Electrical Engineering

In modern computer systems, processor and memory chips are laid out like single-story structures in a suburb. But suburban layouts waste time and energy. A new skyscraper-like design, based on materials more advanced than silicon, provides the next computing platform.

For decades, engineers have designed computer systems with processors and memory chips laid out like single-story structures in a suburb. Wires connect these chips like streets, carrying digital traffic between the processors that compute data and the memory chips that store it.

But suburban-style layouts create long commutes and regular traffic jams in electronic circuits, wasting time and energy.

Last modified Thu, 10 Dec, 2015 at 15:42

El Gamal is noted for contributions to network multi-user information theory and for impact on programmable circuit architectures

Abbas El Gamal is the Hitachi America Professor in the School of Engineering and the Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. He has been awarded the 2016 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. The award's citation reads, "for contributions to network multi-user information theory and for wide ranging impact on programmable circuit architectures."

Last modified Thu, 3 Dec, 2015 at 10:31

A new technology has promise to safely find buried plastic explosives and maybe even spot fast-growing tumors. The technique involves the clever interplay of microwaves and ultrasound to develop a detector like the Star Trek tricorder.

When Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy needs to diagnose an ill member of the Starship Enterprise, he simply points his tricorder device at their body and it identifies their malady without probing or prodding. Similarly, when Capt. Kirk beams down to an alien world, his tricorder quickly analyzes if the atmosphere is safe to breathe.

Last modified Mon, 9 Nov, 2015 at 16:47

Only an atom thick, graphene is a key ingredient in three Stanford projects to create data storage technologies that use nanomaterials other than standard silicon.

The memory chips in phones, laptops and other electronic devices need to be small, fast and draw as little power as possible. For years, silicon chips have delivered on that promise.

But to dramatically extend the battery life of mobile gadgets, and to create data centers that use far less energy, engineers are developing memory chips based on new nanomaterials with capabilities that silicon can't match.

Last modified Fri, 23 Oct, 2015 at 15:22

The hotter solar cells become, the less efficient they are at converting sunlight to electricity, a problem that has long vexed the solar industry. Now, Stanford engineers have developed a transparent overlay that increases efficiency by cooling the cells even in full sunlight.

Stanford engineers have invented a transparent material that improves the efficiency of solar cells by radiating thermal energy (heat) into space.

Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe: Heat from the top of your head radiates into space as infrared light.

Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon. Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.

Last modified Mon, 28 Sep, 2015 at 9:35

What Mathematical Algorithms Can Do for the Real (and Even Fake) World

In this talk I will try to give a personal overview of the role of mathematics in designing algorithms that domain scientists find useful, and how new applications emerge serendipitously.

Thursday and Friday, September 17-18, 2015

http://kailathlecture.stanford.edu/

Last modified Wed, 16 Sep, 2015 at 15:44

A blue glowing device the size of a peppercorn can activate neurons of the brain, spinal cord or limbs in mice and is powered wirelessly using the mouse's own body to transfer energy. Developed by a Stanford Bio-X team, the device is the first to deliver optogenetic nerve stimulation in a fully implantable format.

A miniature device that combines optogenetics – using light to control the activity of the brain – with a newly developed technique for wirelessly powering implanted devices is the first fully internal method of delivering optogenetics. 

The device dramatically expands the scope of research that can be carried out through optogenetics to include experiments involving mice in enclosed spaces or interacting freely with other animals. The work is published in the Aug. 17 edition of Nature Methods.

Last modified Thu, 3 Sep, 2015 at 9:53

Assistant Professor Gordon Wetzstein's new Stanford Computational Imaging Group has developed a light-field stereoscope that creates a dramatically more natural virtual reality experience than what is present in today's leading headsets.

Try on any virtual reality headset, and within a few minutes the sense of wonder might wear off and leave you with a headache or a topsy-turvy stomach.

Last modified Thu, 3 Sep, 2015 at 10:11

Years of work have yielded a technique that continuously corrects brain readings to give people with spinal cord injuries a more precise way to tap out commands by using a thought-controlled cursor. A pilot clinical trial for human use is underway.

When we type or perform other precise tasks, our brains and muscles usually work together effortlessly.

But when a neurological disease or spinal cord injury severs the connection between the brain and limbs, once-easy motions become difficult or impossible.

In recent years researchers have sought to give people suffering from injury or disease some restored motor function by developing thought-controlled prostheses.

Such devices tap into the relevant regions of the brain, bypass damaged connections and deliver thought commands to devices such as virtual keypads.

Last modified Fri, 31 Jul, 2015 at 10:01

Building on the success of its first year, the Innovation Transfer Program at the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy is financially supporting 11 new teams composed mostly of Stanford students and recent graduates trying to put university research to work.

Miniature ultrasound sensors embedded in windmill blades could help avoid catastrophic failures and reduce wind power costs by replacing field inspections with online monitoring.

Stanford Engineering students Alex Guo and Kevin Zheng have set out to show that their sensor system, developed in the laboratory of electrical engineering Associate Professor Boris Murmann, can be commercialized. Then they plan to develop applications for monitoring pipelines, trains, planes and other critical infrastructure.

Last modified Wed, 29 Jul, 2015 at 11:05