A new initiative, Q-FARM, between DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford, joins forces to make progress in the field of quantum information science (QIS). In this Q&A two Q-FARM scientists explain what is QIS and how they will explore the quantum world through projects funded by DOE QIS awards in high-energy physics.
A new combustion chamber developed by Matthias Ihme's lab, associate professor, mechanical engineering, will improve engine efficiency by more than 10%, getting more thrust from less fuel. The team has developed a small-scale prototype which they believe more precisely controls the ratio of air to fuel inside the combustion chamber.
Stanford professor Charbel Farhat, Aeronautics and Astronautics, an expert in computational fluid and structural dynamics and fluid-structure interaction, worked with the Jet Propulsion Lab to develop computer simulations to help JPL improve their parachute designs to be used for future Mars rovers like the rover Curiousity which touched down on Mars in 2012. Future missions are likely to require larger payloads and require larger parachutes.
Stanford researchers found that after people experienced augmented reality (AR) their interactions in their physical world changed as well - even with the AR device removed. These findings that using AR can change where you walk, how well you do on tasks and how you connect socially with other physical people in the room mirrors much of the research this group has done on virtual reality.
Stanford grads who founded Airity Technologies, are working to disrupt the high-voltage power supplies market to open up whole sectors of new applications for mobility and energy systems by providing smaller, cheaper, faster, or more efficient power supplies. The idea for Airity started when co-founder Luke Raymond, a former student working with assistant professor Juan Rivas-Davila, was researching power conversion, studying new approaches for amplifying one voltage to a higher one.
Stanford researchers used micro-Raman spectroscopy to induce and sense localized high temperature inside a lithium battery. Studying the effects of tiny areas, hotspots, within lithium batteries which grow spiky tumors called dendrites that could cause short circuits and potentially lead to fires provides important insights to the development of safer batteries, thermal management schemes and diagnostic tools.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, Nicholas Ouellette, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering found that mated pairs of birds are loyal to each other and not to the group as a whole which has implications for the flight of the entire flock. In the future of autonomous vehicles based on conventional group behavior , Ouellete says, changes will need to be made by scientists and engineers for vehicle behavior of different species/makers.
The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) was designed to generate X-ray pulses a billion times brighter than anything before, producing high energy X-ray pulses that would last for femtoseconds, millionths of a billionth of a second. The US Dept of Energy invested in LCLS and in April 2009, after more than a decade of development, SLAC made history when the first light from LCLS was produced. See the 10 areas where LCLS has pushed boundaries.
Quantum dots, tiny, easy-to-produce particles, may soon replace more expensive single crystal semiconductors but have been hampered by uncertainties about their quality. A new measurement technique developed by researchers focusing on how efficiently quantum dots reemit the light they absorb, one telltale measure of semiconductor quality, shows they could compete with single crystals.
A new VLF antenna developed by SLAC researchers is compact (4-inches tall) and weighs only a few pounds. The device emits very low frequency (VLF) radiation with wavelengths of tens to hundreds of miles and could enable mobile communication where conventional radios don't work such as through ground and water and thousands of miles beyond the horizon through air.
