Innovations from the wild world of optics and photonics

 

Princeton research team explores ways of communicating and processing signals with light waves A silicon photonics platform connecting excitable lasers to form a photonic neural network. July 31, 2015 Traditional computers manipulate electrons to turn our keystrokes and Google searches into meaningful actions. But as components of the computer processor shrink to only a few atoms across, those same electrons become unpredictable and our ability to shuttle them across long and short distances diminishes. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Lightwave Communications Laboratory at Princeton University, led by Paul Prucnal, seeks to understand, build, and design the next generation of communication systems that process information far faster than today's devices using photonics, or the manipulation of light. The field of photonics began, roughly, with the invention of the laser in the late 1950s and found widespread applications in the 1990s with the explosive growth of the Internet. Photonics not only made high-speed long-distance data transmission via fiber optic cables feasible and affordable, it has also enabled advances in laser manufacturing, chemical sensing, medical diagnostics, display technologies and many other fields. But scientists are betting that not all of light's secret abilities have been discovered yet. In his lab at Princeton, Prucnal and his team have been experimenting with a variety of optics and photonics-based applications, creating systems to carry hidden messages, detect malicious cyber-attacks and improve the quality and capacity of wireless communications using light. They are even exploring whether it may be possible to create a network of photonic "neurons" to perform functions our brain does well--like pattern recognition--but significantly faster. Through partnership with industry, their innovations are moving quickly from the lab to the factory. Coping with billions of devices Currently, there are more mobile communication devices than humans on the planet, and this proliferation is expected to continue. However, the radio bandwidth on which wireless communications depend is a limited resource. As more and more devices compete for bandwidth, we can expect more bottlenecks and more interference from nearby competing antennas, said Matthew Chang, a Ph.D. student in Prucnal's lab. To handle the constant growth in demand for capacity and bandwidth, optical solutions are needed. "With a frequency 1 million times bigger than radio waves, optics sees the entire current radio-wave spectrum as practically a single frequency," Chang said. "In terms of its ability to provide the bandwidth for a growing army of mobile phones, we say it's future proof." In the near term, the lab is working on technologies that harness optical signal processing to improve the efficiency of the cell towers and mobile antennas already in place. One such technology the lab developed is called photonic beamforming. It involves encoding wireless signals on light waves to allow antennas to selectively detect signals from a desired spatial direction, operating with precision and over bandwidths that exceed what is possible with electronics. The phenomenon is akin to "the cocktail party effect," where one is able to tune in to the frequency and direction of a friend's voice in a crowded room. The human brain is adept at de-noising signals, Chang explained. "We know what direction the voice is coming from and can train our ears to sense in that direction." We also know what a friend's voice sounds like and can even read lips if we need to, he said. Radio antennas can't do that. "We want to design processors that give radio antennas the ability to sense a signal, lock on its spatial direction, and follow it to the source," Chang said. The technology that the team developed utilizes an array of antennas coupled to an adaptive processor to filter signals in both space and frequency. The technology allows the processor to steer the beam of radio waves while rejecting interfering directional noise sources. Their techniques can even apply algorithms that let the antenna system adapt to rapidly changing environments in order to track fast moving targets or rapidly switch between a wide-angle search and detailed inspection. Not surprisingly, many of the group's technologies are current of interest to the military. However, they imagine that one day every cell phone will contain a beamforming chip to better manage wireless inputs and outputs, the way many of today's phones contain a small component to switch between different wireless channels. Working with partners L3 Telemetry East and Bascom Hunter Technologies, which Prucnal helped found, the researchers are transferring the beamforming technology from the laboratory to the marketplace. Bascom Hunter received Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) support from NSF in 2013 and 2015 to adapt their technologies for public safety radio networks and to improve the intermediate links between the core networks. They hope to see the technology improving the performance of cellphone towers and military applications within one or two years. More importantly, as data rates climb exponentially, the group sees optics and photonics as a way to provide gigabit or faster Internet to everyone, without the use of optical fiber. "The current processing of radio signals is akin to trying to sense and map the changing surface of the ocean by slowly sucking water through a single straw," said Prucnal. "Photonic processing makes it possible to process radio signals with greater precision and parallelism, and with greater speed, than electronics." Building a laser-fast brain If light-encoded Wi-Fi signals sounds far-out, another of the projects in Prucnal's lab is truly at the distant frontiers of research: the photonic neuron. The project came out of conversations between Prucnal and David Rosenbluth, a neuroscientist at Lockheed Martin, with which the lab collaborates. Prucnal noticed that the differential equations that describe the behavior of neurons have the same forms as the equations for lasers. Furthermore, in biological neurons, each has an internal voltage. If that voltage reaches a certain point, the neuron emits a spike, signaling the neurons to which it is connected. Likewise, a laser gets pumped with current, exciting more electrons from one state to another; at a certain point, the laser reaches its threshold and outputs an optical spike. The dynamics, they noted, were astonishingly similar, but lasers have the potential to perform the same action a billion times faster than the chemical signaling in the brain. This led the researchers to wonder if it was possible to design a synthetic system made of optical and photonic materials that could perform some of the functions of a physiological neuron. After developing a single photonic neuron in 2009, the research team has been working to build sophisticated, ultrafast signal processing circuits that mimic the visual, auditory, and motor functions found in biological organisms. Their initial implementation was inspired by the crayfish tailflip response--a natural wonder of high-speed sensing. Crayfish have a neuronal circuit in their brain that is networked in such a way that, if it senses danger, a specific set of neurons fire simultaneously, causing the creature to flip its tail to swim away with amazing speed. With this biological model in mind, Prucnal and his team designed a system that uses several excitable lasers, pre-loaded in such a way that if a particular signal comes in, the lasers recognize the specific pattern and fire a spike together. In the future, the researchers say such a device could be capable of making nearly instantaneous calculations in life-or-death situations, such as deciding whether to eject a fighter pilot from a jet. "When thousands of photonic neurons are networked together and working in unison, we believe we can build a processor that can sense patterns and cues with an almost human-like quality, but a billion times faster," said Bhavin Shastri, a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton working on the project. For example, the team imagines being able to peer into all the wireless signals around you, lock onto one of interest, and take action on it--all in an instant as the signal zooms across your antenna. The lab's research was featured on the cover of the IEEE Photonics Society Newsletter in June 2014; and in November 2014, the group published an article in IEEE's Journal of Lightwave Technology describing how to scale the signal-processing platform to large numbers of neurons. By finding new ways to encode and process light and by applying these methods to existing and brand new applications, Prucnal's group is helping to solve the looming bandwidth shortage while imagining entirely new capabilities for photonic systems. "With all the information that can be obtained using photonic processing of the radio image, we could track signals coming from all directions and all frequencies, separating multiple signals of interest from multiple interferers, quickly finding holes in the radio spectrum available for transmission, and mapping out spatial features of the radio environment in real-time," Prucnal said. "This vision is not only exciting, but will be necessary as the use of wireless communications proliferates in the future." -- Aaron Dubrow, NSF (703) 292-4489 adubrow@nsf.gov Investigators Paul Prucnal Related Institutions/Organizations Princeton University Locations Princeton , New Jersey Related Programs Networking Technology and System Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum Related Awards #1217435 NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: OSTARA: An Optically-based Simultaneous Transmit and Receive Architecture for Enhancing Wireless Communications #1247298 EARS: Collaborative Research: Big Bandwidth: Finding Anomalous Needles in the Spectrum Haystack Years Research Conducted 2012 - 2015 Total Grants $450,000 Related Websites International Year of Light: http://www.light2015.org/Home.html Lightwave Communication Laboratory: http://ee.princeton.edu/research/prucnal/node?destination=node source : http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=135842&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click

World's highest-performance single-molecule diode created

 

The creation of a single-molecule diode that is 50 times more efficient than anything produced before may help pave the way for much more practical molecular electronic components (Credit: Latha Venkataraman/Columbia University) As electronics miniaturization heads towards a theoretical physical limit in the tens of nanometers, new methods of manufacturing are required to produce transistors, diodes, and other fundamental electronic components. In this vein, a new range of molecule-sized devices have been created in the laboratory, though with varying results in terms of efficiency and practicality. Now a group of researchers from Berkeley Lab and Columbia University claims to have created the highest-performing, single-molecule diode ever made, which is said to be 50 times better in performance and efficiency than anything previously produced. Ordinary diodes are usually constructed from silicon with a p-n (positive-negative) junction created at the point of contact between a positively "doped" semiconductor (that is, one that has had its electrical properties altered with additives) and a negatively doped one. Flanked by connecting electrodes (an anode on one side and a cathode on the other), the most common function of such a diode is to permit electric current to flow in one direction only, whilst blocking current from flowing in the reverse direction. As such, a diode used in this way can be seen as a type of flow-control valve that is either "on" or "off". Technically, this one-way behavior is known as rectification as it can, for example, be used to rectify alternating current to direct current, and so these types of diodes are known as rectifiers. This on/off – asymmetric – behavior in the nascent field of molecule-sized electronics, on the other hand, is usually achieved by the creation of molecules that chemically emulate the p-n junction. However, these synthesized molecular junctions have generally resulted in poor forward current flow capabilities and inefficient or patchy rectification. This is where the Columbia university scientists claim to have made significant improvements with their new single-molecule diode. Diagram of the molecular junction that functions as a diode, allowing current to flow in one direction only "Using a single symmetric molecule, an ionic solution and two gold electrodes of dramatically different exposed surface areas, we were able to create a diode that resulted in a rectification ratio, the ratio of forward to reverse current at fixed voltage, in excess of 200, which is a record for single-molecule devices," said Jeffrey Neaton, director of the Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry and professor at the University of California Berkeley. "The asymmetry necessary for diode behavior originates with the different exposed electrode areas and the ionic solution. This leads to different electrostatic environments surrounding the two electrodes and superlative single-molecule device behavior." First mooted in 1974 by Mark Ratner and Arieh Aviram, an asymmetric molecule that could act as a rectifier has been a long sought after goal, particularly as diodes form the basis of many microminiature electronic devices. Since then, a range of devices have been constructed, including single molecule diodes and transistors. Operating at this nanoscale, though, such devices may emulate their macro counterparts, but that behavior is merely a simulation; at such scales the electronic operation of these devices is governed more by quantum influences. "Electron flow at molecular length-scales is dominated by quantum tunneling," said professor "The efficiency of the tunneling process depends intimately on the degree of alignment of the molecule’s discrete energy levels with the electrode’s continuous spectrum. In a molecular rectifier, this alignment is enhanced for positive voltage, leading to an increase in tunneling, and is reduced for negative voltage. At the Molecular Foundry we developed an approach to accurately compute energy-level alignment and tunneling probability in single-molecule junctions. This method allowed myself and Zhenfei Liu to understand the diode behavior quantitatively." Zhenfei Liu – a postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley Lab – and professor Neaton worked with Latha Venkataraman and Luis Campos from Columbia University to create their high-performance rectifier diode using junctions prepared from symmetric molecules attached to gold electrodes. To achieve the necessary asymmetric properties required to operate as a diode, the researchers then altered the surface area of the electrodes as they were exposed to an ionic solution. As a result, a positive voltage increased the current significantly, whilst a negative voltage reduced current flow in an equally significant manner. "The ionic solution, combined with the asymmetry in electrode areas, allows us to control the junction’s electrostatic environment simply by changing the bias polarity," said professor Neaton. "In addition to breaking symmetry, double layers formed by ionic solution also generate dipole differences at the two electrodes, which is the underlying reason behind the asymmetric shift of molecular resonance. The Columbia group’s experiments showed that with the same molecule and electrode setup, a non-ionic solution yields no rectification at all." The combined Berkeley Lab-Columbia University research team is convinced that the way they have managed to produce a single-molecule diode sets the benchmark for future nonlinear nanoscale device tuning and development, with applications above and beyond just junctions of single-molecule components. "We expect the understanding gained from this work to be applicable to ionic liquid gating in other contexts, and mechanisms to be generalized to devices fabricated from two-dimensional materials," said professor Neaton. "Beyond devices, these tiny molecular circuits are petri dishes for revealing and designing new routes to charge and energy flow at the nanoscale. What is exciting to me about this field is its multidisciplinary nature – the need for both physics and chemistry – and the strong beneficial coupling between experiment and theory. With the increasing level of experimental control at the single-molecule level, and improvements in theoretical understanding and computational speed and accuracy, we’re just at the tip of the iceberg with what we can understand and control at these small length scales." The results of this research were recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Source: Berkeley Lab

Three-protein biomarker raises possibility of a urine test for pancreatic cancer

 

Scientists have uncovered a new biomarker that suggests a urine test for pancreatic cancer could one day become a reality (Credit: Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund) With a lack of clear symptoms even when the disease is well progressed, more than 80 percent of pancreatic cancer diagnoses come after the cancer has already spread. This has led some researchers to look beyond blood to urine testing, which is a less complex fluid. Among those is a team at the Queen Mary University of London, which has uncovered a three-protein biomarker in the urine of pancreatic cancer sufferers, suggesting a less invasive, early stage test may be on the way. At just three percent, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is lower than any form of common cancer. Because it is difficult to detect, sufferers are often diagnosed after it has already spread which rules out surgical removal of the tumor, the only current method of treatment. Adding to the complexity are the difficulties in distinguishing between pancreatic cancer and the inflammatory condition known as chronic pancreatitis. But the Queen Mary researchers say they have made progress in addressing both problems. The scientists gathered a total of 488 urine samples. 192 came from patients with pancreatic cancer, 92 from those with chronic pancreatitis, 87 from healthy volunteers and another 117 from patients with benign and malignant liver and gall bladder conditions. They tallied around 1,500 proteins in the urine samples, but zeroed in on three in particular for a closer look: LYVE1, REG1A and TFF1. The pancreatic cancer sufferers had higher levels of all three proteins than the healthy patients. And in a discovery that could help separate them from those with chronic pancreatitis, the latter group displayed significantly lower levels of these proteins. The researchers say that the combined three-protein signature can help detect stage one and two pancreatic cancer with more than 90 percent accuracy. Stage two detection carries a survival rate of 20 percent, while stage one can see survival rates of up to 60 percent. "This is a biomarker panel with good specificity and sensitivity and we’re hopeful that a simple, inexpensive test can be developed and be in clinical use within the next few years," says lead researcher Dr Tatjana Crnogorac-Jurcevic. From here, the team aims to carry out further tests on people from high risk groups which includes those with obesity, a family history of pancreatic cancer, heavy smokers and people over 50 with new-onset diabetes. They are also hopeful of collecting ongoing samples from volunteers over the next five to ten years. Studying samples of those who went on to develop pancreatic cancer could allow them to establish if the three-protein biomarker is present during the latency period. This refers to the time after the genetic changes take place that cause the cancer develop and before the clinical presentation. The research was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Source: Queen Mary University of London

Bevel brings another dimension to smartphone photography

 

Bevel is a 3D photography attachemnt that works with both iOS and Android devices Image Gallery (7 images) Sticking with what it knows, Toronto-based Matter and Form has created Bevel, an accessory that turns smartphones and tablet into 3D cameras. Unlike the 3D Scanner the team released last year, Bevel isn't specifically intended for creating detailed 3D models of objects for 3D printing or animating, but for capturing everyday events that can then be shared in 3D. Bevel connects to iOS or Android devices via the headphone jack and allows users to capture three-dimensional images without much more effort than taking your standard photograph. The device packs an eye-safe laser which the photographer pans over the subject to capture depth information, while the mobile device's camera takes a photo as normal. The optimum subject distance is currently around 1 m (3.3 ft), the the team is looking to bring the capability to capture buildings and even entire cities in a future release. The resulting image can then be viewed within the Bevel app and the company’s app, Cashew, which allow users to share 3D photos in places like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Images can be rotated within the apps to can get just the right angle and can also be turned into animated GIFs or saved to be used later in an animation or 3D printing project –although the team says it is still ironing out the details on exactly how 3D printing compatibility will work. The choice of device to pair with Bevel will make a difference to image quality, with Matter and Form recommending a device with an accelerometer and a gyroscope, and Kit-Kat or higher for Android devices and iOS or higher for iOS devices. Bevel is powered by its own rechargeable battery so won't drain the mobile device it's connected to. As with its 3D Scanner, Matter and Form has prioritized affordability with Bevel and has gone the crowdfunding route to raise funds to get the device into production. The company has passed US$120,000 on the way to the $200,000 campaign goal, with just over three weeks left to run. The minimum pledge amount to reserve a Bevel, charging cable, calibration card, Bevel app and access to Cashew is $49, with deliveries estimated for early next year assuming all goes to plan. Source: Matter and Form, Kickstarter

Gigantic Street Art Painting on 200 Houses in Mexico

 

Posted: 02 Aug 2015 11:50 AM PDT

Le gouvernement mexicain a demandé au groupement d’artistes baptisé Germen Crew de peindre les façades blanches des maisons de la petite ville de Palmitas dans le but d’unifier les habitants. Le résultat offre une peinture colorée sur 209 maisons transformant le hameau en une gigantesque oeuvre de street art de 20 000 mètres carrés.

Wild Horses Photography

 

Posted: 02 Aug 2015 07:20 AM PDT

Troy Moth est un photographe qui, lorsqu’il avait 6 ans, s’est blessé assez grièvement en pleine séance d’équitation avec son cheval Flicka. Depuis, l’artiste recherche à travers ses clichés pris en Amérique du Nord à capturer toute la beauté des chevaux sauvages, montrant ainsi tout le respect et l’admiration qu’il cultive pour cet animal si cher à ses yeux.

Better together: Graphene-nanotube hybrid switches

 

Mon, 08/03/2015 - 12:00pm Allison Mills, Michigan Technological Univesity. Hair-like boron nitride nanotubes intersect a sheet of graphene to create a digital switch.  Image: Michigan Tech, Yoke Khin Yap Graphene has been called a wonder material, capable of performing great and unusual material acrobatics. Boron nitride nanotubes are no slackers in the materials realm either, and can be engineered for physical and biological applications. However, on their own, these materials are terrible for use in the electronics world. As a conductor, graphene lets electrons zip too fast—there's no controlling or stopping them—while boron nitride nanotubes are so insulating that electrons are rebuffed like an overeager dog hitting the patio door. But together, these two materials make a workable digital switch, which is the basis for controlling electrons in computers, phones, medical equipment and other electronics. Yoke Khin Yap, a professor of physics at Michigan Technological Univ., has worked with a research team that created these digital switches by combining graphene and boron nitride nanotubes. The journal Scientific Reports recently published their work. "The question is: How do you fuse these two materials together?" Yap says. The key is in maximizing their existing chemical structures and exploiting their mismatched features. Nanoscale tweaks Graphene is a molecule-thick sheet of carbon atoms; the nanotubes are like straws made of boron and nitrogen. Yap and his team exfoliate graphene and modify the material's surface with tiny pinholes. Then they can grow the nanotubes up and through the pinholes. Meshed together like this, the material looks like a flake of bark sprouting erratic, thin hairs. "When we put these two aliens together, we create something better," Yap says, explaining that it's important that the materials have lopsided band gaps, or differences in how much energy it takes to excite an electron in the material. "When we put them together, you form a band gap mismatch—that creates a so-called 'potential barrier' that stops electrons." The band gap mismatch results from the materials' structure: graphene's flat sheet conducts electricity quickly, and the atomic structure in the nanotubes halts electric currents. This disparity creates a barrier, caused by the difference in electron movement as currents move next to and past the hair-like boron nitride nanotubes. These points of contact between the materials—called heterojunctions—are what make the digital on/off switch possible. "Imagine the electrons are like cars driving across a smooth track," Yap says. "They circle around and around, but then they come to a staircase and are forced to stop." Yap and his research team have also shown that because the materials are respectively so effective at conducting or stopping electricity, the resulting switching ratio is high. In other words, how fast the materials can turn on and off is several orders of magnitude greater than current graphene switches. In turn, this speed could eventually quicken the pace of electronics and computing. Solving the semiconductor dilemma To get to faster and smaller computers one day, Yap says this study is a continuation of past research into making transistors without semiconductors. The problem with semiconductors like silicon is that they can only get so small, and they give off a lot of heat; the use of graphene and nanotubes bypasses those problems. In addition, the graphene and boron nitride nanotubes have the same atomic arrangement pattern, or lattice matching. With their aligned atoms, the graphene-nanotube digital switches could avoid the issues of electron scattering. "You want to control the direction of the electrons," Yap explains, comparing the challenge to a pinball machine that traps, slows down and redirects electrons. "This is difficult in high speed environments, and the electron scattering reduces the number and speed of electrons." Much like an arcade enthusiast, Yap says he and his team will continue trying to find ways to outsmart or change the pinball set-up of graphene to minimize electron scattering. And one day, all their tweaks could make for faster computers—and digital pinball games—for the rest of us. Source: Michigan Technological University.

sidmelo_blogreen (desde Março de 2014)

 

 

Conforme afirmei certa vez, as publicações do meu blog, consideradas “importadas” pelo Blogger, na verdade não são totalmente “importadas” uma vez que:

1) Preciso selecionar os artigos ou imagens, criteriosamente.

2) Cada postagem  exige uma média de 20 cliques do mouse até que esteja pronta para ser publicada usando-se o editor da Microsoft, Windows Live Writer.

3) Raramente as imagens estão boas para serem publicadas. Antes de inserila-las na postagem eu preciso edita-las. Veja um exemplo na postagem “Wild Horses Photography”. Cada imagem levou cerca de 4 minutos para a edição. Tenho que usar o “aguçar” (sharpen),  brilho e contraste, às vezes como nesse exemplo, colorizar, e por último acrescentar mais vermelho ou mais azul que são as principais.

4) As imagens contidas na maioria das postagens precisam ser dimensionadas da melhor maneira possível.

5) Procuro diversificar o conteúdo das publicações para não torna-las repetitivas e/ou enfadonhas.

6) Posso dizer então, que pelo menos 30% de cada postagem são de minha autoria. Afinal de contas clicar os botões do MOUSE entre 80 a 100 mil vezes durante 16 meses, práticamente todos os dias, começando geralmente entre 2 a 3:00 AM,  tornou-o debilitado, estressado, e neurótico. (o Mouse, não eu, eu estou supimpa !) Ao acordar de manhã verifico a pressão arterial do MOUSE. geralmente está mais ou menos em 18x10. Administro à ele alguns medicamentos e sigo em frente. 

An Eye on Imaging Science

 

Fri, 07/31/2015 - 6:45pm Lindsay Hock, Editor Photo: Kodak Kodak has a dedicated team of scientists working to enhance imaging science Image science and technology attracts researchers from academic and government institutions, as well as practitioners in the imaging industry globally. The diverse research interest and the multidisciplinary characteristics of the imaging field encourage competing ideas to be presented and tested by researchers. This, in turn, prompts imaging technologies to quickly respond to challenges from various scientific disciplines. “An example of this can be seen over the past decade, where the main research interest for printing technologies evolved from 2-D image formation on different paper substrates to 3-D digital fabrication for medical and manufacturing applications,” says Dr. Chunghui Kuo, Senior Image Scientist, Eastman Kodak Co. “All of this was directly attributed to the accelerated advancement of telecommunication and digital display technologies.” However, imaging science is as underappreciated as it is pervasive. People often underappreciate scientific advancements they believe as easy to accomplish. This is regardless of the complexity or difficulty behind the discovery. “For example, identifying a specific person in a crowded room is a difficult task in imaging science; but its value is less likely to be recognized,” says Kuo. “Think about it this way: nearly 50% of the cortex in the human brain is related to visual functions, which indicates the type of technological challenges encountered in imaging science.” Yet, recent advancements in visualization, image understanding and 3-D printing have driven significant interest for many topics imaging science research can tackle. Digital imaging technologies have become indispensable in society and are extending to new scientific frontiers to integrate advancements across several fields, including medicine and engineering. The trends With the importance of imaging science and its impact in various scientific fields, trends are developing. One trend is image deposition. And these technologies have extended into high-precision microscopic additive manufacturing processes in biomedical engineering and 3-D fabrication. Virtual reality is also a trend within imaging science, and this pushes beyond the realms of biological aspects into fields such as aerospace, architecture and energy. “The goal of realizing a virtual world indistinguishable from reality is pushing the envelope,” says Kuo. “Virtual reality requires a thorough understanding of the interaction between the physical surface property of the material and human vision system.” Artificial intelligence is also a trend in imaging, and is a buzzword in R&D, especially in robotics and information technology. The ability to recognize an object and understand the meaning of a natural image is the ultimate goal in this space. “This has led to extensive collaboration between the imaging science and computer engineering research communities to get us there,” says Kuo. Ink-jet printing has also received attention in recent years. “Using ink-jet printing technologies to digitally fabricate biologically active structure with high precision has received attention for its potential applications in the fields of medical and biological science,” says Kuo. As medical research continues to progress, researcher have started to explore the possibility of personalized medicine with individual drug release properties by digitally fabricating drug dosage. “In the frontier of additive manufacturing processes, digital printing technologies have demonstrated the capability of fabricating 3-D microscopic structures, indicating great potentials for future industrial applications, for example printing electronics on flexible substrate,” says Kuo. Furthermore, the rapid development in computational science and engineering has empowered complicated visualization algorithms to support the computer graphic industry, with high expectation of the potential of virtual reality technology in the near future. Yet, improvements still must be made to advance digital fabrication technologies to serve as the driving force for the next industrial revolution. “For example, the ability to guarantee the final quality of a digitally fabrication product is vitally important for medical applications,” says Kuo. Also, the microscopic imaging scanning in a 3-D setting not only poses a challenge in image acquisition, but also creates a massive data set that must be stored and analyzed. “The same obstacle exists in spectral and hyperspectral imaging, where spectrum data is collected at each spatial location and time interval,” says Kuo. The broad imaging future “Imaging science and technology is at a unique point to participate in multiple fundamental R&D activities,” says Kuo. And these activities include digital fabrication, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, all of which are considered major driving forces for the next industrial revolution. “I truly believe that the future for imaging technologies is bright, and with our concerted effort, we will be able to have a significant contribution on the lives of future generations,” says Kuo. source : http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2015/07/eye-imaging-science

Nanotech on Display

 

South Korea’s Samsung leads the race to perfect flat-panel TVs built with carbon nanotubes. Will they be nanotech’s first commercial hit? By Charles C. Mann - 2004  In the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, south of Seoul, South Korea, what looks from a distance like an ordinary 38-inch television plays an endless loop of commercials for James Bond movies. Like the displays increasingly common in American homes, it is a big, flat rectangle of color and motion in a high-tech plastic frame. But unlike the images on an ordinary TV, the ones on this lab model are generated by a layer of carbon nanotubes shooting electrons at a phosphor screen like so many tiny cannonballs. Around the world, television screens are emblems of stodgy domesticity. But this one is in the vanguard of tomorrows nanotechnological revolution: it could be the first commercial product that brings nanoscale electronics into the middle-class home. Researchers around the world are racing to perfect this novel type of display, which should be brighter, sharper, and less power-hungry than current flat-panel TVs. For the moment, though, the Samsung institute appears to have the lead. They are the ones to beat, says Yahachi Saito, lead researcher of a rival group at Nagoya University in Japan. They have moved very quickly. Samsung, and South Korean technology firms in general, are rarely thought of as the leading developers of hot new technologies. This is a stereotype, however, that the company is determined to change. We are still identified, correctly, with low-cost manufacturing, says Young Joon Gil, chief technology officer at the Samsung institute. But as competitors emerge from China and other east-Asian countries, he says, Samsung must gradually move to high-profit, high-risk innovation to survive. Nanotechnology is the most important of the risky disciplines the company hopes to mine for new products, and the nanotube TV screens are its first fruits. Known as field emission displays, they should be in stores, Young says, by the end of 2006, comfortably ahead of the competition. Meeting that prediction will not be easy. Simply taking field emission displays from the laboratory to the retail floor will require solving a host of tough technical problems. Moreover, current flat-panel displays, based on liquid-crystal and plasma technology, are constantly becoming better and cheaper, meaning nanotech researchers will have to work harder just to keep up. Even success would create its own set of problems, since Samsungone of the worlds leading manufacturers of liquid-crystal and plasma displays, as well as ordinary cathode-ray-tube TVswill be competing against itself. Nanotech displays are thus both a harbinger of a technological revolution to come and an example of how a major electronics companywith lucrative, established markets to protectis trying to manage and contain that revolution. We believe we must master this field to grow, Young says. But at the same time we cannot let it wreck our company. We have to watch very carefully. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/403324/nanotech-on-display/page/1/