It’s been more than a decade since the turn of the century and for the most part, the way we teach undergraduates mathematical and design concepts in engineering modeling has remained unchanged for almost half a century. This ASEE/MapleSoft webinar makes two bold assertions: (1) Industry is undergoing a major transformation and we stand to [...]
Olympic athletes often turn to high technology to bolster their performance. Four years ago, specially-designed swimsuits that allowed wearers to skim through the water just that much faster got the headlines. Now just in time for this year’s Olympic Games, Nike is introducing the new Pro TurboSpeed track suit made from ultra-lightweight materials. The suit [...]
When we think of wind turbines, we typically think: on land or at sea. But two companies want us to think: up in the air. Makani Airborne Wind Turbine is a flying device made of carbon-fiber that soars to altitudes of around 1,000 feet, where winds are stronger and more consistent. Tethered to the ground, [...]
Master’s degrees reached another all-time high of 46,940 in 2011 due to 19 percent growth over the previous three years. This trend will certainly continue, since enrollment grew for the seventh year in a row. Fall 2011 master’s enrollment stood at 103,757 which is 25 percent higher than the 2005 mark. [ASEE Connections, June 2012]
Phase-change random-access memory (PCRAM) is one of the leading candidates for next-generation data-storage devices, but the trade-off between crystallization (writing) speed and amorphous-phase stability (data retention) presents a key challenge. We control the crystallization kinetics of a phase-change material by applying a constant low voltage via prestructural ordering (incubation) effects. A crystallization speed of 500 [...]
Phase-change materials undergo rapid and reversible crystalline-to-amorphous structural transformation and are being used for nonvolatile memory devices. However, the transformation mechanism remains poorly understood. We have studied the effect of electrical pulses on the crystalline-to-amorphous phase change in a single-crystalline Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) nanowire memory device by in situ transmission electron microscopy. We show that electrical [...]
We determined the electromechanical properties of a suspended graphene layer by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) measurements, as well as computational simulations of the graphene-membrane mechanics and morphology. A graphene membrane was continuously deformed by controlling the competing interactions with a STM probe tip and the electric field from a back-gate [...]
Stable quantum bits, capable both of storing quantum information for macroscopic time scales and of integration inside small portable devices, are an essential building block for an array of potential applications. We demonstrate high-fidelity control of a solid-state qubit, which preserves its polarization for several minutes and features coherence lifetimes exceeding 1 second at room [...]
Sustainable management of water resources (including provision of safe and reliable supplies for drinking water and irrigation, adequate sanitation, protection of aquatic ecosystems, and flood protection) poses enormous challenges in many parts of the world. Despite the global abundance of water and the mainly renewable character of this resource, it is estimated that one-fifth of [...]
Left your phone at home again? A solution is at hand: make sure it is with you at all times by having it implanted in your arm. But given the opportunity, would you want your gadget to be a permanent part of you? The question may need answering sooner than you think. [New Scientist, 12 [...]