent of all nuclear waste could be eliminated. “What we really want to do is to tell the world, Please allow the expansion of nuclear energy, through standard light-water reactors,” Mahajan says. “It’s the only thing that can be ramped up quickly enough to replace coal. Do not worry about the waste. Because we’re going to give you the solution in 20 years. We will make it in time.”
3. Build Homes that Don’t Need Furnaces
Heat exchanger (left): Airflow in and out of the house is carefully controlled. Fresh air is routed through a heat exchanger; it is warmed by air being vented outside.
Continuous insulation (top right): Loft insulation is used between studs. An unbroken layer of insulation on the outside wall ensures that the studs don’t act as thermal bridges, conducting heat outside.
Triple-pane windows (bottom right): Window frames are surrounded by multiple layers of foam; gaskets have some flexibility, ensuring a tight, enduring fit.
The conventional American home bleeds heat from under doors and around window sashes—and right through underinsulated walls. While wind turbines and solar panels are impressive green technologies, the way to really slash one’s bills and environmental impact is to live in a hyperefficient house—and it doesn’t get more hyper than the “passive houses” now being developed. These are essentially maximum-security prisons for thermal energy, with thick insulation that leaves no unprotected studs to conduct heat to the outdoors, triple-pane windows and an overall approach to airtightness that lunar colonies could aspire to. In Europe, as many as 6000 homes have been passive-house-certified in the past decade, with thousands more approaching, though not quite meeting, the rigorous requirements. According to energy-efficiency consultant David White, a passive house in the northeastern United States could consume 90 percent less heat than equivalent homes. “Passive houses have been shown to be among the most reliable and cost-effective approaches to efficiency,” White says. In Germany, off-the-shelf windows, gaskets and other passive-house-certified products have brought construction costs to within 5 percent of those for conventional homes. In the United States, that price premium can be 11 percent or more. White sees that number coming down. Since quitting his job at a green design firm to concentrate on passive housing projects, he’s been working 18-hour days to keep up with an influx of new customers. The housing market may have crashed, but passive houses are on the rise.
4. Keep Working on Fusion Energy
After decades spent watching short-lived bursts of plasma sputter in research-oriented magnetic tokamak reactors, it would be easy to abandon the dream of fusion power. But the ultimate clean-energy technology may be getting closer. ITER (the letters don’t stand for anything, but the word means “the way” in Latin) is expected to be the world’s biggest tokamak when it’s completed in southern France in 2018, and it could lead to efficient prototype power plants. Next year, the array of 192 lasers that form the heart of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will begin firing at a tiny hydrogen target, testing a magnet-free fusion scheme. NIF director Ed Moses hopes that within a few years, the machine will release 20 times more energy than it consumes. “If this works, over the next couple of decades we can change the geopolitical story,” he says.
5. Turn Trash Into Power
The Green Energy Machine, or GEM, is an unlikely alt-fuel hero. Yet the dumpster-size cargo container jutting from a building in Waltham, Mass., can heat and power 200,000 square feet of space on a daily diet of 3 tons of garbage. The $850,000 system, which incorporates a Rube Goldberg–like array of devices, can pay for itself in three years, according to Michael Cushman, vice president of IST Energy, which makes GEMs. It can save some 540 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually and—unlike much alt-energy tech—it’s ready now. “We welcome revolutionary technology, but this is an evolutionary solution with substantial potential for high impact,” Cushman says. “We don’t need a 10-year-off solution, we need a today solution.”
6. Conjure Fuel from CO2
Nanotube arrays can increase the surface area of a catalyst, and thus are one of the many “next big things” in energy research, especially for batteries. But Craig Grimes, an electrical engineer at Penn State, has another use for them. In combination with sunlight, his nanotube membrane converts water and carbon dioxide into liquid fuel, such as butane and methane. If the technology were integrated into power plants, Grimes says, “it would basically be a closed loop—you have a fuel, you burn it, you collect the reactants, convert them back into fuel, and then feed that right back into the plant.” He calculates that 4 square inches of the current version of the membrane could yield more than 130 gallons of fuel daily, squeezing a second act out of hydrocarbons before they enter the atmosphere.
Source
Tesla Electric Cars: The Wave Of The Future?
Tesla Electric Cars: The Wave Of The Future?
The Tesla electric $100,000 high-performance sports car doesn't take gas. Of course, most of us can't afford this, but the president wants you to have a more practical, fuel-efficient car. The Obama administration is lending more than $8 billion to three companies to make green vehicles.
Ford will get the biggest chunk of that money. Some of it could go to upgrade a plant in Chicago. Nissan is also getting some of that money; as well as a smaller company: Tesla. You might not have heard of it yet but the company is planning to roar into Chicago in a big way. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole took a ride to find out.
The Tesla roadster goes from zero to 60 in less than four seconds.
"This vehicle has the same type of performance you get from a turbo Porche," said Kevin Daly of Tesla Motors. "All from a battery powered by an electric motor about the size of a watermelon."
The battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and is fueled by plugging a mobile connector into your standard household outlet. A three-and-a-half hour charge will cost about $4 in electricity and take you nearly 250 miles.
But this green power will cost you some green: roughly $100,000 for the high-powered roadster.
But the federal government believes in Tesla enough that it's providing $465 million in federal loans to develop the S-Class sedan at a more affordable $50,000 by the year 2012.
"Our long-term goal is to make completely 100 percent electric vehicles affordable for everyone," Daly said.
Daly is supervising the opening of Tesla's first showroom in Chicago next month on the near west side. There are only about 500 roadsters in use nationwide, but the company is expanding as more Americans look for motoring alternatives that aren't dependent on gasoline.
"All this money is being used for research and development," Daly said.
Daly is a salesman who also acknowledges the technology of tomorrow comes with some limits today. For example, the relatively few charging stations nationwide.
"The downside is, at this point, it's difficult to take this vehicle on a real long, extended road trip," Daly said. "You can't really park on the street and run an extension cord."
Daly believes these are the cars of the future.
"As more charging infrastructures come into play in major metropolitan areas, you'll see more and more fully electric vehicles on the road," Daly said.
But a fuel-efficient fast car of tomorrow can give you quite a charge behind the wheel.
Tesla, based in California, will be using its federal loans not only to finance construction of the S-class sedan, but also to construct a plant capable of selling its technology to other manufacturers. Also on the drawing board is a sedan in the $30,000 to $40,000 range.
This is an exceptional car that will spark the drive for cleaner and greener motoring.
Source
The Tesla electric $100,000 high-performance sports car doesn't take gas. Of course, most of us can't afford this, but the president wants you to have a more practical, fuel-efficient car. The Obama administration is lending more than $8 billion to three companies to make green vehicles.
Ford will get the biggest chunk of that money. Some of it could go to upgrade a plant in Chicago. Nissan is also getting some of that money; as well as a smaller company: Tesla. You might not have heard of it yet but the company is planning to roar into Chicago in a big way. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole took a ride to find out.
The Tesla roadster goes from zero to 60 in less than four seconds.
"This vehicle has the same type of performance you get from a turbo Porche," said Kevin Daly of Tesla Motors. "All from a battery powered by an electric motor about the size of a watermelon."
The battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and is fueled by plugging a mobile connector into your standard household outlet. A three-and-a-half hour charge will cost about $4 in electricity and take you nearly 250 miles.
But this green power will cost you some green: roughly $100,000 for the high-powered roadster.
But the federal government believes in Tesla enough that it's providing $465 million in federal loans to develop the S-Class sedan at a more affordable $50,000 by the year 2012.
"Our long-term goal is to make completely 100 percent electric vehicles affordable for everyone," Daly said.
Daly is supervising the opening of Tesla's first showroom in Chicago next month on the near west side. There are only about 500 roadsters in use nationwide, but the company is expanding as more Americans look for motoring alternatives that aren't dependent on gasoline.
"All this money is being used for research and development," Daly said.
Daly is a salesman who also acknowledges the technology of tomorrow comes with some limits today. For example, the relatively few charging stations nationwide.
"The downside is, at this point, it's difficult to take this vehicle on a real long, extended road trip," Daly said. "You can't really park on the street and run an extension cord."
Daly believes these are the cars of the future.
"As more charging infrastructures come into play in major metropolitan areas, you'll see more and more fully electric vehicles on the road," Daly said.
But a fuel-efficient fast car of tomorrow can give you quite a charge behind the wheel.
Tesla, based in California, will be using its federal loans not only to finance construction of the S-class sedan, but also to construct a plant capable of selling its technology to other manufacturers. Also on the drawing board is a sedan in the $30,000 to $40,000 range.
This is an exceptional car that will spark the drive for cleaner and greener motoring.
Source
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Researchers discover new chip technology
Researchers discover new chip technology
PALO ALTO, CA (KGO) -- There was a breakthrough recently by researchers at Stanford University that may make microchips dramatically faster and more efficient. It could mean better cell phones, laptops and digital television. It is research that could revolutionize the computer industry.
At the end of a microscope lens is a chemical compound that could power the next generation of computers. Think of it as a possible replacement for silicon.
"This may mean that the chip can be made smaller and dissipate less heat," says Stanford physicist Dr. Yulin Chen, Ph.D.
To the naked eye the matter looks like pieces of aluminum foil. Jiun-Haw Chu and Dr. Jim Analytis, Ph.D. are in charge of growing the crystals. Dr. Chin spent months analyzing the results.
"We would grow some crystals and we would come back to him and he would measure them again and say 'Oh, you've gone too far' or 'You haven't gone far enough' and then we would try again," says Analytis.
Dr. Chen essentially fine tuned the electronic properties of bismuth telluride.
This material is exciting because the spin of the electrons can be manipulated and that takes electronics to a whole new level called spintronics.
Electronics uses the charge of electrons, but spintonics uses the added benefits of spin, allowing more information to travel faster. It's enough to make these three researchers dizzy with excitement.
"I feel like part of a story of quantum physics. We've opened a new page in scientific history," says Chu, a Stanford graduate student.
The groundbreaking work is being paid for by the Department of Energy and carried out at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on the Stanford campus. For now it's all about the science, but some day it could revolutionize consumer electronics.
"If we can successfully make devices out of this material, then it will be very attractive to the industry," says Dr. Chen.
For an industry that thrives on making things smaller and faster, three researchers are unlocking one powerful new tool.
And this could pave the way for a better computing experience.
Source:
PALO ALTO, CA (KGO) -- There was a breakthrough recently by researchers at Stanford University that may make microchips dramatically faster and more efficient. It could mean better cell phones, laptops and digital television. It is research that could revolutionize the computer industry.
At the end of a microscope lens is a chemical compound that could power the next generation of computers. Think of it as a possible replacement for silicon.
"This may mean that the chip can be made smaller and dissipate less heat," says Stanford physicist Dr. Yulin Chen, Ph.D.
To the naked eye the matter looks like pieces of aluminum foil. Jiun-Haw Chu and Dr. Jim Analytis, Ph.D. are in charge of growing the crystals. Dr. Chin spent months analyzing the results.
"We would grow some crystals and we would come back to him and he would measure them again and say 'Oh, you've gone too far' or 'You haven't gone far enough' and then we would try again," says Analytis.
Dr. Chen essentially fine tuned the electronic properties of bismuth telluride.
This material is exciting because the spin of the electrons can be manipulated and that takes electronics to a whole new level called spintronics.
Electronics uses the charge of electrons, but spintonics uses the added benefits of spin, allowing more information to travel faster. It's enough to make these three researchers dizzy with excitement.
"I feel like part of a story of quantum physics. We've opened a new page in scientific history," says Chu, a Stanford graduate student.
The groundbreaking work is being paid for by the Department of Energy and carried out at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on the Stanford campus. For now it's all about the science, but some day it could revolutionize consumer electronics.
"If we can successfully make devices out of this material, then it will be very attractive to the industry," says Dr. Chen.
For an industry that thrives on making things smaller and faster, three researchers are unlocking one powerful new tool.
And this could pave the way for a better computing experience.
Source:
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Spintronic – The New Electronic? Part 2
Spintronic – The New Electronic? Part 2
Four strands
“Normally, you find a property or material and then develop a device to exploit it. We wanted to speed up the process by developing the concept devices in a lab now so they are ready when the appropriate material is found,” says Gould.
There were four strands to the team’s work: writing information to ferromagnetic semiconductors, retrieving it, high-speed switching between different states and the theoretical modelling of the devices to explain their operation and allow for optimisation.
“We were essentially looking at devices for memory and storage of information using ferromagnetic semiconductors,” Gould notes. The project was very successful, and generated a lot of interest from industry.
“IBM, Seagate, Hitachi and Western Digital have all expressed interest in our work, and Hitachi was a partner in Nanospin,” says Gould. For now, work continues and, while the Nanospin project is over, the partners are continuing to collaborate through a Marie Curie European network called SemiSpinNet.
“Currently, we are looking at logic schemes for spintronics, so we are moving from memory and storage to processing,” says Gould.
The Nanospin project received funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for research’s FET – Open initiative.
This is a very promising research for the future.
source:
Four strands
“Normally, you find a property or material and then develop a device to exploit it. We wanted to speed up the process by developing the concept devices in a lab now so they are ready when the appropriate material is found,” says Gould.
There were four strands to the team’s work: writing information to ferromagnetic semiconductors, retrieving it, high-speed switching between different states and the theoretical modelling of the devices to explain their operation and allow for optimisation.
“We were essentially looking at devices for memory and storage of information using ferromagnetic semiconductors,” Gould notes. The project was very successful, and generated a lot of interest from industry.
“IBM, Seagate, Hitachi and Western Digital have all expressed interest in our work, and Hitachi was a partner in Nanospin,” says Gould. For now, work continues and, while the Nanospin project is over, the partners are continuing to collaborate through a Marie Curie European network called SemiSpinNet.
“Currently, we are looking at logic schemes for spintronics, so we are moving from memory and storage to processing,” says Gould.
The Nanospin project received funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for research’s FET – Open initiative.
This is a very promising research for the future.
source:
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Spintronic – The New Electronic? Part 1
Spintronic – The New Electronic? Part 1
Researchers have developed novel concept devices using ferromagnetic semiconductors.
Spintronic devices have created enormous advances in microelectronics, leading to faster, instant-on start times and orders-of-magnitude increases in data storage capacity. Spintronics is short for spin transport electronics – electronic devices that use the spin of an electron to carry information.
Currently, semiconductor devices work using charge, with positive and negative charges denoting the 1s and 0s of binary language, the lingua franca of computing. “But electrons have another degree of freedom,” says Charles Gould, co-coordinator of Nanospin, “and you can also control their spin, or their magnetic orientation.”
Spin then becomes another information carrier. There are numerous advantages to the technique. Information stored by charge is volatile; it disappears as soon as the current is cut off. This is why people can lose hours of work if there is a power cut and they forgot to save.
Instant-on devices
But in the proper environment, spin is non-volatile. In magnetic material, once you switch spin to up or down it stays in that orientation until you switch it back.
“It means that when you cut the current, everything stays as it is,” explains Gould. This could lead to instant-on devices.
Spintronic devices also use little power. “It takes a very low current to switch spin, which makes these devices very efficient,” Gould notes. And, at least theoretically, spintronic devices could have very high switching speed.
“We have not proven this in the lab yet, but many results in the theory have already been proven so high switching speeds [are quite likely],” Gould states. It could mean spintronic devices reach the terahertz range, which is pretty fast.
Reusing the wheel
Finally, spintronic devices have excellent scalability, because they are based on ferromagnetic semiconductors, and semiconductor manufacturing technologies are well established.
“There would still be engineering challenges – you would have to adapt current manufacturing techniques to these materials – but we would not have to reinvent the wheel,” reveals Gould.
Most existing spintronic devices use metals rather than semiconductors, mainly because researchers have yet to find a semiconducting material that works at room temperatures. The search is on, and researchers are confident they will find an appropriate material.
“Currently, the record is 185 Kelvin (-88°C), held by one of Nanospin’s partners, the University of Nottingham,” Gould explains. “But we are reasonably sure the temperature problem can be solved, because the theory has predicted values in the 100s of degrees centigrade for some materials.”
Spintronic devices are sufficiently compelling to deserve sustained research, and Nanospin set out to develop device demonstrators. Rather than tackling the room temperature problem directly, Nanospin intended to prepare the way for when an appropriate room temperature material is found.
To be continued..
Researchers have developed novel concept devices using ferromagnetic semiconductors.
Spintronic devices have created enormous advances in microelectronics, leading to faster, instant-on start times and orders-of-magnitude increases in data storage capacity. Spintronics is short for spin transport electronics – electronic devices that use the spin of an electron to carry information.
Currently, semiconductor devices work using charge, with positive and negative charges denoting the 1s and 0s of binary language, the lingua franca of computing. “But electrons have another degree of freedom,” says Charles Gould, co-coordinator of Nanospin, “and you can also control their spin, or their magnetic orientation.”
Spin then becomes another information carrier. There are numerous advantages to the technique. Information stored by charge is volatile; it disappears as soon as the current is cut off. This is why people can lose hours of work if there is a power cut and they forgot to save.
Instant-on devices
But in the proper environment, spin is non-volatile. In magnetic material, once you switch spin to up or down it stays in that orientation until you switch it back.
“It means that when you cut the current, everything stays as it is,” explains Gould. This could lead to instant-on devices.
Spintronic devices also use little power. “It takes a very low current to switch spin, which makes these devices very efficient,” Gould notes. And, at least theoretically, spintronic devices could have very high switching speed.
“We have not proven this in the lab yet, but many results in the theory have already been proven so high switching speeds [are quite likely],” Gould states. It could mean spintronic devices reach the terahertz range, which is pretty fast.
Reusing the wheel
Finally, spintronic devices have excellent scalability, because they are based on ferromagnetic semiconductors, and semiconductor manufacturing technologies are well established.
“There would still be engineering challenges – you would have to adapt current manufacturing techniques to these materials – but we would not have to reinvent the wheel,” reveals Gould.
Most existing spintronic devices use metals rather than semiconductors, mainly because researchers have yet to find a semiconducting material that works at room temperatures. The search is on, and researchers are confident they will find an appropriate material.
“Currently, the record is 185 Kelvin (-88°C), held by one of Nanospin’s partners, the University of Nottingham,” Gould explains. “But we are reasonably sure the temperature problem can be solved, because the theory has predicted values in the 100s of degrees centigrade for some materials.”
Spintronic devices are sufficiently compelling to deserve sustained research, and Nanospin set out to develop device demonstrators. Rather than tackling the room temperature problem directly, Nanospin intended to prepare the way for when an appropriate room temperature material is found.
To be continued..
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires
Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires
Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.
Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.
While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.
Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.
Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years. And it is a breakthrough innovation. Hope this can be applied to common gadgets like laptops.
Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.
Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.
While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.
Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.
Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years. And it is a breakthrough innovation. Hope this can be applied to common gadgets like laptops.
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