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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Cloud Water Content Sensor for Sounding Balloons and Small UAVs
A lightweight, battery-powered sensor was developed for measuring cloud water content, which is the amount of liquid or solid water present in a cloud, generally expressed as grams of water per cubic meter. This sensor has near-zero power consumption and can be flown on standard...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Pixelized Device Control Actuators for Large Adaptive Optics
A fully integrated, compact, adaptive space optic mirror assembly has been developed, incorporating new advances in ultralight, high- performance composite mirrors. The composite mirrors use Q-switch matrix architecture- based pixelized control (PMN-PT) actuators, which achieve high-...
News: Energy
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a new ceramic material that could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells – devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
An improved method of designing complexly shaped inflatable shells to be assembled from gores was conceived for original application to the inflatable outer shell of a developmental...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
The concept of a transparent conveyor of small loose dielectric particles or small amounts of dielectric liquids has emerged as an outgrowth of an effort to develop efficient, reliable...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
The multi-cone model is a computational model for estimating ionospheric delays of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. It is a direct descendant of the conical-domain model, which was...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Progress Toward a Compact, Highly Stable Ion Clock
There was an update on the subject of two previous NASA Tech Briefs articles: “Compact, Highly Stable Ion Clock” (NPO-43075), Vol. 32, No. 5 (May 2008), page 63; and “Neon as a Buffer Gas for a Mercury-Ion Clock” (NPO-42919), Vol. 32, No. 7 (July 2008), page 62. To recapitulate: A...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Systematic studies have been performed on the sensitivity of GaN HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) sensors using various gate electrode designs and operational parameters. The results here show...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
On the Divergence of the Velocity Vector in Real-Gas Flow
A theoretical study was performed addressing the degree of applicability or inapplicability, to a real gas, of the occasionally stated belief that for an ideal gas, incompressibility is synonymous with a zero or very low Mach number. The measure of compressibility used in this study is the...
Eye on Innovation: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Given the current economic conditions, companies must continue to deliver existing products as they develop the products of tomorrow, without increasing the engineering...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The acronym “CHAMP” (signifying “camera, hand lens, and microscope”) denotes any of several proposed optoelectronic instruments that would be capable of color imaging at working distances that...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Lightweight cylindrical reflectors of a proposed type would be made from reflective membranes stretched between pairs of identically curved and identically oriented end rails. In each such...
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Who's Who: Aerospace
Gary Martin began his career with NASA in the Microgravity Sciences and Applications Division in 1990 where he served as Branch Chief for...
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Products: Energy
SunMizerTM from Xandex Solar (Petaluma, CA) is a new per-panel DC-to-DC power optimizer that increases solar energy harvest by recovering power that is lost when shade falls on a panel. SunMizer can be installed...
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News: Energy
MIT scientists have found that carbon nanotubes could be formed into tiny springs capable of storing as much energy, pound for pound, as the best lithium-ion batteries - potentially more durably and...
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Researchers at North Carolina State University are demonstrating that trees can be used to degrade or capture fuels that leak into soil and ground water. Through a process called phytoremediation, plants and...
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Videos: Electronics & Computers
Lithium-ion batteries for advanced vehicles still have issues of safety and costs in terms of materials resources and abundances, synthesis, and recycling processes. Jean-Marie Tarascon, a professor at...
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Products: Energy
Concentrated solar power (CSP) and concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) methodologies generate electricity by focusing a large amount of sunlight onto a much smaller area. To...
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Blooms of Cladophora algae may be troublesome, but they do have a positive side. Researchers at the Ångström Laboratory of Sweden's Uppsala University have discovered that the cellulose...
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Products: Energy
Signal Conditioners Ideal for Wind Turbines
The SCM5B, SCM7B, and SensorLex® 8B signal conditioning modules from Dataforth (Tucson, AZ) are all fully encapsulated, making them corrosion-resistant and well suited for use in rugged environments like wind turbines.
News: Energy
Hydrogen Storage Competition
DOE has launched the H-Prize competition, offering a $1 million award to an individual or team that creates the most advanced materials for hydrogen storage in vehicles.
Products: Energy
The AEGIS WTG™ grounding ring from Electro Static Technology (Mechanic Falls, ME) channels harmful shaft currents away from bearings to ground - preventing bearing damage that could cause wind turbine generator...
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Last year, MIT researchers found that plants generate a voltage of up to 200 millivolts when one electrode is placed in a plant and the other in the surrounding soil. A University of Washington team followed...
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News: Energy
Researchers at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed thin films that exhibit carrier multiplication (CM) - a development that is of great interest for future solar cells.
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
In spite of rising energy prices, many car drivers in large cities still ride alone. Fraunhofer's OpenRide mobile ridesharing service aims to save them money, while helping the...
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Billions of pounds of plastic waste are floating in the world’s oceans. Scientists are reporting that even though plastics are reputed to be virtually indestructible, they decompose with surprising speed and...
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News: Green Design & Manufacturing
Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Alabama researchers have come up with a new method for recycling hydrogen-containing fuel materials, which could open the door to...
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Briefs: Physical Sciences
An apparatus for mid-infrared reflectance imaging has been developed as means of inspecting for subsurface damage in thermal-barrier coatings (TBCs). The apparatus is designed, more...
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Briefs: Imaging
Improving the Visible and Infrared Contrast Ratio of Microshutter Arrays
Three device improvements have been developed that dramatically enhance the contrast ratio of microshutters. The goal of a microshutter is to allow as much light through as possible when the shutters are in the open configuration, and preventing any light from passing through...

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