- Number 450 |
- October 19, 2015
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Making 3-D objects disappear
Invisibility cloaks are a staple of science fiction and fantasy, from Star Trek to Harry Potter, but don’t exist in real life, or do they? Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have devised an ultra-thin invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well.
Working with brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas, the Berkeley researchers fashioned a “skin cloak” barely 80 nanometers in thickness, that was wrapped around a three-dimensional object about the size of a few biological cells and arbitrarily shaped with multiple bumps and dents. The surface of the skin cloak was meta-engineered to reroute reflected light waves so that the object was rendered invisible to optical detection when the cloak is activated. -
New equation bolsters multiphase modeling code
While designing models for the Multiphase Flow with Interphase Exchanges (MFiX) code, one of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s most robust computational tools, Physical Research Scientist Jordan Musser realized that an important component of energy system behavior was not accurately accounted for in the existing code. In energy systems, it is common for more than one phase of matter to interact with another, a phenomenon known as multiphase flow. For instance, during combustion and gasification, coal particles interact with gases, creating a gas-solid.
Within these flows, the constituents may change phases during reactions, releasing heat energy that researchers must carefully account for as they build models to predict how energy systems will behave. More accuracy provides greater confidence in these tools which may be used to reduce scale-up time and decrease capital investments, leading to cheaper, more efficient systems that will be deployed more rapidly. -
NREL helps federal agencies reach new efficiency targets
When it comes to energy use, what the federal government wants is more of less. That means fewer greenhouse gases, fewer buildings powered solely by electricity generated from fossil fuels, and fewer gas-guzzling fleets on the road.
An executive order issued by the White House in March puts greater emphasis on work done at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to help government agencies meet their goals. NREL has long been a resource for federal agencies on energy efficiency efforts and renewable energy technology. The newest executive order calls for tougher goals and spurs agencies to do more than what they've done already. -
Lawrence Livermore 3-D printing device combines laser, digital tech
A 3D-printing device developed by an optical engineer at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has garnered a 2015 Federal Laboratory Consortium (link is external) (FLC) Far West Region Award for outstanding technology development.
The award, given for the Large Area Projection Micro Stereolithography (LAPµSL) technology, was presented to Bryan Moran at the recent FLC Far West/Mid-Continent Region meeting in San Diego.
The LAPµSL is an image projection micro-stereolithography system that rapidly produces very small features over large areas, by using optical techniques to write images in parallel, as opposed to conventional techniques, which either require mechanical stages moves or the rastering of beams to expose pixels in series.