Power and Electrical Engineering

Car battery failing? Hazardous material leaching? Oil level dropping?

There you are, tapping your fingers on the cold steering wheel as your windows cloud over from your breath. How could you have known your car battery was that low? Sending weak beams of light through inexpensive glass tubes that resemble soda straws, Sandia National Laboratories researcher Jonathan Weiss – dubbed by some the “light wizard” – can inexpensively solve problems ranging from the migration of waste th

Imagine a home with “smart” walls responsive to the environment in the room, a digital camera sensitive enough to work in the dark, or clothing with the capacity to turn the sun’s power into electrical energy. Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that could shortly turn these possibilities into realities.

In a paper to be published on the Nature Materials website Jan. 9, senior author Professor Ted Sargent, Nortel Networks – Canad

CNSE spintronics lab research shows silicon can maintain a permanent magnetic field above room temperature, which could help to develop more effective magnetic semiconductors and future spintronic devices

Silicon is best known as the material used to make semiconductor computer chips with integrated circuits. Today, scientists at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the University at Albany published research that could lay the foundation for using silic

MIT and Columbia University students and researchers have begun operation of a novel experiment that confines high-temperature ionized gas, called plasma, using the strong magnetic fields from a half-ton superconducting ring inside a huge vessel reminiscent of a spaceship. The experiment, the first of its kind, will test whether nature’s way of confining high-temperature gas might lead to a new source of energy for the world.

First results from the Levitated Dipole Experiment

Researchers at Oregon State University and Hewlett Packard have reported their first example of an entirely new class of materials which could be used to make transparent transistors that are inexpensive, stable, and environmentally benign. This could lead to new industries and a broad range of new consumer products, scientists say.

The possibilities include electronic devices produced so cheaply they could almost be one-time “throw away” products, better large-area electronics

As the snow falls, many look forward to the thrill of a day spent snowmobiling, but this sport is not eagerly anticipated by all. Some find the noise and gas emission levels unbearable. McGill University researchers are at the forefront of looking for solutions to these concerns by making snowmobiles and other power-sport recreational vehicles clean and quiet.

“People associate snowmobiles with noise and gas pollution” said Simon Ouellette, project manager of the McGill University