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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Technique Measures Temperature of 2D Materials at the Atomic Level
Newly developed two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene — which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms — have the potential to replace traditional microprocessing chips based on silicon, which have reached the limit of how small they can get. But engineers have been...
Briefs: Energy
Electric vehicles are growing in popularity, and while they represent a cleaner alternative to fossil-fueled vehicles, their increased use may stress the grid if this growing load is left unmanaged. A need...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Water heaters and other thermal energy storage devices increase the temperature of a medium above an ambient or normal temperature, and store the warmer medium. Water heaters, in particular, must store the...
Briefs: Aerospace
In 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing — an object is built layer-by-layer, allowing for the creation of structures that would be impossible to manufacture by...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
System and Method for Managing Autonomous Entities Through Apoptosis
This NASA innovation is a biologically inspired system management method designed to make sensor webs as well as other autonomous and autonomic systems more self-directing and self-managing. Based on the mechanisms of cell apoptosis, this method ensures safe and correct operation...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Highly capable small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide substantial business opportunity, especially if allowed to operate in the suburban market. Reliability issues force the use of a safety pilot for each vehicle in...
Briefs: Aerospace
High-Energy Lithium Flow Cells with Sulfur Anodes
Li-ion batteries offer considerable advantages such as high gravimetric and volumetric energy densities, and good calendar life and shelf life compared to aqueous systems such as Pb-acid, Ni-Cd, and Ni-MH. Various Li-ion chemistries with different Li-intercalating cathodes have attained significant...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Researchers have developed a lithium-ion battery that uses a water-salt solution as its electrolyte — reaching the 4.0- Volt mark for electronics such as laptops — without the fire and explosive...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
In London's St. Paul's Cathedral, a whisper can be heard far across the circular whispering gallery as the sound curves around the walls. Now, an optical whispering gallery mode resonator developed by Penn...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A temperature sensor was developed that runs on 113 picowatts of power — about 10 billion times smaller than a Watt. The technology could enable devices that can be powered by harvesting energy from...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Remote Detection of Electronic Devices
Non-Linear Junction Detection is a well-known technique for detecting electronics that utilize semiconductor (solid-state) junctions. The current state of the art for finding hidden electronics — such as electronic eavesdropping devices — using this technology has a maximum range of about 2 m, and more...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
System and Method for Identifying Electrical Properties of Integrated Circuits
Integrated circuit (IC) design can be divided into three stages: circuitry as specified, circuitry as designed, and circuitry as manufactured. Circuitry as specified is a somewhat abstract circuit design made with knowledge of the latest state-of-the-art integrated...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Computers use different kinds of memory technologies to store data. Long-term memory — typically a hard disk or flash drive — needs to be dense in order to store as much data as...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A new, flexible, silicon-on-polymer chip was developed to augment new networked realities such as the Internet of Things. Typical silicon-based integrated circuits are brittle, rigid components packaged in a...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Inspired by brains, neural networks are composed of neurons (or nodes) and synapses, which are the connections between nodes. To train a neural network for a task, a neural network takes in a...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Shape memory alloys (SMAs) have the unique ability to recover large deformations in response to thermal, mechanical, and/or magnetic stimuli. This behavior occurs by virtue of a crystallo-graphically...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
High-tech refrigerators have been used to reach temperatures as close to absolute zero as possible — 0 kelvin or -273.15 °C. Physicists aim to cool equipment to as close to absolute zero as possible,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In multi-layer and multi-fluid plate and fin heat exchangers, fluid ports are required to be located on the side of the heat exchanger....
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
New graphene printing technology can produce electronic circuits that are low-cost, flexible, highly conductive, and water-repellent. Low-cost, inkjet-printed graphene can...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The efficiency of computer chips has increased by using caches — small, local memory banks that store frequently used data and cut down on time- and...
Briefs: Materials
Method of Fabricating Ultra-Short-Gate-Length Thin-Film Transistors Using Optical Lithography
The speed of thin-film transistors (TFTs) relates directly to their gate length, which must be kept as short as possible to lower electron transport time between electrodes, and improve its high-frequency response characteristics. Since current density is...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The SolidSense sensor platform measures all EPA-regulated gas emissions (nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons), in addition to ammonia, with high accuracy and sensitivity. The chip-scale gas...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The NiceC Programming Language
NiceC is an improved version of ANSI C. It attempts to clean up C as much as possible using syntax translation. A type checker for NiceC is under development. The NiceC programming language is translated to, and fully compatible with, ordinary C. Thus it can be used as a drop-in replacement for C. The main benefits of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
APT Web Tool
Project planning data collected by the Analysis, Planning, and Tracking (APT) system during the planning cycle previously was available to users via an email request to a data administrator who would pull data from the database, format as requested, and respond via email. Access to the data was limited by the availability of the data...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a point sensor and piezoelectric actuator system to actively sense and reduce vibrations in flexible structures. The system uses a directional piezoelectric...
Briefs: Energy
Servo control systems require accurate control of motion parameters such as acceleration, velocity, and position. This requires a controller that can apply current (torque) to...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Linear actuator manufacturers have a history of strong mechanical design expertise, which is the core of any linear actuation; however, giving motion to modern powered equipment goes beyond a...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
High-voltage wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices like 15-kV silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs have attracted attention because of potential applications in high-voltage and high-frequency power converters....
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
A collective rattling effect in a type of crystalline semiconductor was discovered to block most heat transfer while preserving high electrical conductivity — a rare pairing that...
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