all engineering stories

Materials scientists find better model for glass creation

404132862 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:09:50 -0500

Harvard materials scientists have come up with what they believe is a new way to model the formation of glasses, a type of amorphous solid that includes common window glass.

Glasses form through the process of vitrification, in which a glass-forming liquid cools and slowly becomes a solid whose molecules, though they’ve stopped moving, are not permanently locked into a crystal structure. Instead, they’re more like a liquid that has merely stopped flowing, though they can continue to move over long stretches of time.

Harvard scientists bend nanowires into 2-D and 3-D structures

404132862 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:10:33 -0400

Taking nanomaterials to a new level of structural complexity, Harvard researchers have determined how to introduce kinks into arrow-straight nanowires, transforming them into zigzagging two- and three-dimensional structures with correspondingly advanced functions.

The work is described this week in in a letter in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by scientists led by Bozhi Tian and Charles M. Lieber.

Scientists expect wildfires to increase as climate warms in the coming decades

404132862 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:30:09 -0400

As the climate warms in the coming decades, atmospheric scientists at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase in many regions. The spike in the number of fires could also adversely affect air quality due to the greater presence of smoke.

Frans Spaepen named interim director of Center for Nanoscale Systems

50443248 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:59:26 -0400

Frans Spaepen, director of the Rowland Institute, will serve as interim director of Harvard University’s Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS) starting July 1, upon completion of his term as interim dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Cherry A. Murray is named dean of SEAS

90581724 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:56:42 -0400

Cherry A. Murray, who has led some of the nation’s most brilliant scientists and engineers at Bell Laboratories and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been appointed dean of Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective July 1, 2009.

She will also become the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

David Clarke appointed as professor of materials in School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

404132862 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:02:27 -0500

David R. Clarke, an inventive materials scientist recognized worldwide for his out-standing contributions to the study of ceramic materials, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Materials in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sci-ences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009.

Clarke, 61, is currently professor of materials and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He joined UCSB in 1990, chairing the department of materials from 1991 to 1998 and serving as associate dean of the College of Engineering from 2002 to 2004.

Evelyn Hu named professor of applied physics, electrical engineering in SEAS

404132862 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:08:54 -0500

Evelyn L. Hu, a pioneer in the fabrication of nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, has been named Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective Jan. 1, 2009.

Hu, 61, is currently professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Uni-versity of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), a position she has held since 1984. She has also served since 2000 as scientific co-director of the California Nanosystems Institute, a joint initiative at UCSB and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Samuel Kou appointed professor of statistics

404132862 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:58:46 -0400

Samuel Kou, whose modeling of nanoscale processes within molecules has opened up important new frontiers at the intersection of statistics and chemistry, has been appointed professor of statistics in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2008.

Kou, 33, was previously John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard, where he has been on the faculty since 2001.

Five faculty members named young innovators by Technology Review

404132862 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:24:12 -0400

Work on flying robots, surgical tape modeled on gecko feet, energy tips gleaned from plants, new ways to grow stem cells, and dramatically smaller medical imaging equipment has landed five Harvard faculty members on a list of the world’s top 35 young innovators.

The annual list is compiled by Technology Review magazine and features what the editors and a panel of judges see as the 35 top innovators in business and technology who are under the age of 35.

Scientists demonstrate highly directional semiconductor lasers

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:42:02 -0400

Applied scientists at Harvard collaborating with researchers at Hamamatsu Photonics in Hamamatsu City, Japan, have demonstrated, for the first time, highly directional semiconductor lasers with a much smaller beam divergence than conventional ones. The innovation opens the door to a wide range of applications in photonics and communications. Harvard University has also filed a broad patent on the invention.

Creating semiconductor lasers

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:45:57 -0400

Lasers are often considered to be highly directional light sources:
their beams are able to propagate over long distances without
substantial spreading. This, however, is not always the case.
Semiconductor lasers, the most commonly used among all lasers, suffer
from a large beam divergence. Such divergence is governed by the
principle of diffraction, which predicts bending and spreading of light
around small obstacles or apertures. Light beams endure strong
diffraction when emerging from the small light-emitting regions of
semiconductor lasers (the dimensions of which are comparable to the
laser wavelength). This leads to a beam divergence angle of tens of
degrees for most semiconductor lasers.

DARPA awards interdisciplinary research team $1.2 million grant to study surface enhanced Raman scattering

404132862 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:19:05 -0400

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a $1.2 million grant to an interdisciplinary team of Harvard researchers to study surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for the first phase of a potential three-year effort. If all phases of the development program
are completed, researchers could receive up a total of up to $2.9 million in funding.

Researchers develop new technique for fabricating nanowire circuits

404132862 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:11:39 -0400

Scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), collaborating collaborating with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.

Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences to step down

404132862 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:16:40 -0500

Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), who for 10 years has directed the renewal and expansion of the former division and its transition to a School, has announced today (Feb. 15) his intention to step down from his position in September 2008.

Engineered weathering process might mitigate climate change

404132862 — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:34:16 -0500

Researchers at Harvard University and Penn State University have invented a technology, inspired by nature, to reduce the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human emissions.

By electrochemically removing hydrochloric acid from the ocean and then neutralizing the acid by reaction with silicate (volcanic) rocks, the researchers say they can accelerate natural chemical weathering, permanently transferring CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean. Unlike other ocean sequestration processes, the new technology does not further acidify the ocean and may be beneficial to coral reefs.