From physorg.com, R. Dean Astumian, a Physics Professor at the University of Maine, has recently proposed a concept in which molecular machines can operate arbitrarily close to chemical equilibrium at every instant of the cycle, and still perform work at the rate of several micrometers per second against piconewton loads. The study, “Adiabatic operation of …
Pulse detonation engines (PDE) can achieve a maximum of 50% efficiency verus 30% for conventional jet engines Pratt & Whitney and General Electric now have active PDE research programs in an attempt to commercialize the designs with high pulse rates of 50-100 times per second to allow for less vibration. Some of the top scientists …
The research team believes this is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. It opens the door to the possibility of cheaper and more environmentally friendly manufacture of electronic materials Genus Shewanella. The nanotube filaments produced by biological means could point toward semiconductor manufacturing processes with …
In theory, it is possible for a magnetic sail to launch directly from the surface of a planet near one of its magnetic poles, repelling itself from the planet’s magnetic field. However, this requires the magnetic sail to be maintained in its “unstable” orientation. A launch from Earth requires superconductors with 80 times the current …
The DOE funded 25 projects as part of the Next Generation Photovoltaic Devices & Processes program to make solar power cost competitive with coal and nuclear power by 2015. Here are several of the funded projects: Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY) project will develop PV cells for solar concentrator applications using high efficiency nanostructures. …
Using room-temperature processing, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have fabricated high-performance field effect transistors with thin films of Carbon 60, also known as fullerene. The ability to produce devices with such performance with an organic semiconductor represents another milestone toward practical applications for large area, low-cost electronic circuits on flexible organic substrates. Previous …
Arizona State University’s Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi) claims that Programmable Metallization cell (PMC) memory could be a 1,000 times more efficient than existing flash memory and could enable devices like USB drives to greatly increase the memory of digital cameras, MP3 players and laptops. This is a follow up to my first article on …
Worldwatch indicates that China will likely achieve—and may even exceed—its target to obtain 15 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. If China’s commitment to diversifying its energy supply and becoming a global leader in renewables manufacturing persists, renewable energy could provide over 30 percent of the nation’s energy by 2050. China’s carbon dioxide …
Nanowerk covers the Dwave systems demo of a 28 qubit quantum computer system. “Advancing the machine to 28 qubits in such a short space of time lends credibility to our claim of having a scaleable architecture,” stated Herb Martin, D-Wave’s CEO. “Our product roadmap takes us to 512 qubits in the second quarter of 2008 …
First introduced at SC06 as the Exotic Technologies Initiative, the Disruptive Technologies activity will return to SC07. Each year, DT will serve as a forum for examining those technologies that may significantly reshape the world of HPC in the next five to fifteen years, but which are not common in today’s systems. A disruptive technology …
Toshiba Corporation today announced important breakthroughs in key technologies for magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), a promising, next-generation semiconductor memory device. Cell Structure. A material with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, which is used for recording media and a type of cobalt-iron, is employed in the magnetic layer, with magnesium oxide in the insulating layer and cobalt-iron-boron …