Dec
19
2010
1 comment | tags: Apple, Cars, Economy, Energy, Gear, Mac, Materials, Microsoft, Programming, Science, Software, Tech, Toys, TV, tweet, Web
Sep
27
2010
Fall quarter kicking off, hurray! Formal coursework will be ME 588 — Dynamics and Vibrations. Basic theoretical framework, single DOF systems, multiple DOF systems, and continuously driven systems. Not my first choice of material but need to take remotely and the options were few.
Informally, I’ll be working on modeling of dielectrophoresis effects at the nanoscale, applied primarily to biological sensors. Some finite element, some matlab, some fluids, etc. Interesting study of forces and motion at the nanoscale. I’ve ordered a bunch of texts on electrodynamic modeling and and cranking thru. The mechanics are new to me, the electrodynamics are familiar but rusty, the coding work is relatively straightforward. Initial model focus is on 2D systems tho I’d like to step up to 3d, tho this is of course substantially more complicated.
Comments Off | tags: Academics, Education, Materials, tweet
Aug
14
2010
Paper and Lignin-based RFID tags. Silk electronic metamaterials.
Seems like we are not far away from having processing power embedded in damn near everything. Not lots of processing power, but enough to do identification and limited sensing. Interesting times.
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Materials Science, Paper, Science, Silk
Apr
5
2010
I finally officially matriculated last fall as a part time grad student at UW and am studying nanoengineering. For the moment I am sited in the mechanical engineering department tho I could just have easily been in the electrical engineering department, materials science department, chemistry, physics, or several other places. And in fact I am taking no traditional mechanical engineering courses, but am entirely focused on nanoscale problems and technology.
My long term interest is in industrial-scale production of nanoscale devices. Many great things have been made in the labs, but to scaling up to industrial scale production requires discovery of methods to automatically produce and assemble nanoscale devices, accepting the inherent error levels in these devices. Photolithography has been an amazing technology for creating computer chips but is a top-down approach — the entire chip is exactly designed and then carved out of silicon. The next wave of devices at the nanoscale will be organically assembled bottoms-up and there are whole new classes of problems to solve.
I’ve been reading a ton on nanowires and carbon nanotubes and the manipulation of them via various methods. And also thinking on the side about chip/circuit architecture based on these inexact, nondeterministic elements. Just got a pointer to RelXLayer which is a nice launch point for thinking about.
Comments Off | tags: Education, Materials, Nanotech
Oct
1
2009
No time to blog, fall quarter starting, and travelling too. Dump of stuff that is interesting:
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Sep
2
2009
- Touchable holography. Uses tracking cameras and directed ultrasound to create interaction and physical sensation. Cool demo.
- Algortihmatic - online library of algorithms and IDE. Cool tho limited.
- The LED’s dark secret. Droop in LED performance to be overcome for broader use.
- Plasmobots — “their previous research has already proved the ability of the mould to have computational abilities”.
- Ford Mike Rowe video. I didn’t realize they automatically tracked every single assembly operations through the tools. Fascinating.
- Brad Feld’s open office hours. An intriguing idea. Commendable.
Comments Off | tags: Computation, Manufacturing, Materials, Science, Software, Venture
Aug
11
2009
Oriented Assembly of Metamaterials — Stebe et al. 325 5937: 159 — Science — good article.
“Such metamaterials may, for example, be used to create cloaking devices or light-based circuits based on manipulations of local optical electric fields rather than on the flow of electrons.”
“The challenge now is to move from hit-or-miss assemblies of academic interest to the creation of technologically relevant devices that combine particle and patterned assembly via large-scale processes.”
It is this latter challenge I find most interesting.
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Jun
23
2009
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Apr
4
2009
Good basic article on polymer circuits. I need to learn more about charge transport in polymers, i have a basic understanding of charge transport in metals and semiconductors and ionic fluids, i don’t really understand polymers. Polymer circuits potentially a research area for my future course work.
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Polymers
Apr
2
2009
Had first lecture in ME 568 — Active and Sensing Materials. Topics include
Comments Off | tags: Education, Materials
Mar
11
2009
Matter is strange — “These isotopes consist of a compact nuclear core and a cloud made of diluted nuclear material – called ‘heiligenschein’ or ‘halo’”
via For the First Time, Scientists Measure the Size of a One-Neutron Halo with Lasers.
Comments Off | tags: Materials
Mar
11
2009
Continuing my educational adventure this spring:
ME 568 Active and Sensing Materials:Â Fundamental knowledge of the nano-structure property relations of active and sensing materials, and their devices. Examples of the active and sensing materials are: shape memory alloys (SMAs), ferromagnetic SMAs, ferroelectric, pyroelectric and piezoelectric materials, thermoelectrics, electroactive and conducting polymers, photoactive polymers, photovoltaics, and electrochromic materials.
ME 518 Seminars on Advances in Manufacturing & Management: Current topics and advances made in manufacturing and management. Topics presented by invited speakers from academia and industry. Emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of manufacturing and management.
via Course Descriptions.
Comments Off | tags: Education, Manufacturing, Materials, Materials Science
Feb
9
2009
Comments Off | tags: Materials
Dec
22
2008
nanoHUB – Simulation, Education, and Community for Nanotechnology. – hub for nano educational materials and software. interested in learning more about nano TCAD, pointed to by this article
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science, Software
Dec
22
2008
Quantum computers could excel in modeling chemical reactions | Science Blog. — from the department of tautology. A quantum system can be best modelled by a quantum system.
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Oct
28
2008
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Sep
21
2008
Caltech researchers awarded $10M for molecular programming project. UW involved as well. More info at
the Molecular Programming Project:
…we will develop new computer science principles for programming information-bearing molecules like DNA and RNA to create artificial biomolecular programs of similar complexity.
…computing and decision-making will carried out by chemical processes themselves. Through the creation of molecular programming languages, theory for analyzing them, and experiments for validating them, our long-term vision is to establish “molecular programming” as a subdiscipline of computer science
Overview presentation
here.
Fascinating stuff.
Comments Off | tags: Materials, Science
Jul
14
2008
Comments Off | tags: Materials