Industry News

January 2020
Coronavirus Disrupts Display Panel Production in China
The escalating coronavirus crisis is impacting production at display panel factories located in the semi-quarantined city of Wuhan, China, spurring a significant near-term reduction in the global supply of panels used in liquid crystal display televisions (LCDs) and other products. The five factories in the ci
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Date:
01/31/2020

Global Power Technologies Group Becomes SemiQ
Global Power Technologies Group announced this week that it has changed its legal company name to SemiQ. The name reflects the company’s strategic concentration on designing and manufacturing high quality silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors. SemiQ is an integrated development and manufacturing company t
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Date:
01/30/2020
Florida Astronaut in Super Bowl Ad to Benefit Girls in STEM
To support an inspirational Super Bowl LIV commercial featuring Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University alumna and retired astronaut Nicole Stott, the Olay company plans to donate one dollar (up to $500,000) to the nonprofit Girls Who Code each time someone uses the hashtag #MakeSpaceforWomen on Twitter. The so
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Date:
01/30/2020
Protocols to Assess Stability of Perovskite Photovoltaics
The existing characterization procedures to evaluate emerging photovoltaic devices are not appropriate for halide perovskite solar cells, a new generation of solar cells called to overcome the present state-of-the-art technologies. A vast group of scientists with Prof. Pavel A. Troshin representing Skoltech ha
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Date:
01/30/2020
Can Wood Change Cities From Carbon Source to Carbon Vault?
The steady rise of the world's urban population will drive an immense demand for new housing, commercial buildings, and other infrastructure across the planet by midcentury. This building boom will likely escalate global carbon emissions to dangerous levels and intensify climate change -- particularly if it rel
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Date:
01/30/2020
Computer Servers now Able to Retrieve Data Much Faster
Computer scientists at the University of Waterloo have found a novel approach that significantly improves the storage efficiency and output speed of computer systems. Current data storage systems use only one storage server to process information, making them slow to retrieve information to display for the u
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Date:
01/30/2020
New Research Could aid Cleaner Energy Technologies

Guangwen Zhou is a professor of mechanical engineering at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

New research led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York, could aid cleaner energy technologies. The atomic reaction between gases and oxides is a key piece for many technological puzzles. It can lead to benefits such as better catalysts to enable cleaner energy technologies, or to pro
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Date:
01/30/2020
Graphene, Quantum and the Brain: Together, What do you get?

The four most ambitious intiatives of the EU exhibit at the MWC20 in Barcelona.

The world is moving at full speed, pushing forward an amazing wave of novel and disruptive technologies that will change the way we see, move, behave and even communicate. We are at a point in time where those technologies, eager to emerge, will signify a paradigm shift in how we view our place in this world, op
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Date:
01/28/2020
British Carbon Tax Leads 93% Drop in Coal-Fired Electricity
A tax on carbon dioxide emissions in Great Britain, introduced in 2013, has led to the proportion of electricity generated from coal falling from 40% to 3% over six years, according to research led by UCL. British electricity generated from coal fell from 13.1 TWh (terawatt hours) in 2013 to 0.97 TWh in Se
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Date:
01/28/2020
Air Force Provides $1 Million for Purdue-Related Technology

PlaneEnglish, a simulator created by three Purdue alumni, has received a $1 million SBIR Phase II award, sponsored by the Air Force and AFWERX, the Air Force's technology and innovation hub.

Three Purdue University alumni will soon help more members of the U.S. Air Force advance critical communication skills to keep them safe in the cockpit. PlaneEnglish, a simulator created by the three Purdue alumni, has received a $1 million SBIR Phase II award, sponsored by the Air Force and AFWERX, the Air F
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Date:
01/28/2020
NYPA Approves $11.5 Million for Power Flow Control Project
The New York Power Authority (NYPA) Board of Trustees recently approved $11.5 million for implementation of the Advanced Power Flow Control Project on NYPA’s Moses-Adirondack 1 and 2 transmission lines in northern New York. The project aims to relieve congestion along NYPA’s north-south corridor and allow
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Date:
01/28/2020
For Cheaper Solar Cells, Thinner Really is Better
Costs of solar panels have plummeted over the last several years, leading to rates of solar installations far greater than most analysts had expected. But with most of the potential areas for cost savings already pushed to the extreme, further cost reductions are becoming more challenging to find. Now, researche
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Date:
01/27/2020
USEA, DOE Kick Off National Carbon Capture Roadshow
The Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy and U.S. Energy Association will kick off  a national carbon capture roadshow across six U.S. cities on Tuesday January 28, starting in Washington. Energy stakeholders will assemble to discuss: commercial CCUS deployment; using carbon for industrial processes
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Date:
01/24/2020
Mini Submersible Robot Inspects Power Transformer
The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has successfully piloted a robotic technology that can navigate inside a power transformer to effectively identify any operational issues while reducing unplanned down time and reducing risk to personnel. The new inspection tool marks NYPA’s latest investment in enhancing re
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Date:
01/24/2020
APS Changes Course for 100% Clean Energy Future
Today, Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) announced a goal to deliver 100 percent clean, carbon-free electricity to customers by 2050. APS’ goal includes a nearer-term 2030 target of achieving a resource mix that is 65 percent clean energy, with 45 percent of our portfolio coming from renewable energy. APS will en
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Date:
01/22/2020
Laser Diode Emits Deep UV Light

Far field pattern of UV-C laser projected onto a fluorescent screen.

Nagoya University scientists, in cooperation with Asahi Kasei Corporation, have succeeded in designing a laser diode that emits deep-ultraviolet light, according to research published in the journal Applied Physics Express. "Our laser diode emits the world's shortest lasing wavelength, at 271.8 nanometers
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Date:
01/20/2020
Securing Radiological Sources on the Go

A well logging configuration for MSTS consists of radiation measurement devices, radiofrequency tags and other loss detection technology. MSTS, developed by PNNL, has been licensed to Golden Security Services.

Radioactive materials are a critical tool in a number of industrial applications particularly oil and gas drilling and welding. While these sources are safe and well-regulated for their intended use; if lost or stolen the materials could be used by terrorists to make dirty bombs. The Department of Energy's Pacific Nor
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Date:
01/20/2020
Artificial Intelligence to Improve Resolution of Brain MRI

Researchers of the ICAI Group -- Computational Intelligence and Image Analysis -- of the University of Malaga (UMA) have designed an unprecedented method that is capable of improving brain images obtained through magnetic resonance imaging using artificial intelligence.

Researchers of the ICAI Group -Computational Intelligence and Image Analysis- of the University of Malaga (UMA) have designed an unprecedented method that is capable of improving brain images obtained through magnetic resonance imaging using artificial intelligence. This new model manages to increase image qua
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Date:
01/17/2020
Microchip Joins Responsible Business Alliance
Microchip Technology Inc. announced it has joined the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), a nonprofit coalition of companies dedicated to the improvement of social, environmental and ethical conditions in their global supply chains. The RBA Code of Conduct is a set of social, environmental and ethical industry
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Date:
01/16/2020
How to Make it Easier to Turn Plant Waste into Biofuels

Next-generation ammonia-salt based pretreatment processes facilitate efficient breakdown of waste biomass such as corn stalks, leaves and other residue (called corn stover).

Researchers have developed a new process that could make it much cheaper to produce biofuels such as ethanol from plant waste and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Their approach, featuring an ammonia-salt based solvent that rapidly turns plant fibers into sugars needed to make ethanol, works well at close
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Date:
01/15/2020
Colloidal Quantum Dot Laser Diodes Just Around the Corner

These are colloidal quantum dots operating in LED mode.

Los Alamos scientists have incorporated meticulously engineered colloidal quantum dots into a new type of light emitting diodes (LEDs) containing an integrated optical resonator, which allows them to function as lasers. These novel, dual-function devices clear the path towards versatile, manufacturing-friendly la
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Date:
01/15/2020
Gasification Goes Green

Naomi Halas, director of Rice University's Laboratory for Nanophotonics, is an engineer and chemist who's spent more than 25 years pioneering the use of light-activated nanomaterials.

Rice University engineers have created a light-powered nanoparticle that could shrink the carbon footprint of a major segment of the chemical industry. The particle, tiny spheres of copper dotted with single atoms of ruthenium, is the key component in a green process for making syngas, or synthesis gas, valu
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Date:
01/12/2020
Improving Solar Cells' Back-Contact with DOE Project

Researchers will work to improve the solar cell's back contact, the layer furthest from the light source.

Fifty years ago, solar power was rare, expensive and specialized - barely a blip on the energy landscape. Today, rooftop and commercial solar markets are exploding, generating 2.5% of all electricity in the U.S. and fueled by the urgency of climate change. For many years, Colorado State University physicist
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Date:
01/12/2020
Laserphysics: At the Pulse of a Light Wave
Physicists in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (MPQ) have developed a novel type of detector that enables the oscillation profile of light waves to be precisely determined. Light is hard to get a hold on
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Date:
01/12/2020
Causes and Consequences of Manufacturing Deviations
What causes manufacturing deviations, and how do they affect the quality of technical products? Since 2016, the research group FOR2271 'Process-oriented tolerance management with virtual assurance methods' has been investigating these issues at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). The German Rese
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Date:
01/10/2020
General Fusion Enters Strategic Partnership with Hatch
General Fusion announced that it has entered into an industrial partnership with Hatch Ltd. (Hatch) to bring power plant engineering and other expertise to its Fusion Demonstration Plant project.  This partnership includes an investment by Hatch into the recently announced General Fusion USD $65 million Se
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Date:
01/09/2020
Altair Acquires newFASANT, Grows Electromagnetics Portfolio

The GTD module is used to analyze the propagation and study the coverage of several antennas placed in an urban environment.

Altair announced the acquisition of newFASANT, offering leading technology in computational and high-frequency electromagnetics. newFASANT’s solutions address a wide range of electromagnetic problems in areas such as antenna design and placement, radar cross section (RCS) analysis, automotive V2V/ADAS, and
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Date:
01/06/2020
Nanoscale Sensors see how High Pressure Affects Materials

Krishan Kumar Pandey, Valery Levitas and Mehdi Kamrani, left to right, study materials subject to high pressures in Levitas' Iowa State University laboratory.

Researchers have developed new nanoscale technology to image and measure more of the stresses and strains on materials under high pressures. As the researchers reported in the journal Science, that matters because, "Pressure alters the physical, chemical and electronic properties of matter."
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Date:
01/06/2020
Sublimation: Graphene Surprises Researchers Again

Abstraction

Physicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Institute for High Pressure Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences have used computer modeling to refine the melting curve of graphite that has been studied for over 100 years, with inconsistent findings. They also found that graphene &q
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Date:
01/06/2020
Smart Watch Display Shipments Total 57 Million in Q3
After a year of sustained strong growth in 2018, shipments of smart watch displays have continued to rise in 2019, reaching 57 million units in the third quarter, according to IHS Markit | Technology, now part of Informa Tech. Shipments rose by 34 percent year-on-year in the third quarter. For the entire year of 2019
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Date:
01/06/2020
Abracon Acquires ILSI America LLC
Abracon, LLC (Abracon) announces the successful acquisition of ILSI America LLC. Abracon will continue supporting the ILSI, MMD, Ecliptek and Oscilent brands for new and existing customers. The ILSI America product portfolio complements Abracon’s existing product offerings and provides Abracon’s global cu
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Date:
01/06/2020
The 'Dark Side' of a Single-Crystal Complex Oxide Thin Film

Argonne scientists have looked at the local ferroelectric properties of the bottom atomic layers of freestanding complex oxide PZT detached from the epitaxial substrate.

Analysis from a team led by Argonne researchers reveals never-before-seen details about a type of thin film being explored for advanced microelectronics. Research from a team led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory offers a new, nanoscopic view of complex ox
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Date:
01/06/2020
Power Dressing

The mechanical and thermoelectrical self-healing process of the composite film.

Reproduced with permission from reference one

Wearable electronics could be perpetually powered by stretchy, self-mending materials that use body heat to generate electricity. Three carefully curated organic compounds have been combined to develop a prototype thermoelectric material that is both stretchy and self-healing, can generate its own electricity, an
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Date:
01/06/2020
BP Looks to ORNL, ADIOS to Help Rein in Data

The Adaptable IO System (ADIOS) provides a simple, flexible way for scientists to describe the data in their code that may need to be written, read, or processed outside of the running simulation.

Researchers across the scientific spectrum crave data, as it is essential to understanding the natural world and, by extension, accelerating scientific progress. Lately, however, the tools of scientific endeavor have become so powerful that the amount of data obtained from experiments and observations is often un
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Date:
01/03/2020
Researchers Build a Particle Accelerator That Fits on a Chip

This image, magnified 25,000 times, shows a section of a prototype accelerator-on-a-chip. The segment shown here are one-tenth the width of a human.

On a hillside above Stanford University, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operates a scientific instrument nearly 2 miles long. In this giant accelerator, a stream of electrons flows through a vacuum pipe, as bursts of microwave radiation nudge the particles ever-faster forward until their velocity approaches th
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Date:
01/03/2020
Supply of Minerals and Metals for a Low-Carbon Energy Future

Cobalt miner operating in the DRC.

The global low-carbon revolution could be at risk unless new international agreements and governance mechanisms are put in place to ensure a sustainable supply of rare minerals and metals, a new academic study has warned. The amount of cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and rare earth elements needed for solar
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Date:
01/03/2020
Treatment of Spaceflight Medical Risk 200+ Miles Above Earth

International Space Station

Serena Auñón-Chancellor, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine's branch campus in Baton Rouge, is the lead author of a paper describing a previously unrecognized risk of spaceflight discovered during a study of astronauts involved in long-duration mis
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Date:
01/03/2020
Monash Creates World's Most Efficient Lithium-Sulfur Battery

Associate Professor Matthew Hill, Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani and Professor Mainak Majumder.

Monash University researchers have developed the world's most efficient lithium-sulphur battery, capable of powering a smartphone for five continuous days. Prototype cells have been developed in Germany. Further testing in cars and solar grids to take place in Australia in 2020. Researchers have a filed patent on the
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Date:
01/03/2020
Tighe & Bond Acquires Halvorson Design
Tighe & Bond, which does engineering and environmental consulting, announces it has acquired Boston-based Halvorson Design, a firm specializing in landscape architecture, planning and urban design. The acquisition expands the geographic footprint, capabilities and sector expertise of both firms, and offers cl
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Date:
01/02/2020
Finding Ways to Overcome Signal Loss in Magnonic Circuits

Study co-author Alexander Sadovnikov and the experimental setup for Brillouin spectroscopy.

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, and N.G. Chernyshevsky Saratov State University have demonstrated that the coupling elements in magnonic logic circuits are so crucial that a poorly selected waveguide can lead to signal lo
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Date:
01/02/2020
Reversing Electrons' Course Through Nature's Solar Cells
Think of a train coming down the tracks to a switch point where it could go either to the right or the left -- and it always goes to the right. Photosynthetic organisms have a similar switch point. After sunlight is absorbed, energy transfers rapidly to a protein called the reaction center. From this point, th
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Date:
01/02/2020
Researchers Advance Quantum Computer Performance Benchmark

An ORNL research team lead is developing a universal benchmark for the accuracy and performance of quantum computers based on quantum chemistry simulations.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a quantum chemistry simulation benchmark to evaluate the performance of quantum devices and guide the development of applications for future quantum computers. Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information. Quantum computers use the laws of
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Date:
01/02/2020
Spectroscopy: A Fine Sense for Molecules
Scientists at the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics have developed a unique laser technology for the analysis of the molecular composition of biological samples. It is capable of detecting minimal variations in the chemical make up of organic systems. At the biochemical level, organisms can be thought of as com
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Date:
01/01/2020
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