Tag Archives: Seoul National University (SNU)

Novel visible light communication encryption technology using chiral nanoparticles

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One of the most intriguing (yes, it’s a pun) encryption stories (for me) is centuries old and concerns Mary Queen of Scots, from a February 10, 2023 article by Meilan Solly for Smithsonian Magazine, Note: Links have been removed,

Over the course of her 19 years in captivity, Mary, Queen of Scots, wrote thousands of letters to ambassadors, government officials, fellow monarchs and conspirators alike. Most of these missives had the same underlying goal: securing the deposed Scottish queen’s freedom. After losing her throne in 1567, Mary had fled to England, hoping to find refuge at her cousin Elizabeth I’s court. (Mary’s paternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was the sister of Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII.) Instead, the English queen imprisoned Mary, keeping her under house arrest for nearly two decades before ordering her execution in 1587.

Mary’s letters have long fascinated scholars and the public, providing a glimpse into her relentless efforts to secure her release. But the former queen’s correspondence often raises more questions than it answers, in part because Mary took extensive steps to hide her messages from the prying eyes of Elizabeth’s spies. In addition to folding the pages with a technique known as letterlocking, she employed ciphers and codes of varying complexity.

More than 400 years after Mary’s death, a chance discovery by a trio of code breakers is offering new insights into the queen’s final years. As the researchers write in the journal Cryptologia, they originally decided to examine a cache of coded notes housed at the National Library of France as part of a broader push to “locate, digitize, transcribe, decipher and analyze” historic ciphers. Those pages turned out to be 57 of Mary’s encrypted letters, the majority of which were sent to Michel de Castelnau, the French ambassador to England, between 1578 and 1584. All but seven were previously thought to be lost.

Interspersed with a collection of early 16th-century Italian papers, the documents were written in mysterious symbols that offered no clues “as to their sender, recipients or date,” lead author George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer based in Israel, tells Smithsonian magazine. It was only when the scholars spotted the word “Walsingham”—the last name of Elizabeth’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham—that they realized the letters’ significance.

“This was the ‘bingo moment,’” Lasry says. “We were very excited.”

Before getting too excited, the trio set out to confirm whether the letters were already known to historians. While they found copies of a few in British archives, “50 or so are new to historians—and a real gold mine for them,” says Lasry. In total, the letters contain 50,000 words of deciphered material.

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Fascinating, non?

An October 10, 2024 news item on Nanowerk sheds light (more wordplay) on a contemporary approach to encryption,

Seoul National University(SNU) College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Professor Ki Tae Nam from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at SNU and Professor Junil Choi from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed a novel visible light communication encryption technology with high security using chiral nanoparticles.

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A September 30, 2024 Seoul National University (SNU) press release (also on EurekAlert but published on October 10, 2024), which originated the news item, describes the research in more detail,

Just as a lighthouse provides a guiding beam in the vast darkness of the sea, light-based information transmission has been a crucial means of communication throughout human history. Recently, next-generation communication technology based on visible light, which possesses high frequencies and linearity, has gained attention. It offers advantages such as integration with lighting systems and is free from the electromagnetic interference associated with conventional communication networks. With high security and fast transmission speeds, visible light communication is particularly suitable for local communication systems, especially in military operations involving vehicles, drones, and personnel.

In addition to intensity and wavelength (color), light can carry a vast amount of information through polarization. For instance, 3D movies use polarized filters to deliver two different polarized images to the viewer’s eyes, creating a sense of depth. Recently, efforts have been made to improve the security and performance of visible light communication, including the incorporation of technologies related to polarization, such as quantum information communication based on the superposition of polarization.

The SNU-KAIST joint research team focused on how light polarization can be significantly modulated through interaction with nanomaterials. In this study, they developed an innovative visible light communication encryption technology based on new materials. The core of this technology lies in chiral nanomaterials, which exhibit a symmetric structure when viewed in a mirror but do not overlap. These materials can significantly adjust the tilt of the polarization axis or its rotational properties. Having previously published two papers in 2018 and 2022 in the prestigious journal Nature on “the synthesis and optical device application of chiral nanoparticles with world-class polarization control performance,” the research team has now introduced a visible light communication encryption technology that cannot be replicated or intercepted without detailed information about the nanoparticles.

The chiral nanoparticles used in this technology are created by twisting their crystal structure using biomolecules like proteins and DNA, which possess natural chirality. The optical properties of these nanoparticles cannot be replicated without complete sequence information of the biomolecules used in their synthesis. Therefore, chiral nanoparticles function like fingerprints or unclonable keys in visible light communication, allowing only the receiver with the actual nanoparticles to correctly decode the information. This encryption technology is expected to have significant utility in secure point-to-point communication systems, such as those used in military operations involving drones.

Furthermore, the research team developed a spatiotemporal polarization control device capable of transmitting encrypted polarization information. By combining quantum nanorods, which efficiently emit polarized light, with nanowire materials that provide rotational properties to the light, they used 3D printing to fabricate a polarization control device with hundreds of micrometers of spatial resolution and nanoseconds of temporal resolution, allowing all polarization states to be represented without restriction. The transmitting unit can encrypt and transmit polarization information in a form suited to the polarization control properties of the nanoparticles using this device. This technology is expected to be the foundation for mass production of devices that can control spatiotemporal polarization without being constrained by form factor.

Professor Ki Tae Nam from SNU’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering said, “This research, which actively combines new material technologies with communication technologies, played a crucial role in developing the world’s first and only visible light communication encryption technology. We expect this technology to not only contribute to national defense but also be commercialized rapidly in industrial fields like display technology.” Professor Junil Choi from KAIST’s School of Electrical Engineering added, “This outstanding research result was achieved through joint efforts between material science and electrical engineering experts. In the future, we aim to further develop visible light communication technology based on nanoparticles to create communication systems that are fundamentally impossible to eavesdrop on.” Co-first author Jeong Hyun Han also stated, “We anticipate that this encryption system will act as a platform with great scalability and impact in the field of optical information transmission based on polarization.”

This research was supported by the Future Defense Technology Development Program of the Agency for Defense Development, the Basic Research Laboratory Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea, and private support from LG Display. The research outcome, which has been recognized for its significance, was published in the prestigious multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications on September 27 [2024].

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Spatiotemporally modulated full-polarized light emission for multiplexed optical encryption by Jiawei Lv, Jeong Hyun Han, Geonho Han, Seongmin An, Seung Ju Kim, Ryeong Myeong Kim, Jung‐El Ryu, Rena Oh, Hyuckjin Choi, In Han Ha, Yoon Ho Lee, Minje Kim, Gyeong-Su Park, Ho Won Jang, Junsang Doh, Junil Choi & Ki Tae Nam. Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 8257 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52358-7 Published: 27 September 2024

This paper is open access.

Multifunctional smart windows that lower indoor temperatures without consuming power and can generate electricity from raindrops

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Caption: Figure 1: The main functions of the multifunctional smart windows for implementing Plus Energy (transparent radiative cooling, power generation, and fog and frost removal technology). Credit: © Seoul National University College of Engineering

I’m always a sucker for a ‘smart window’ story and this one from Korea with its reference to harvesting energy from raindrops seems particularly intriguing. From an August 13, 2024 Seoul National University (SNU) press release, also on EurekAlert but published August 22, 2024,

■ Research Necessity

o Recently, with the significant increase in cooling demand due to global warming, a vast amount of energy is being consumed for heat management inside buildings. Existing windows, which have a high solar absorption rate and low reflectance, lead to considerable energy loss. Therefore, energy-saving windows are emerging as a practical solution to global challenges such as responding to climate change and ensuring energy sustainability. These windows not only provide optimal thermal comfort to occupants but also contribute to economic development by reducing dependence on conventional cooling systems.

o For windows to effectively save energy in buildings, it is necessary to adopt energy-efficient cooling technology (Zero Energy) and further ensure energy harvesting methods (Plus Energy) that guarantee sustainable power supply. Additionally, windows must maintain high transparency, which is their fundamental function, even on cold or foggy days.

■ Research Achievements / Expected Effects

o The multifunctional smart windows developed in this research demonstrate their effectiveness as next-generation energy-saving devices by implementing three main functions.

o First, they provide radiative cooling that lowers indoor temperature on sunny days without energy input. Second, they generate electricity using raindrops on rainy days. Third, they implement a transparent heater function to quickly remove frost from the windows on cold days.

■ Research Details 

□ Research Content Overview

o The research team led by Professor Seung Hwan Ko from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University has developed “multifunctional smart window technology” that lowers indoor temperatures without electricity consumption and generates power using the frictional electricity from raindrops. This research is significant in that it pioneers new possibilities for Plus Energy technology, surpassing Zero Energy to contribute to improving energy self-sufficiency in response to global warming.

□ Background

o Recently, implementing Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs) that surpass Zero Energy has become a key task for achieving energy self-sufficiency in buildings. Next-generation PEBs are buildings that go beyond minimizing energy loads and can autonomously produce energy. Buildings inherently consume a massive amount of energy for heat management, and with the rise in cooling demand due to global warming, energy usage has surged dramatically. Furthermore, existing windows with high solar absorption and low reflectivity result in substantial energy losses during cooling. Therefore, to realize economically efficient next-generation Plus Energy Buildings, it is necessary to develop multifunctional smart windows equipped with transparent cooling technology (Zero Energy-based) and further energy-harvesting technology (Plus Energy-based) that ensures sustainable power supply.
o To address these issues, researchers worldwide are focusing on the development of smart windows that maximize energy savings. Smart windows are often thought to adjust internal temperatures by changing color to control sunlight. However, this method has limitations since the windows become opaque during the cooling process, thus failing to maintain high transparency, which is the window’s primary function.

□ Key Research Methods

o The research team is actively working on developing new technologies that improve energy efficiency while preserving the transparency of windows. As part of this effort, Professor Ko’s research team developed a Zero Energy-based “transparent radiative cooling technology” that maintains transparency while enabling cooling without using electricity. Additionally, they developed energy-harvesting technology that produces electricity through the friction generated when raindrops contact the window surface, introducing a Plus Energy-based smart window technology that surpasses Zero Energy. The team also developed a transparent heater technology that quickly clears frost from windows on cold or foggy days, thereby implementing three functions—radiative cooling, power generation, and frost removal—simultaneously in a single device for the first time in the world.
o The research team achieved these three functionalities in a single device by fabricating windows with a layered structure of silver and ITO (Indium Tin Oxide), materials with excellent electrical conductivity and unique optical properties. First, the “transparent radiative cooling technology” minimizes the absorption of sunlight entering indoors while emitting radiant heat outdoors to lower the temperature. Unlike conventional air conditioning systems that use refrigerants, this radiative cooling technology offers cooling performance without consuming electrical energy. The research team focused on allowing only the visible light spectrum from sunlight to pass through the window while selectively reflecting near-infrared sunlight to lower indoor temperatures and maximize cooling. Second, the “frictional electricity-based power generation technology” generates electricity when raindrops contact the window surface on rainy days. For this purpose, an electrode material covering the window surface is necessary, and thanks to the excellent electrical conductivity of the layered silver and ITO structure, the smart window can generate electricity through frictional electricity. Lastly, through “Joule heating,” the transparent electrodes also serve as a heater that quickly removes frost or ice from the window, ensuring clear visibility on cold days. The multifunctional smart windows developed by the research team can provide transparent radiative cooling on sunny days, generate power on rainy days, and remove frost or ice on cold days.

□ Results

o The research team led by Professor Seung Hwan Ko confirmed that the smart windows they developed maintained a temperature approximately 7 degrees lower than regular windows in hot environments under direct sunlight. In an experiment simulating rainy conditions, the smart windows generated 8.3 W m-2 of power with just a single raindrop, while also clearing frost from the window twice as fast as regular windows through Joule heating, demonstrating both high performance and multifunctionality.

□ Expected Effects

o Professor Seung Hwan Ko stated, “This achievement of presenting next-generation smart window technology optimized for responding to the depletion of fossil fuels and global warming offers valuable insights into the technological advancements for Plus Energy buildings and the eco-friendly electric vehicle industry. Smart windows are expected to be applied across various industries because they address environmental pollution, reduce cooling energy, and overcome the limitations of conventional battery technologies through self-power generation.”

□ Achievements

o This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea, and it has gained global attention, being published in the October 2024 issue of the prestigious journal Nano Energy (Impact factor: 16.8, Top 5.3%) under the title: “Energy-saving window for versatile multimode of radiative cooling, energy harvesting, and defrosting functionalities.”

o Meanwhile, Dr. Yeongju Jung, the lead author of this study, is currently conducting follow-up research at Professor Ko’s laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Seoul National University and is preparing for a postdoctoral research fellowship abroad.

□ Introduction to the SNU College of Engineering

Seoul National University (SNU) founded in 1946 is the first national university in South Korea. The College of Engineering at SNU has worked tirelessly to achieve its goal of ‘fostering leaders for global industry and society.’ In 12 departments, 323 internationally recognized full-time professors lead the development of cutting-edge technology in South Korea and serving as a driving force for international development.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Energy-saving window for versatile multimode of radiative cooling, energy harvesting, and defrosting functionalities by Yeongju Jung, Ji-Seok Kim, Junhyuk Bang, Seok Hwan Choi, Kangkyu Kwon, Min Jae Lee, Il-Kwon Oh, Jaeman Song, Jinwoo Lee, Seung Hwan Ko. Nano Energy DVolume 129, Part A, October 2024, 110004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2024.110004 Available online 25 July 2024, Version of Record 25 July 2024

This paper is behind a paywall.

A kintsugi approach to fusion energy: seeing the beauty (strength) in your flaws

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Kintsugi is the Japanese word for a type of repair that is also art. “Golden joinery” is the literal meaning of the word, from the Traditional Kyoto. Culture_Kintsugi webpage,

Caption: An example of kintsugi repair by David Pike. (Photo courtesy of David Pike) [downloaded from https://traditionalkyoto.com/culture/kintsugi/]

A March 5, 2024 news item on phys.org links the art of kintsugi to fusion energy, specifically, managing plasma, Note: Links have been removed,

In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, an artist takes the broken shards of a bowl and fuses them back together with gold to make a final product more beautiful than the original.

That idea is inspiring a new approach to managing plasma, the super-hot state of matter, for use as a power source. Scientists are using the imperfections in magnetic fields that confine a reaction to improve and enhance the plasma in an approach outlined in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.

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A March 5, 2024 Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the research in more detail, Note: Links have been removed,

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“This approach allows you to maintain a high-performance plasma, controlling instabilities in the core and the edge of the plasma simultaneously. That simultaneous control is particularly important and difficult to do. That’s what makes this work special,” said Joseph Snipes of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). He is PPPL’s deputy head of the Tokamak Experimental Science Department and was a co-author of the paper.

PPPL Physicist Seong-Moo Yang led the research team, which spans various institutions in the U.S. and South Korea. Yang says this is the first time any research team has validated a systematic approach to tailoring magnetic field imperfections to make the plasma suitable for use as a power source. These magnetic field imperfections are known as error fields. 

“Our novel method identifies optimal error field corrections, enhancing plasma stability,” Yang said. “This method was proven to enhance plasma stability under different plasma conditions, for example, when the plasma was under conditions of high and low magnetic confinement.”

Errors that are hard to correct

Error fields are typically caused by minuscule defects in the magnetic coils of the device that holds the plasma, which is called a tokamak. Until now, error fields were only seen as a nuisance because even a very small error field could cause a plasma disruption that halts fusion reactions and can damage the walls of a fusion vessel. Consequently, fusion researchers have spent considerable time and effort meticulously finding ways to correct error fields.

“It’s quite difficult to eliminate existing error fields, so instead of fixing these coil irregularities, we can apply additional magnetic fields surrounding the fusion vessel in a process known as error field correction,” Yang said. 

In the past, this approach would have also hurt the plasma’s core, making the plasma unsuitable for fusion power generation. This time, the researchers were able to eliminate instabilities at the edge of the plasma and maintain the stability of the core. The research is a prime example of how PPPL researchers are bridging the gap between today’s fusion technology and what will be needed to bring fusion power to the electrical grid. 

“This is actually a very effective way of breaking the symmetry of the system, so humans can intentionally degrade the confinement. It’s like making a very tiny hole in a balloon so that it will not explode,” said SangKyeun Kim, a staff research scientist at PPPL and paper co-author. Just as air would leak out of a small hole in a balloon, a tiny quantity of plasma leaks out of the error field, which helps to maintain its overall stability.

Managing the core and the edge of the plasma simultaneously

One of the toughest parts of managing a fusion reaction is getting both the core and the edge of the plasma to behave at the same time. There are ideal zones for the temperature and density of the plasma in both regions, and hitting those targets while eliminating instabilities is tough.

This study demonstrates that adjusting the error fields can simultaneously stabilize both the core and the edge of the plasma. By carefully controlling the magnetic fields produced by the tokamak’s coils, the researchers could suppress edge instabilities, also known as edge localized modes (ELMs), without causing disruptions or a substantial loss of confinement.

“We are trying to protect the device,” said PPPL Staff Research Physicist Qiming Hu, an author of the paper. 

Extending the research beyond KSTAR

The research was conducted using the KSTAR tokamak in South Korea, which stands out for its ability to adjust its magnetic error field configuration with great flexibility. This capability is crucial for experimenting with different error field configurations to find the most effective ones for stabilizing the plasma.

The researchers say their approach has significant implications for the design of future tokamak fusion pilot plants, potentially making them more efficient and reliable. They are currently working on an artificial intelligence (AI) version of their control system to make it more efficient.

“These models are fairly complex; they take a bit of time to calculate. But when you want to do something in a real-time control system, you can only afford a few milliseconds to do a calculation,” said Snipes. “Using AI, you can basically teach the system what to expect and be able to use that artificial intelligence to predict ahead of time what will be necessary to control the plasma and how to implement it in real-time.”

While their new paper highlights work done using KSTAR’s internal magnetic coils, Hu suggests future research with magnetic coils outside of the fusion vessel would be valuable because the fusion community is moving away from the idea of housing such coils inside the vacuum-sealed vessel due to the potential destruction of such components from the extreme heat of the plasma.

Researchers from the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE), Columbia University, and Seoul National University were also integral to the project.

The research was supported by: the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC02-09CH11466; the Ministry of Science and ICT under the KFE R&D Program “KSTAR Experimental Collaboration and Fusion Plasma Research (KFE-EN2401-15)”; the National Research Foundation (NRF) grant No. RS-2023-00281272 funded through the Korean Ministry of Science, Information and Communication Technology and the New Faculty Startup Fund from Seoul National University; the NRF under grants No. 2019R1F1A1057545 and No. 2022R1F1A1073863; the National R&D Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Science & ICT (NRF-2019R1A2C1010757).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Tailoring tokamak error fields to control plasma instabilities and transport by SeongMoo Yang, Jong-Kyu Park, YoungMu Jeon, Nikolas C. Logan, Jaehyun Lee, Qiming Hu, JongHa Lee, SangKyeun Kim, Jaewook Kim, Hyungho Lee, Yong-Su Na, Taik Soo Hahm, Gyungjin Choi, Joseph A. Snipes, Gunyoung Park & Won-Ha Ko. Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 1275 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45454-1 Published: 10 February 2024

This paper is open access.

Resurrection consent for digital cloning of the dead

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It’s a bit disconcerting to think that one might be resurrected, in this case, digitally, but Dr Masaki Iwasaki has helpfully published a study on attitudes to digital cloning and resurrection consent, which could prove helpful when establishing one’s final wishes.

A January 4, 2024 De Gruyter (publisher) press release (repurposed from a January 4, 2024 blog posting on De Gruyter.com) explains the idea and the study,

In a 2014 episode of sci-fi series Black Mirror, a grieving young widow reconnects with her dead husband using an app that trawls his social media history to mimic his online language, humor and personality. It works. She finds solace in the early interactions – but soon wants more.   

Such a scenario is no longer fiction. In 2017, the company Eternime aimed to create an avatar of a dead person using their digital footprint, but this “Skype for the dead” didn’t catch on. The machine-learning and AI algorithms just weren’t ready for it. Neither were we.

Now, in 2024, amid exploding use of Chat GPT-like programs, similar efforts are on the way. But should digital resurrection be allowed at all? And are we prepared for the legal battles over what constitutes consent?

In a study published in the Asian Journal of Law and Economics, Dr Masaki Iwasaki of Harvard Law School and currently an assistant professor at Seoul National University, explores how the deceased’s consent (or otherwise) affects attitudes to digital resurrection.

US adults were presented with scenarios where a woman in her 20s dies in a car accident. A company offers to bring a digital version of her back, but her consent is, at first, ambiguous. What should her friends decide?

Two options – one where the deceased has consented to digital resurrection and another where she hasn’t – were read by participants at random. They then answered questions about the social acceptability of bringing her back on a five-point rating scale, considering other factors such as ethics and privacy concerns.

Results showed that expressed consent shifted acceptability two points higher compared to dissent. “Although I expected societal acceptability for digital resurrection to be higher when consent was expressed, the stark difference in acceptance rates – 58% for consent versus 3% for dissent – was surprising,” says Iwasaki. “This highlights the crucial role of the deceased’s wishes in shaping public opinion on digital resurrection.”

In fact, 59% of respondents disagreed with their own digital resurrection, and around 40% of respondents did not find any kind of digital resurrection socially acceptable, even with expressed consent. “While the will of the deceased is important in determining the societal acceptability of digital resurrection, other factors such as ethical concerns about life and death, along with general apprehension towards new technology are also significant,” says Iwasaki.  

The results reflect a discrepancy between existing law and public sentiment. People’s general feelings – that the dead’s wishes should be respected – are actually not protected in most countries. The digitally recreated John Lennon in the film Forrest Gump, or animated hologram of Amy Winehouse reveal the ‘rights’ of the dead are easily overridden by those in the land of the living.

So, is your digital destiny something to consider when writing your will? It probably should be but in the current absence of clear legal regulations on the subject, the effectiveness of documenting your wishes in such a way is uncertain. For a start, how such directives are respected varies by legal jurisdiction. “But for those with strong preferences documenting their wishes could be meaningful,” says Iwasaki. “At a minimum, it serves as a clear communication of one’s will to family and associates, and may be considered when legal foundations are better established in the future.”

It’s certainly a conversation worth having now. Many generative AI chatbot services, such as like Replika (“The AI companion who cares”) and Project December (“Simulate the dead”) already enable conversations with chatbots replicating real people’s personalities. The service ‘You, Only Virtual’ (YOV) allows users to upload someone’s text messages, emails and voice conversations to create a ‘versona’ chatbot. And, in 2020, Microsoft obtained a patent to create chatbots from text, voice and image data for living people as well as for historical figures and fictional characters, with the option of rendering in 2D or 3D.

Iwasaki says he’ll investigate this and the digital resurrection of celebrities in future research. “It’s necessary first to discuss what rights should be protected, to what extent, then create rules accordingly,” he explains. “My research, building upon prior discussions in the field, argues that the opt-in rule requiring the deceased’s consent for digital resurrection might be one way to protect their rights.”

There is a link to the study in the press release above but this includes a citation, of sorts,

Digital Cloning of the Dead: Exploring the Optimal Default Rule by Masaki Iwasaki. Asian Journal of Law and Economics DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ajle-2023-0125 Published Online: 2023-12-27

This paper is open access.

International conference “Living Machines” dedicated to technology inspired by nature in Genoa, Italy (July 10 – 13, 2023)

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I love the look and the theme for this “Living Machines” conference, which seems to be water,

A June 28, 2023 Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) press release (also on EurekAlert) provides more detail about the conference,

Now in its twelfth year, the international conference “Living Machines”, organised by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology, IIT), returns to Italy and comes to Genoa for the first time, from 10 to 13 July. Around one hundred experts from all over the world are expected, and they will present their achievements in the field of bio-inspired science and technology. The conference will take place in an exceptional venue, the Acquario di Genova (Genoa Aquarium), which, having reached its 30th birthday, is the ideal location at which to bring together various subject areas, from biology to artificial intelligence and robotics, with a focus on sustainability and environmental protection.

The scientific organiser of the event is Barbara Mazzolai, Associate Director for Robotics and head of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Lab at IIT, along with Fabian Meder, researcher in the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Lab group and co-chair of the conference programme.

The conference will include two events open to the public: an exhibition area, which will be accessible from 11 to 13 July in the afternoon (from 2 to 4.30 pm); and a scientific café, which will take place on the 12 July at 5 pm. The conference will be an opportunity for international guests to appreciate the region’s beauty and talents, and it will also include the participation of students from the Niccolò Paganini Conservatory of Music. In addition, a satellite event of the conference will be the ISPA – Italian Sustainability Photo Award – exhibition, which will open at Palazzo Ducale on 10 July at 6 p.m.

The “Living Machines” conference is the landmark event for the international scientific community which bases its research on living organisms, such as human beings and other animal species – terrestrial, marine, and airborne – in addition to plants, fungi, and bacteria, in order to create so-called “living machines”, in other words, forms of technology capable of replicating their structure and mechanisms of operation.

“The conference is rooted in the union between robotics and neuroscience, using man and other animal species as a model for the study of intelligence and control systems,” said Barbara Mazzolai, Associate Director for Robotics at IIT. “This year the conference will focus on the role of biomimicry in the creation of robots that are more sustainable, with applications for the challenges of environmental protection and human health. Discussions will revolve around the development of robots with a lower energy impact, made using recyclable and biodegradable materials, and that can be used in emergency situations or extreme environments, such as deep sea, soil, space, or environmental disasters, but also for precision agriculture, environmental surveillance, infrastructure monitoring, human care and medical-surgical assistance.”

In the conference programme, experts will take part in a first day of parallel workshop and tutorial sessions (on 10 July), during which the topics of bioinspiration and biohybrid technology in the fields of medicine and the marine environment will be addressed. This first day will be followed by three days of plenary sessions, featuring talks by internationally-renowned scientists. More specifically: Oussama Khatib, one of the pioneers of robotics and director of the Robotics Laboratory at Stanford University; Marco Dorigo, professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and one of the pioneers of collective intelligence; Peter Fratzl, director of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, working on research into osteoporosis and tissue regeneration; Eleni Stavrinidou, coordinator of the “Electronic Plants” group at Linköping University and an expert in bioelectronic and biohybrid systems; Olga Speck, Principal Researcher at the University of Freiburg, specialising in biomimetic materials and the regenerative capabilities of plants; and Kyu-Jin Cho, director of the Research Centre for Soft Robotics and the Biorobotics Laboratory at Seoul National University, one of the world’s leading experts on soft robotics.

For conference participants only, the programme includes: a visit to the Acquario, guided by the facility’s scientific staff, who will illustrate the work and practices needed for the protection and conservation of marine species and the undergoing research projects; an exhibition area for prototypes and products by research groups and companies operating in this field; and a dinner at Villa Lo Zerbino, with a musical contribution by students from the Niccolò Paganini Conservatory.

Open to the general public, on 12 July from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. there will be a round table entitled “Living Machines: The Origin and the Future” chaired by science journalist Nicola Nosengo, Chief Editor of Nature Italy. Speakers will include Cecilia Laschi from the National University of Singapore, Vickie Webster-Wood from Carnegie Mellon University, Thomas Speck from the University of Freiburg and Paul Verschure from Radboud University Nijmegen.

A satellite initiative of the conference will be the exhibition for ISPA, the Italian Sustainability Photo Award, which will open at Palazzo Ducale on 10 July at 6.00 p.m. ISPA is the photographic award created by the Parallelozero agency in cooperation with the main sponsor PIMCO, to raise public awareness of environmental, social, and governance sustainability issues, encapsulated in the acronym ESG. The works of the winning photographers and finalists in the last three editions will be on display in Genoa: a selection of images that depict the emblematic stories of Italy, a nation moving towards a more sustainable future, a visual narrative that makes it easier to understand the country’s progress in research and innovation.

The organisations supporting the event include, in addition to the principal organiser Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology), the international Convergent Science Network [emphasis mine], the Office of Naval Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, and the Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems Cluster of Excellence in Freiburg.

Event website: https://livingmachinesconference.eu/2023/

I was particularly struck by this quote, “The conference is rooted in the union between robotics and neuroscience [emphasis mine], using man and other animal species as a model for the study of intelligence and control systems,” from Barbara Mazzolai as I have an as yet unpublished post for a UNESCO neurotechnology event coming up on July 13, 2023. These events come on the heels of a May 16, 2023 Canadian Science Policy Centre panel discussion on responsible neurotechnology (see my May 12, 2023 posting).

For the curious, you can find the Convergent Science Network here.

Courtesy of graphene: world’s thinnest light bulb

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Columbia University’s (US) School of Engineering and Applied Science is trumpeting an achievement with graphene, i.e., the world’s thinnest light bulb. From a June 15, 2015 Columbia Engineering news release (also on EurekAlert),

Led by Young Duck Kim, a postdoctoral research scientist in James Hone’s group at Columbia Engineering, a team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) reported today that they have demonstrated — for the first time — an on-chip visible light source using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up.

“We’ve created what is essentially the world’s thinnest light bulb,” says Hone, Wang Fon-Jen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia Engineering and coauthor of the study. “This new type of ‘broadband’ light emitter can be integrated into chips and will pave the way towards the realization of atomically thin, flexible, and transparent displays, and graphene-based on-chip optical communications.”

The news release goes on to describe some of the issues associated with generating light on a chip and how the researchers approached the problems (quick answer: they used graphene as the filament),

Creating light in small structures on the surface of a chip is crucial for developing fully integrated “photonic” circuits that do with light what is now done with electric currents in semiconductor integrated circuits. Researchers have developed many approaches to do this, but have not yet been able to put the oldest and simplest artificial light source—the incandescent light bulb—onto a chip. This is primarily because light bulb filaments must be extremely hot—thousands of degrees Celsius—in order to glow in the visible range and micro-scale metal wires cannot withstand such temperatures. In addition, heat transfer from the hot filament to its surroundings is extremely efficient at the microscale, making such structures impractical and leading to damage of the surrounding chip.

By measuring the spectrum of the light emitted from the graphene, the team was able to show that the graphene was reaching temperatures of above 2500 degrees Celsius, hot enough to glow brightly. “The visible light from atomically thin graphene is so intense that it is visible even to the naked eye, without any additional magnification,” explains Kim, first and co-lead author on the paper.

Interestingly, the spectrum of the emitted light showed peaks at specific wavelengths, which the team discovered was due to interference between the light emitted directly from the graphene and light reflecting off the silicon substrate and passing back through the graphene. Kim notes, “This is only possible because graphene is transparent, unlike any conventional filament, and allows us to tune the emission spectrum by changing the distance to the substrate.”

The ability of graphene to achieve such high temperatures without melting the substrate or the metal electrodes is due to another interesting property: as it heats up, graphene becomes a much poorer conductor of heat. This means that the high temperatures stay confined to a small “hot spot” in the center.

“At the highest temperatures, the electron temperature is much higher than that of acoustic vibrational modes of the graphene lattice, so that less energy is needed to attain temperatures needed for visible light emission,” Myung-Ho Bae, a senior researcher at KRISS and co-lead author, observes. “These unique thermal properties allow us to heat the suspended graphene up to half of the temperature of the sun, and improve efficiency 1000 times, as compared to graphene on a solid substrate.”

The team also demonstrated the scalability of their technique by realizing large-scale of arrays of chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) graphene light emitters.

Yun Daniel Park, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Seoul National University and co-lead author, notes that they are working with the same material that Thomas Edison used when he invented the incandescent light bulb: “Edison originally used carbon as a filament for his light bulb and here we are going back to the same element, but using it in its pure form—graphene—and at its ultimate size limit—one atom thick.”

The group is currently working to further characterize the performance of these devices—for example, how fast they can be turned on and off to create “bits” for optical communications—and to develop techniques for integrating them into flexible substrates.

Hone adds, “We are just starting to dream about other uses for these structures—for example, as micro-hotplates that can be heated to thousands of degrees in a fraction of a second to study high-temperature chemical reactions or catalysis.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Bright visible light emission from graphene by Young Duck Kim, Hakseong Kim, Yujin Cho, Ji Hoon Ryoo, Cheol-Hwan Park, Pilkwang Kim, Yong Seung Kim, Sunwoo Lee, Yilei Li, Seung-Nam Park, Yong Shim Yoo, Duhee Yoon, Vincent E. Dorgan, Eric Pop, Tony F. Heinz, James Hone, Seung-Hyun Chun, Hyeonsik Cheong, Sang Wook Lee,    Myung-Ho Bae, & Yun Daniel Park. Nature Nanotechnology (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.118 Published online 15 June 2015

This paper is behind a paywall.

Two final notes: there was an announcement earlier this year (mentioned in my March 30, 2015 post) that a graphene light bulb would be in stores this year. Dexter Johnson notes in his June 15, 2015 post (Nanoclast blog on the IEEE [International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website) that the earlier light bulb has a graphene coating. You may want to check out Dexter’s posting about the latest light bulb achievement as he also includes an embedded video illustrating how Columbia Engineering’s graphene filament works.

Hyper stretchable nanogenerator

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There’s a lot of talk about flexibility, stretchability and bendability in electronics and the latest is coming from Korea. An April 13, 2015 Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST) news release on EurekAlert describes the situation and the Korean scientists’ most recent research into stretchable electronics,

A research team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has developed a hyper-stretchable elastic-composite energy harvesting device called a nanogenerator.

Flexible electronics have come into the market and are enabling new technologies like flexible displays in mobile phone, wearable electronics, and the Internet of Things (IoTs). However, is the degree of flexibility enough for most applications? For many flexible devices, elasticity is a very important issue. For example, wearable/biomedical devices and electronic skins (e-skins) should stretch to conform to arbitrarily curved surfaces and moving body parts such as joints, diaphragms, and tendons. They must be able to withstand the repeated and prolonged mechanical stresses of stretching. In particular, the development of elastic energy devices is regarded as critical to establish power supplies in stretchable applications. Although several researchers have explored diverse stretchable electronics, due to the absence of the appropriate device structures and correspondingly electrodes, researchers have not developed ultra-stretchable and fully-reversible energy conversion devices properly.

Recently, researchers from KAIST and Seoul National University (SNU) have collaborated and demonstrated a facile methodology to obtain a high-performance and hyper-stretchable elastic-composite generator (SEG) using very long silver nanowire-based stretchable electrodes. Their stretchable piezoelectric generator can harvest mechanical energy to produce high power output (~4 V) with large elasticity (~250%) and excellent durability (over 104 cycles). These noteworthy results were achieved by the non-destructive stress- relaxation ability of the unique electrodes as well as the good piezoelectricity of the device components. The new SEG can be applied to a wide-variety of wearable energy-harvesters to transduce biomechanical-stretching energy from the body (or machines) to electrical energy.

Professor Lee said, “This exciting approach introduces an ultra-stretchable piezoelectric generator. It can open avenues for power supplies in universal wearable and biomedical applications as well as self-powered ultra-stretchable electronics.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A Hyper-Stretchable Elastic-Composite Energy Harvester by Chang Kyu Jeong, Jinhwan Lee, Seungyong Han, Jungho Ryu, Geon-Tae Hwang, Dae Yong Park, Jung Hwan Park, Seung Seob Lee, Mynghwan Byun, Seung Hwan Ko, and Keon Jae Lee. Advanced Materials DOI: 10.1002/adma.201500367 30 March 2015Full

This paper is behind a paywall.

The researchers have prepared a short video (22 secs. and silent),