Friday, August 28, 2009
Manipulating tiny objects like single cells or nanosized beads often requires relatively large, unwieldy equipment, but now a system that uses sound as a tiny tweezers can be small enough to place on a chip, according to Penn State engineers. (more)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Like tiny Jedi knights, tunable fluidic micro lenses can focus and direct light at will to count cells, evaluate molecules or create on-chip optical tweezers, according to a team of Penn State engineers. They may also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity and discomfort of moving the tip of a probe. (more)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Plasmonics -- a possible replacement for current computing approaches -- may pave the way for the next generation of computers that operate faster and store more information than electronically-based systems and are smaller than optically-based systems, according to a Penn State engineer who has developed a plasmonic switch. (more)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A team led by Tony Jun Huang, the James Henderson assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, has developed a working plasmonic switch, the first step in building optical computers with frequencies 100,000 times greater than the ones of current microprocessors. Research by Huang's Biofunctionalized NanoElectroMechanicalSystems (BioNEMS) group will lead to advances that can make possible online video streaming with the quality of high-end home theater systems and computer programs running a thousand times faster. (more)
