ECE GYAN

All of the starlight ever produced by the observable universe measured The team's measurement, collected from Fermi data, has never been done before. This map of the entire sky shows the location of 739 blazars used in the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope’s measurement of the extragalactic background light (EBL). The background shows the sky as it appears in gamma rays with energies above 10 billion electron volts, constructed from nine years of observations by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope. The plane of our Milky Way galaxy runs along the middle of the plot. From their laboratories on a rocky planet dwarfed by the vastness of space, Clemson University scientists have managed to measure all of the starlight ever produced throughout the history of the observable universe. Astrophysicists believe that our universe, which is about 13.7 billion years old, began forming the first stars when it was a few hundred million years old. Since then, the universe has become a st...

Engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts: The silent, lightweight aircraft doesn't depend on propellers or turbines A new MIT plane is propelled via ionic wind. Batteries in the fuselage (tan compartment in front of plane) supply voltage to electrodes (blue/white horizontal lines) strung along the length of the plane, generating a wind of ions that propels the plane forward. Since the first airplane took flight over 100 years ago, virtually every aircraft in the sky has flown with the help of moving parts such as propellers, turbine blades, and fans, which are powered by the combustion of fossil fuels or by battery packs that produce a persistent, whining buzz. Now MIT engineers have built and flown the first-ever plane with no moving parts. Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an "ionic wind" -- a silent but mighty flow of ions that is produced aboard the plane, and that generates enough thrust to propel the plan...

Switching identities:  Revolutionary insulator-like material also conducts electricity Chang-Beom Eom, right, and Mark Rzchowski inspect a materials growth chamber. The researchers have made a new material that can be switched from electrical conductor to insulator. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have made a material that can transition from an electricity-transmitting metal to a nonconducting insulating material without changing its atomic structure. "This is quite an exciting discovery," says Chang-Beom Eom, professor of materials science and engineering. "We've found a new method of electronic switching." The new material could lay the groundwork for ultrafast electronic devices. Eom and his international team of collaborators published details of their advance today (Nov. 30, 2018) in the journal  Science . Metals like copper or silver conduct electricity, whereas insulators like rubber or glass do not allow current to f...

Detecting light in a 'different dimension' Cartoon of the graphene-P3HT nanowire hybrid field-effect transistor. Placing the nanowire mesh (red) on top of the graphene (purple) improves the device's response to light. The silicon dioxide/silicon (grey) substrate, or "gate" electrode, controls the flow of electrical current between the electron source and drain (in this case, Au, or gold, electrodes). The scientists used electron-beam lithography to pattern the device. Nanomaterials (CFN) -- a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory -- have dramatically improved the response of graphene to light through self-assembling wire-like nanostructures that conduct electricity. The improvement could pave the way for the development of graphene-based detectors that can quickly sense light at very low levels, such as those found in medical imaging, radiation detection, and surveillance applications. Graph...

Electronic skin points the way north :Sensors give humans magnetoception No bulky gloves, no sophisticated camera systems -- just an ultra-thin golden foil on the middle finger. That's all the Dresden researchers need to control a virtual panda with the help of the Earth's magnetic field. When the hand swipes left, towards the magnetic north, the animal also moves in that direction (a). A swipe to the right, makes it go the opposite way (b). When the hand moves towards the middle, the panda moves back slightly towards the left (c). While birds are able to naturally perceive the Earth's magnetic field and use it for orientation, humans have so far not come close to replicate this feat -- at least, until now. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany have developed an electronic skin (e-skin) with magnetosensitive capabilities, sensitive enough to detect and digitize body motion in the Earth's magnetic field. As this e-skin...

New photonic crystal waveguide based on topological insulators paves the way to build futuristic light-based computers : This is a schematic of the new optical waveguide device showing the input and output gratings and silicon waveguide connections. Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a device that can direct photons of light around sharp corners with virtually no losses due to backscattering, a key property that will be needed if electronics are ever to be replaced with light-based devices. The result was achieved with photonic crystals built on the concept of topological insulators, which won its discoverers a Nobel Prize in 2016. By carefully controlling the geometry of a crystal lattice, researchers can prevent light traveling through its interior while transmitting it perfectly along its surface. Through these concepts, the device accomplishes its near-perfect transmittance around corners despite being much smaller than previous designs. The Semic...

Flexible electronic skin aids human-machine interactions: Flexible electronic skin aids human-machine interactions. Human skin contains sensitive nerve cells that detect pressure, temperature and other sensations that allow tactile interactions with the environment. To help robots and prosthetic devices attain these abilities, scientists are trying to develop electronic skins. Now researchers report a new method in  ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces  that creates an ultrathin, stretchable electronic skin, which could be used for a variety of human-machine interactions . Electronic skin could be used for many applications, including prosthetic devices, wearable health monitors, robotics and virtual reality. A major challenge is transferring ultrathin electrical circuits onto complex 3D surfaces and then having the electronics be bendable and stretchable enough to allow movement. Some scientists have developed flexible "electronic tattoos" for this purpos...

Materials scientist creates fabric alternative to batteries for wearable devices: T-shirt with charge-storing system. A major factor holding back development of wearable biosensors for health monitoring is the lack of a lightweight, long-lasting power supply. Now scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst led by materials chemist Trisha L. Andrew report that they have developed a method for making a charge-storing system that is easily integrated into clothing for "embroidering a charge-storing pattern onto any garment." As Andrew explains, "Batteries or other kinds of charge storage are still the limiting components for most portable, wearable, ingestible or flexible technologies. The devices tend to be some combination of too large, too heavy and not flexible." Their new method uses a micro-supercapacitor and combines vapor-coated conductive threads with a polymer film, plus a special sewing technique to create a flexible mesh of ali...

How to mass produce cell-sized robots: This photo shows circles on a graphene sheet where the sheet is draped over an array of round posts, creating stresses that will cause these discs to separate from the sheet. The gray bar across the sheet is liquid being used to lift the discs from the surface. Tiny robots no bigger than a cell could be mass-produced using a new method developed by researchers at MIT. The microscopic devices, which the team calls "syncells" (short for synthetic cells), might eventually be used to monitor conditions inside an oil or gas pipeline, or to search out disease while floating through the bloodstream. The key to making such tiny devices in large quantities lies in a method the team developed for controlling the natural fracturing process of atomically-thin, brittle materials, directing the fracture lines so that they produce miniscule pockets of a predictable size and shape. Embedded inside these pockets are electronic circuits ...

A big step toward the practical application of 3D holography with high- performance computers: T his is a 3D holographic image from a video projected by HORN-8, a special purpose computer developed by Tomoyoshi Ito's research team. Japanese computer scientists have succeeded in developing a special purpose computer that can project high-quality three-dimensional (3D) holography as a video. The research team led by Tomoyoshi Ito, who is a professor at the Institute for Global Prominent Research, Chiba University, has been working to increase the speed of the holographic projections by developing new hardware. Holography has a long history. Since 1960 when the first laser was invented, many works involving laser holograms have been produced. For digitalizing these analog technologies and developing electron holography techniques to project 3D holography images as video, computing powers with more than 10 frames per second and 1 trillion pixels per frame are requir...

EMI suppression film capacitors to AEC-Q 200: Vishay has introduced automotive grade X2 EMI suppression film capacitors for 50 and 60Hz. C alled  F339X2 305VAC , the series is qualified to both AEC-Q200 (rev D) and IEC 60384-14: 2013 / AMD1: 2016 grade IIB. To comply with the new humidity grading in IEC 60384-14: 2013 / AMD1: 2016 grade IIB, the series withstands a temperature humidity bias (THB) testing of 85°C, 85% RH for 500 hours at rated voltage “with high stability on capacitance and dissipation factors”, which translates into greater robustness and longer service life in harsh application conditions, claims the firm.  Intended applications are in EMC filters for automotive and industrial power inverters.  Capacitors lead pitches choice is 15, 22.5 or 27.5mm and capacitors span 0.1μF to 4.7μF – with tolerances down to ±10% and a permissible dc voltage of 630V.  Encapsulation is a flame-retardant UL-class 94 V-0 plastic case with an epoxy resin seal. ...