THE RISING SUN GREEN JOBS ARRIVE......

THE RISING SUN GREEN JOBS ARRIVE

With renewable energy being all the rage right now, solar literally produces the power to change the world. If you want a career in an industry that’s only going to get bigger, solar may be for you..

Blessed with one of the best quality and quantity of sun, India offers a huge potential to develop solar photovoltaic (PV) power both for domestic consumption and export. With several new companies from India and abroad starting their solar operations in India, and existing companies committing to expanding their capacity, solar PV power is bang in the middle of a take-off in India right now. The government too has been very supportive to boost the growth of solar industry. In January last year, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Ministry of Power launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) with an aim to set up an enabling environment for solar energy penetration in the country. The ambitious project aims to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, not just in terms of solar power generation but also in solar panels manufacturing and further development of this technology.

he JNNSM targets 22 GW of installed solar generation capacity by 2022, 100 GW by 2030 and 200 GW by 2050. It aims to achieve grid parity by 2022 and parity with thermal-based generation by 2030. It also aims to install 4-5 GW of solar manufacturing capacity in India by 2017. In the near term, the solar industry is looking to reach the total installed base of about 1 GW. Over the next two to three years, it may achieve 1-1.5 GW of annual installations year-on-year. Providing further impetus to the solar industry, states like Gujarat and Rajasthan have announced their own solar policies. 

Why solar? 

Here’s why you should think about making a career in this exciting field. 
According to a recent KPMG report, solar power can meet 5-7 per cent of India’s total power requirements by 2021-22, up from a negligible portion today. “Solar power can help our country move closer to the targeted 20-25 per cent reduction in carbon emission intensity of the total GDP by 2020, by contributing as much as one-tenth of this target, besides playing an increasingly important role in securing India’s energy future,” says Arvind Mahajan, head of energy and natural resources, KPMG. 

Based on KPMG estimates, an average of 43,000 new jobs would be created annually in the period 201722 from the rooftop segment itself. Furthermore, around 42,000 jobs can potentially be created annually in the period 2017-22 from utility-scale solar power installations. The agriculture potential could create more than 38,000 jobs annually in the solar industry from 2017-18. KPMG further estimates that more than 600,000 jobs will be created during 2017-22 from rooftop, solar-powered agriculture pumpsets and utility-scale solar installations alone. Solar water heaters could also create more than 420,000 jobs in this period. 

“Hence the solar industry would create close to a million jobs in the period 2017-22, carving a new industry segment like what IT has succeeded to create in the last decade in India,” quips K. Subramanya, CEO, Tata BP Solar. 

Solar industry, at the global level in general and national level in particular, is in a nascent stage hovering around 20GW per annum. “It is expected to grow manifold in years to come mainly due to two reasons: increasing concern for climate change necessitating switching to renewable energy from fossil fuels and also concern about the depleting oil reserves,” adds Dr P. Jayakumar, CEO, Arbutus Consultants. 

Exciting avenues 

The solar industry offers exciting career opportunities in various disciplines of engineering like chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronics and communications and civil engineering. 

“If you check five years back, job opportunities were not even 10 per cent of what they are today. I personally see 30 per cent growth in this industry in the years to come,” quips Hitesh C. Doshi, chairman, Waaree Group. 

“With the launch of the NSM and the huge target which has been set by the government, different companies are trying to engage themselves through either installation of power plants or design and manufacture of solar components, various devices and individual sub-systems required for the power plant. As far as the knowledge base is concerned, one is the engineering aspect of the power plant design and another is the physics of how this power gets generated. So the job opportunities exist in each of these sectors,” opines P.K.Ghosh, management consultant, Agni Power & Electronics.

“As themegawatt-level solar power plants become more prominent. The employment opportunities of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering would go up considerably. Typically, a one megawatt plant during construction would need a minimum of five engineers in addition to technicians. The government itself has a target through the JNNSM of 1000 MW by 2013 and 20,000 MW by 2022. This offers numerous employment opportunities for engineers. To catch up with this, the manufacturing sector also would need engineers from chemical and mechanical disciplines,” explains Jayakumar.

Subramanya adds, “The job outlook seems extremely positive and enthusing. In fact, the solar industry currently suffers from severe shortage of skills at all levels for rapid growth and particularly in conceptualisation of opportunities, application engineering, marketing, financing, project management, O&M, etc.” 

“The two main prospects that I see in this industry are one on the manufacturing side and the other on the power projects side. There are auxiliary areas also such as electronics where things like inverters come into play. Now talking about the manufacturing side, we already do a lot of manufacturing of cells and modules in India but most of the raw materials and equipments are all imported. For example, for the module, most of the equipment and the machinery, solar cells (although solar cell manufacturing is now taking off in India) and backsheet polymers all come from outside. Similarly, when you talk about solar cell manufacturing, gases, metal pastes and silicon wafers are imported; so there is a lot of scope for starting manufacturing of these raw materials in India. And to cater to this, you would need engineers from various disciplines including electrical, electronics, physics, material science, mechanical and civil engineering,” elaborates Dr Omkar Jani, principal research scientist, solar research wing at the Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute—Research, Innovation and Incubation Centre (GERMI-RIIC). 

He continues, “Now coming to the power projects side, you require engineers on the site for project execution— including engineers who can design the power plant at a higher level, as well as civil, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers for the project execution. There are also typical needs for businesses that can fabricate and supply mechanical structures like the Module Mounting Structures in a cost-effective way using cost-effective ‘Indian-style’ innovations. Thus, the industry opens up prospects at various levels as well. It’s just like any other power industry. You need the same kind of people but then they have to be tuned for solar.” 

The manufacturing sector would need personnel with ITI, diploma and engineering qualifications. The implementation of projects would need diploma holders and engineers in addition to unskilled labour. 

“A typical rule of thumb used in the US is that you need 40 people per installed megawatt of solar power, and these include people right from manufacturing to installation to maintenance. But if you look at the Indian scenario, this number needs to be scaled up to 100 because we typically employ more manpower for manufacturing and execution of projects. So now you can extrapolate how many megawatts is India looking to install. As per the objectives of the JNNSM, the government plans to increase its deployment to 20,000 MW by 2022, which clearly points you to the kind of growth we are looking at in solar industry,” explains Dr Jani. 

What role to choose? 

In solar industry, you can find a place in any of the following broad categories: design engineers, who take care of the design and engineering of systems; production engineers, who oversee production of cells (chemical process), modules (mechanical), etc; quality control, where you will be responsible for quality control and assurance; and project engineers, who look after the installation, commissioning and management of systems at a project’s site. 

There are wide possibilities, and as the market and technology develops, in addition to the usual requirements in R&D, project development, design and engineering, manufacturing, quality assurance, marketing, installation and commissioning, operation and maintenance, training, teaching, value engineering, procurement, recruitment and hiring, there will be specialists required in the following areas: techno-economic feasibility, sourcing and vendor development, risk management, insurance, financial structuring, regulatory issues, and energy service companies (ESCOs). 


What’s on offer? 
Solar is an evolving and specialist’s field. Candidates with good understanding of energy, environment and economics fit the best. Generally, salaries are based on individual skillsets and qualifications. Jayakumar says, “Typically, the average salary for a fresh graduate engineer in this field can range anywhere from Rs 100,000 to 150,000 per annum. Engineers with about three-five years related experience can expect anything between Rs 400,000 and Rs 500,000 per annum.” 

“The subject calls for self-confidence, understanding growth imperatives of the Indian economy, energy security issues, global technology development, IPR issues, etc. All these aspects make solar a very exciting field to work in. Salary and perks are as exciting as any other industry,” Subramanya informs. 

“In solar industry, you can look forward to a career which is definitely rewarding. It’s an expensive proposition, which means, for a high-value project, a company will make sure that it gets good people and for that, it will have to reward them well. Also, most of the companies in this field are MNCs, and if Indian companies want to do well, they need to keep up with the high scales offered by the multinational firms. And the best part is, it’s going to be like that for the next couple of years because solar has no way to go but only up from here,” adds Dr Jani. 


Tips from the experts 

The industry can be divided into three major categories, namely manufacturing, system integration and project implementation. The leading firms in these sectors are Tata BP Solar, Lanco Solar, Moser Baer Solar, Indosolar, Reliance Solar and Aditya Birla Solar, amongst others. 

Your next question is likely to be “How to get an edge over your competitors?” Overall, solar jobs are growing quickly and employers are having a hard time finding qualified workers. “We don’t have many qualified people in solar. People who come with some power project experience, know-how to handle projects and build systems can be trained in solar,” Dr Jani adds. 

Jayakumar opines, “Specialisation in energy management in exceptional cases is sought for. However, opportunities exist for regular electrical, mechanical and civil engineers.” 

“Since the number of jobs will exponentially increase in this industry in the coming years, PV power plant technology needs to be taught as a main subject in engineering colleges to address the huge shortage of manpower in the solar industry. At Agni Power, we offer on-the-job training. During the course of production and installation, people acquire the skillset and also gradually learn to independently handle the systems,” adds Ghosh.

To sum it up, good educational background with an urge to learn and innovate makes a candidate prospective. In addition, recruiters while hiring usually look for a candidate who has: 

1.    Willingness to travel to rural areas and understand issues for inclusive growth 
2.    Knowledge and exposure in advanced areas like semiconductor physics, system integration,       installation and commissioning, troubleshooting, after-sales service, customer care, techno-commercial analysis of mega projects, and erection, commissioning and grid integration of large project 
3.    Planning and co-ordination skills in project management 
4. Design skills 
5. Communication and story writing skills

Well, solar by itself is not at all complicated. It is a very simple technology, which makes it even more attractive. Once you understand what solar is, it becomes very easy to adapt. As Dr Jani puts it, “The point is not to train people on solar but to adapt them to solar.”

Tech-Focus - Nanotechnology: The lord of Small things!

Tech-Focus - Nanotechnology: The lord of 

 

 Small things!

 

While many hail nanotechnology as ‘the’ phenomenon of the new age, and one of the most potent emerging forces in the field of technology, there are others who dismiss it as a subject fit only for research labs. this article aims to explore the truth behind these claims, and track the direction in which nanotechnology is moving

---

“Everything can be made in some way better—stronger, lighter, cheaper, easier to recycle—if it’s engineered and manufactured at the nanometre scale.”    

—Stan Williams director-Quantum Science Research  HP Labs

 

 The 21st century can easily be called the era of portable devices that are lighter, smaller and a whole lot powerful in configuration than their predecessors. All this has largely been rendered possible with the size of the processor shrinking to the nanometre scale. These small-sized processors, also called microprocessors, have enabled the electronics manufacturers to build products that are smaller in size, have faster processing speeds and are powerful. However, experts view this development more as the continuation of existing microelectronics rather than a breakthrough in the nanotechnology space. They believe that this is merely a small application of nanotechnology and doesn’t represent even an iota of the potential that nanotechnology holds for the future of electronics.
ndeed, nanotechnology is not merely about reducing the size of processors to nanometres. Its domain is vast and still remains largely unexplored. Considering the research happening across the globe, and the advances so far in this space in terms of the development of new circuit materials and so forth, the technology surely holds a lot of promise for the technologists and electronics industry alike.

Apart from this, nanotechnology is being also viewed as a solution to the limitations of the current technologies. If we look at the current situation of digital electronics, there is presently no credible alternative to silicon complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS); all other technologies having failed to meet the standards of logic circuits. The improvements in silicon technology are also getting closer and closer to the ‘brick wall’ and this worries a lot of technology professionals and industrialists. It is anticipated that sometime around the end of this decade (2018 or so), it will become physically impossible to etch smaller features in silicon. Another challenge is that at lesser than 20nm sizes, silicon becomes electrically ‘leaky,’ which can cause short-circuits.

Is ‘nano’ the way to go?
With the current materials and technologies nearing the upper limit, scientists and researchers have built a lot of hope around nanotechnology, which according to them can help in developing alternative methods and materials. They believe that someday nanotechnology will revolutionise the global economy by providing power tools that will produce high-tech products using low-tech resources at low costs.

There is no denying the fact that on the concept level, nanotechnology holds a lot of promise. But in spite of breakthroughs prophesied in this field by many a scientist and futurist, especially if we consider the application of nanotechnology in the field of electronics, there hasn’t been much headway ever since the technology’s emergence in 1990s. In fact, the term nanotechnology has become more of a misnomer with different groups defining its periphery and scope differently.

To demystify the term and gauge the direction towards which the technology is moving, we turned to a few technology experts.

How much does ‘nano’ measure up in size?
Nanotechnology, which is sometimes shortened to ‘nano-tech,’ is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nm in at least one dimension. It involves developing materials or devices possessing at least one dimension within that size. However, when it comes to the size, the opinions in the technology space are divided. There are some who claim that 45, 32 or 22nm technology does not qualify as nanoelectronics.

Vassilios Gerousis, senior architect, Cadence Design Systems, shares some of the varied viewpoints that are widely making rounds in the industry and amongst the science and engineering communities: “One opinion, which comes from the research fraternity deals with nodes that are between the dimensions of 10 nm and below, such as carbon tubes. Another opinion coming from the applied research domain caters to nodes between 14nm and 20nm. The third viewpoint is from the application side and is focused on 40nm and 28nm.”

Yet another view is that CMOS technology, even using nanoscale features, does not fully qualify as nanotechnology, because it uses mostly top-down fabrication to reach nanoscale dimensions. In this view, electronic devices should be labelled nanoelectronics only if these contain typical nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes or nanowires and dots. “However, the CMOS people themselves consider all technology nodes below 100 nm as nanoelectronics, since they comply with the basic definition of nanotechnology objects, i.e., structures with critical features below 100 nm,” says Marc Van Rossum, strategic adviser, Imec. “At Imec we share this view, and also consider several advanced top-down CMOS fabrication techniques such as  extreme UV lithography and other nanoscale patterning tools to be part of  nanotechnology,” he adds.

Considering that there are several possible definitions and opinions for ‘nano’ that have been used of late, the confusion has prevailed. “Nanoscale is commonly defined as smaller than 100 nm and, by that definition, modern electronics have been at nanoscale for about a decade. This is the definition that Intel uses,” quips Michael Mayberry, director—components research, technology and manufacturing group, Intel.

A competing definition typically used for nanomaterials is to count both size and process for fabrication. Here some insist that making larger objects smaller doesn’t count and you should only count those using bottoms-up methods.

Clearing the air on the subject, Dr Denis Koltsov, consultant in Nanotechnology, BREC Solutions (UK), says, “Unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding of the term ‘nano’ in whole of the nanotechnology community. The subgroups like nanoelectronics seem to deviate from an official ISO definition of nanotechnology if they are claiming that 45-22nm technology is still not nano electronics. Any device that is smaller than 100 nm in at least one dimension would be classed as nano-device. This also applies to thin-film devices like hard disks. While it is (understandably) difficult to call a big hard disk a nano electronics device, it is definitely not correct to reject a 22nm technology from nano-electronics community by definition. A much more appropriate definition for those that work with molecules and nano tubes would be molecular electronics or pico technology (1nm-0.1nm size). Please note that these are not ISO definitions.”

Carbon technologies such as carbon nanotubes are becoming more and more relevant in this race to continue the Moore’s law

Dr James Canton, futurist, adviser, CEO, Institute for Global Futures www.FutureGuru.com, and author of the book Extreme Future, adds another perspective, “People think that nano science is about size, while it is more about capturing in small platform a dense amount of functionality and performance.” Also, nano is about changing the concept of synthetic consciousness in developing other forms of intelligences that can function at the quantum level.

How far is nano from going mainstream in electronics?
Going beyond the concept, let us now look at the way nanotechnology has evolved in the last one decade and the direction towards which it is heading.

If we look at the application side, it is believed that most of the nanoelectronics technologies (at the transistor level) demonstrated today—such as hybrid molecular/semiconductor electronics, one dimensional nanotubes/nano-wires and advanced molecular electronics—are futuristic and not usable anytime in the near future. As a general statement it is true. The industry has had its share of doubts about the wide scale adoption of nano-technology in electronics. Currently, in the mainstream we see 40nm and 28nm technologies, says Gerousis. Most of the work that is underway below the 20nm dimension is in the research and development phase.

The key challenge that is being faced by the industry and researchers is that while the nanomaterials are exotic, these are not easy to produce. Some of the exotic nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes, have very interesting proper-ties as materials. But the industry still lacks the ability to precisely form and use them for electronics where we typically need to fabricate billions of transistors at once, opines Mayberry.

“The largest of the exotic material demonstrations have been of the order of a handful of devices working together. Nevertheless, considering the pace of science and technology advances, I think eight to ten years from now we might be using some of these exotic materials in electronics production. For applications requiring less precision some of these nanomaterials are already in use,” he adds.

Devices using carbon nanotubes or nanowire transistors show promise for specialised sensors, and there is also some perspective for nanowire solar cells. But molecular devices have only proven their relevance at the diode level, and a genuine single molecule transistor (three-terminal device) with acceptable characteristics is still out of reach.

IBM’s recently announced first integrated circuit fabricated from wafer-size graphene

“Nanoscale spin transistors are also interesting, but they exist only at the exploratory level. In any case, those devices still require huge break-throughs in many challenges such as reproducibility, dimensional control, positioning, contacts, doping and transport properties in general. At this time, none of these technologies has a proven advantage over CMOS,” Rossum avers.

But it is equally true that all nano-techniques, which are compatible with CMOS, are worth considering to over-come the bottlenecks related to lithography, such as power dissipation and leak-age, signal transmission speed and integrity, adds Rossum. “The goal is to push CMOS node scaling-down to 16 nm, 11 nm or even below. At 11 nm there will still be no need for CMOS alternatives. However, below that scale the situation is less clear. It has sometimes been stated that molecular or atomic devices would offer many attractive features, but the truth is that in conventional electronics the laws of quantum mechanics work against us once we reach the quantisation level,” he opines.

So, where does the paradox lie? Why a technology that is so promising at the concept level has failed to scale up when it comes to its mainstream application in the electronics domain? Enumerating a few reasons, Kolstov says, “The research in molecular nano-electronics is unfortunately very sensational. What I mean is that a research group may measure some effect from one device and write a very popular paper. However, this result has limited use for industrial community since it may not be reproducible, and in some cases is simply wrong. Some recent publications (http://www.nanotechia.org/global-news/is-there-plenty-of-room-at-the-bottom-for-nanomanufacture) argued that some applications of nanoelectronics may never be manufacturable.”

“If we look at the developments so far, it won’t be wrong to say that nanoscience is both futuristic and here today,” affirms Dr Canton. While it is true that the progress made so far in this domain has still not been too fruitful, yet there are areas where the application of nano-science has led to interesting results. Dr Canton enumerates, “Molecular electronics have been shown in the Quantum Computing Lab of Stan Williams at HP to be possible. IBM has done extensive work in nano computer chip development that will likely extend silicon’s life as a chip platform. Mercedes uses nano on coatings for autos to protect the driver. Having said this, nano is emerging and the potential is great, but it is in the early stages.”

Looking beyond processors...
The relevance of nanotechnology and nano materials for reducing the size of transistors can’t be ignored. “Carbon technologies using carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene or other allotropes are becoming more and more relevant in this race to continue the Moore’s law,” opines Dr Denis Koltsov. But it would also be worthwhile to explore a few other areas  in the electronics space where nanotechnology can potentially have its influence. Let’s take a look at a few of such domains.

Digital displays. The quality of digital display screens in electronic devices can be improved by reducing the power consumption while decreasing the weight and thickness of the screens. Nano research projects are underway to make use of electrodes made from nanowires to enable flat panel displays, which are likely to be a lot more thinner than the current flat panel displays. “CNTs, which are up to 100-times stronger than steel, and yet only one sixth of its weight, are also being used to direct electrons to illuminate pixels and to develop light-weight, millimeter thick ‘nanoemmissive’ display panel,” informs Rossum. A company called Rosseter in Cyprus is already producing them for commercial use because of their rugged chemical, physical and mechanical properties.

MIT researchers have also created a quantum dot-organic light emitting diode (QD-OLED). While the traditional LCDs are lit from behind, the quantum dots have the capability of generating their own light, and these dots can be manipulated to emit any colour imaginable, with no range limit as seen with traditional devices.

For larger memory sizes. With consumers demanding electronic devices such as music players, mobile phones and computers with gigabytes of memory, the future electronics devices will surely need even larger memory sizes. “The current storage technologies, like Flash memory technology, has an upper-size limit as well as a rewrite limit (between 10,000 and 100,000 writes). Thereafter it will no longer be able to store data. To gear-up to meet with this requirement, multiple examples of memory technologies are being explored that use more exotic materials than what is used in production today,” says Mayberry.

Nanosized magnetic rings are being tried to make magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), which research has indicated may allow memory density of 62 GB per square centimetre (400 GB per square inch). Research is also on for using microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS) techniques to control an array of probes, whose tips have a radius of a few nanometres. These probes are used to write and read data onto a polymer film, with the aim of producing memory chips that have a formidable density. There is also ongoing research for the use of nanosized ‘dots’ of nickel, which it is hoped could be used to store terabytes of data, even for home and personal users.

Rossum says, “There are many ideas of using nano features in non volatile memories—molecular structures, metallic nanodots, organic molecules, nanostructured materials and so on. Although their applications are not yet mature, it is still an interesting avenue of research.”

Nano research projects are underway to make use of electrodes made from nanowires to enable flat panel displays

In making existing technologies better. “The developments in nano-technology as a sector have already shown us that this new technology is not only about doing things better, faster at a smaller scale, but also about adding new functionality to existing technologies,” says Kolstov.

“The devices, sensors, etc, are gaining another option, like, for example, the development of Spin-FET. In that case the charge and spin of the electrons are used to offer novel functionality. I think the advent of CNT electronics applications, Spin-FETs and properties of graphene are the hottest topics in industry at the moment. I am sure this may change, but in the meantime there is a lot to research in those areas,” he adds.

For healthcare and environment. Nano today is about size and material science innovations. In the future it will be about designing matter at the atomic level to address climate change, hunger, war, healthcare and energy needs,” believes Dr Canton. In the future, convergence of nanoelectronics with bioelectronics could be important for health and comfort applications, provided the technology becomes affordable. “Already, nano wires are being used to restore movement in crippled legs, by restoring neural path-ways to connect the brain to the body for movement,” informs Dr Canton. A few more possibilities include nano-energy development or storage, nano-geoengineering to clean up the planet, nano-machines to enhance the food supply to resolve world hunger, nano-intelligence to enhance humans and to use nano-devices to deliver drugs or medicines to help heal people.

Faster data transfer between devices and networks. According to nanoforum.org, optoelectronics can help in dramatically increasing data transfer rates within devices like PCs by replacing the existing copper wiring. Instead, in the future, quantum dot-based lasers may also be used to transfer information between components within devices at the speed of light, with each piece of information ‘coded’ using a unique wavelength of light.

If we look at external networks, data transfer can take place more rapidly between two points if we increase the number of nodes in information networks. This will become possible through the development of cheap ambient-sensor networks based on nanotechnology, and will help the telecommunication sector to achieve better data transfer rates.

Circuits for wireless devices. IBM Research scientists recently announced the first integrated circuit fabricated from wafer-size graphene, and demonstrated a broadband frequency-mixer operating at frequencies up to 10GHz (10 billion cycles/second). Designed for wireless communications, this graphene-based analogue integrated circuit (having the thickness of an atom) could improve today’s wireless devices and points to the potential for a new set of applications.
At today’s conventional frequencies, cellphone and transceiver signals could be improved, potentially allowing phones to work at places where they can’t today. While, at much higher frequencies, military and medical personnel could see concealed weapons or conduct medical imaging without the radiation dangers of X-rays.

“Nano is fundamentally a convergent science. Nano-Neuro-Bio-IT-Quantum all together as the top convergent sciences will transform the future of our world and our planet for the better,” foresees Dr Canton. Going forward, the nanotech enterprises will provide the ultimate convergence of computers, networks and biotech, and create products never before even imagined.

Other than the present uses for coatings, materials or components to achieve a smaller size, he foresees a few more areas where the technology may eventually have useful application. He says, “Future applications are for self-assembly of energy-on-demand for devices, robot bodies to morph to adapt to the environment or the job. Nano memory metal has attributes of body morphing. Time/space transformation, the development of neuro-brains to augment device intelligence or to augment human and machine intelligence are a few other interesting application areas.”

Going forward
While it won’t be wrong to say that we are still far from unleashing and leveraging the true potential of nanotechnology, the progress made so far in the science research labs and industrial R&D units is encouraging. These developments point to the fact that nanotechnology is truly going to be the key technology that will usher in an industrial revolution of the 21st cen-tury. Quoting the words of Michiharu Nakamura, executive VP at Hitachi, “...those who control nanotechnology will lead the industry.”

Barcode systems in use..........

Barcode systems in use...........

Barcode systems result in faster and accurate data-capturing, lower costs, minimal mistakes and easier inventory-management

Bar code first came in use commercially in 1966, but it was soon realised that there would have to be some sort of set industry standard. By 1970, the universal grocery products identification code  (UGPIC) was written by a company called Logicon Inc. The first company to produce bar code equipment for retail trade (using UGPIC) was the American company Monarch Marking, and for industrial use, the British company Plessey Telecommunications, in 1970.

UGPIC evolved into universal product code or the UPC symbol set, which is still used in the US. In June 1974, the first UPC scanner was installed at a Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first product to have a bar code included was a packet of Wrigley’s Gum. 

Barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows certain data about certain products. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and spacing of parallel lines, and was referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed as two-dimensional (2D) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image using special software.

Fig. 1: Left side code

There are many benefits of barcod systems which fullfill the needs of the users at different levels. Barcode data-collection systems result in faster and accurate data-capturing, lower costs, minimal mistakes and easier inventory-management.

Types of barcode systems
A barcode symbology defines the technical details of a particular type of barcode—the width of the bars, character set, method of encoding, checksum specifications, etc. Most users are interested in the general capabilities of a particular symbology than in the sharp technical details.

There are different types of barcode systems/methods employed in various fields based on the usage and operations. 

Numeric-only barcodes.
Coda bar. Older code often used in library systems, sometimes in blood banks.

Code 11. Used primarily for labeling telecommunications equipment. 

EAN-13. European article numbering international retail product code. 

EAN-8. Compressed version of EAN code for small products.

Industrial 2 of 5. Older code which is not in common use. 

Interleaved 2 of 5. Compact numeric code, widely used in industry, specially in air cargo.

Plessey. Older code commonly used for retail shelf marking. 

MSI. Variation of the Plessey code commonly used in the USA. 

PostNet. Used by the US postal service for automated mail sorting.

UPC-A. Universal product code seen on almost all retail products in the USA and Canada. 

Standard 2 of 5. Older code not in common use.

UPC-E. Compressed version of UPC code for small products.

Alphanumeric barcodes.
Code 128. Excellent density and high-reliability code which is used worldwide.

Code 39. General-purpose code used worldwide.

Code 93. Compact code similar to Code 39.

LOGMARS. Same as Code 39, this is the US government specification.

2D barcodes.
PDF417. Excellent for encoding large amounts of data. 

DataMatrix. Can hold large amounts of data, especially suited for making very small codes. 

Maxicode. Fixed-length, used by United Parcel Service for automated package sorting.

QR code. Used for material control and order confirmation
Data code.
Code 49.

Retail barcodes. There are four barcode types commonly used for retail items.The data encoded is a number which can be used to uniquely identify the item. UPC A and UPC E are mostly used in North America, but are also found throughout the world. EAN 13 and EAN 8 are more popular in the rest of the world, but are also found in North America. In Japan, EAN 13 and EAN 8 are known as JAN 13 and JAN 8. Some retailers use their own proprietary barcode types which are usually based on either EAN or UPC barcodes.

Industry standards for barcodes and labels

Bookland EAN. It encodes ISBN numbers used internationally to mark books ISSN and the SISAC Barcode. ISSN system is used for identifying serial publications (print and non-print) while SISAC barcode symbol uses code 128 to uniquely identify each issue of a serial publication using the ISSN, date of publication, and volume or issue number. OPC. Optical industry association barcode for marking retail optical products UCC/EAN-128. Widely used data formatting model for Code 128 UPC Shipping Container Symbol. ITF-14

DataBar Expanded, DataBar 14. Apart from identifying a product, barcodes are expected to supply production details, such as batch number and use by date. DataBar Expanded is a new symbology which can do this. It encodes the same number as EAN 13 or UPC A by using less space.

Coupon barcodes.
EAN 13. It can be used to encode a simple code number, which must begin with ‘99.’

UPC coupon. It uses a combination of UPC A and GS1 128, which allows extra information to be encoded.

GS1 coupon. It is a new structure that uses DataBar Expanded and encodes even more information than the UPC Coupon.

Fig. 2: Right side code

Packaging barcodes. They are usually used on the shipping cartons that contain many items to give information about the contents.

ITF barcode. Known as UPC shipping in North America, it identifies th product in the box.

GS1 128 barcode. Formerly known as EAN 128, it is capable of providing details including dates, batch numbers, weight, quantity and dimensions of the product.

DataBar expanded (formerly known as RSS expanded) and GS1 DataMatrix barcodes. These can encode the same information as GS1 128 using less space.

Publishing barcodes. Books require a variation of EAN 13 barcode which encodes the ISBN number, plus optional pricing information. But newspapers and magazines require a variation of EAN 13 that can encode the ISSN number as well as the issue number and optional pricing information.

Sheet music requires a variation of  EAN 13 which encodes the ISMN number.

Barcodes for non-retail labels. There are many different symbologies used for representing alphanumeric codes. Among them the most popular are: 

Code 25. Also known as Interleaved 2 of 5 used for digits only.
Code 39. It is used for digits, letters and a subset of other characters.
Codabar. It is used for digits and a few other characters.
Code 128, Code 93 and Telepen. These are used for the full ASCII character set.

Pharmaceutical barcodes. 
Pharma code. It is used for quality control and product identification for most pharmaceutical products. Often one or more of the bars have different colour.

2D Pharma code. It is a specialised form of DataMatrix that additionally encodes colour information.

Barcodes for encoding a website’s address. 

Quick response (QR code). Its a 2D barcode. QR code can be used to encode a website’s address, which can then be scanned by a mobile phone. It can be seen on printed advertisements, promotional material or product packaging.

Functional operations of barcode system
A single barcode number has seven units which are either black or white. A black unit is displayed as a ‘bar,’ where as a white unit is displayed as ‘space.’ Another way of writing a barcode unit is ‘1’ for a single unit ‘black bar’ and ‘0’ for a single unit ‘white space.’ For instance, the number ‘1’ is composed of seven units, ‘0011001’ or ‘space-space-bar-bar-space-space-bar.’

In UPC barcode, the same numbers on the left-hand side—the manufacturer code—are coded differently than the numbers on the right-hand side—the product code. The numbers on the left are actually the ‘inverted’ or ‘mirrored’ codes of the numbers on the right.

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show the left and right side codes matching the corresponding numbers, separated into seven single units. 

For instance, a ‘bar’ on the right side is a ‘space’ on the left. The right-side codes are called ‘even parity’ codes because there is an even number of ‘black bar’ units. For instance, ‘6’ on the right side is ‘101000,’ with two even-numbered ‘black bar’ units. The left-side are called ‘odd-parity’ because there are odd number of ‘black bar’ units. For instance, the left-side ‘6’ is ‘0101111’ with five odd-numbered ‘black bar’ units. Having different coded numbers for each side allows the barcode to be scanned in either direction. 

Application of barcode system

1. Retail applications    • Super markets   • Universal product code   • Price and description information 2. Warehousing 3. Health care applications   • Drugs, instruments   • Identification of expiry date   • Blood banking—to find blood group, expiry date, donor traceability etc 4. Inventory control   • Portable readers 5. Work in process (WIP) tracking 6. Company inventory   • Raw materials   • WIP—components, assemblies, and semi-finished products    • Finished products 7. Shipping 8. Electronic data interchange   • Direct communication between two or more companies’ network   • Industry-wise EDI standards   • Reduces cost and saves time of business transaction 9. Library management

Basics about the codes
Every barcode number is equal to four different ‘marks.’ A ‘mark’ can be either black (bar) or white (space). The ‘marks’ vary in width, but there are always four different marks—two ‘bar marks’ and two ‘space marks.’ 

The left-side code always begins with a ‘space’ or ‘0’ and ends with a ‘bar’ or ‘1.’ The right-side code is just the opposite; it begins with a ‘bar’ or ‘1’ and ends with a ‘space’ or ‘0.’

Fig. 3 shows the sample format of a barcode. The various parts in which the barcode structure can be divided are:

Fig. 3: Sample format of barcode

Manufacturer code. This is a five digit number specifically assigned to the manufacturer of the product. The manufacturer codes are maintained and assigned by the Uniform Code Council (UCC). Every product which the manufacturer makes carries the same manufacturer code.

Product code. This is a five-digit number that the manufacturer assigns for a particular product. Every different product and every different packaging or size gets a unique product code. A manufacturer can have 99,999 unique product codes. The product code is marked in Fig. 3 with orange colour.

Three guard bars. There are three guard bars highlighted with green colour in Fig. 3, at the beginning, middle and the end of barcode. The beginning and ending guard bars are encoded as ‘bar-space-bar’ or ‘101.’ The middle guard bar is encoded as ‘space-bar-space-bar-space’ or ‘01010.’ The guard bars tell the computer-scanner when the manufacturer and product code begin and end. For example, when the computer scanner reads the first‘101’ or guard bar, the computer knows the next series of numbers is either the manufacturer or product code. Similarly, when the scanner reads the ‘01010’ or middle guard bar, the computer knows another number is coming. The guard bars are also the supposedly ‘666’ hidden in the barcode.

Number system character. This number is a UPC system number that characterises specific types of barcodes. A UPC barcode is normally on the left side of the barcode. The actual barcode (the ‘bars’ and ‘spaces’) is the one after the first ‘guard bar.’ The number system character is symbolised with blue colour in Fig. 3. 

Check digit. Also called the ‘self-check’ digit, it is on the outside-right of the bar code. Check digit is an old-programmer’s trick to validate that the other digits (number system character, manufacturer code and product code) are read correctly. It is marked with red colour in Fig. 3.

Pricing system
In general, no special bar is mentioned or used for pricing a product. When the scanner at the checkout line scans a product, the cash register sends the UPC number to the store’s central point of sale (POS) computer to look up the UPC number. The computer sends back the actual price of the item at that moment. This approach allows the store to change the price whenever required. If the price were encoded in the barcode, they could never be changed so easily. 

Zero-suppressed numbers
There are also short bar codes, called zero-suppressed numbers. There’s a set of rules around forming zero-suppressed numbers from full numbers, but the basic idea is to leave out a set of four digits—all zeros. The main reason for having zero-suppressed numbers is to create smaller bar codes for small product-packages like 355ml cans. 

Bridgelux: Our Mission Is To Help Transform The Energy Landscape

Bridgelux: Our Mission Is To Help Transform The Energy Landscape  

      
Bridgelux is a leading developer and manufacturer of LED lighting technologies and solutions and is a pioneer in Solid State Lighting. The company is leading the evolution beyond LED chips to solid-state lighting platforms to redefine the general illumination market. In this interview, the India country head, Sunil Kaul, speaks to Dilin Anand about Bridgelux' plans in India to transform the energy landscape using innovative LED technology.

---

EFY: Where is Bridgelux based from?
We are headquartered in Livermore, CA in the USA. That is where our design, development is done. We have a workforce of around 250 people globally.

EFY: Do you plan to have any R&D in India?
Not in the immediate future, but in the longer term we will explore that option. Bridgelux came to India in the summer of 2011, and we are very pleased to see the growing market opportunities here. Our primary focus will initially be on market development and providing strong application engineering support. There are several lighting companies in India that deal with traditional lighting. Now, as they move forward to solid state lighting, there are a number of subtleties in terms of how LED based products are built. Our aim therefore, is to bring value to our customers in India by helping them with application engineering and ensuring robust LED lighting products are built for local conditions here in India.

EFY: What are your future plans in India?
We are starting to explore setting up manufacturing in India and are already holding discussions. This will be in 2 phases; the first phase will focus on LED packaging wherein, we will bring in the LED chips and carry out the component assembly in India. Depending on the right economics, we might transition to the second phase, which would consist of the LED chip manufacturing itself.

EFY: Could you elaborate on the LED array?
If you look at our product, you will see that it is basically made up of individual LED dye.
Leveraging patented light source technology, we integrate these solid-state light sources to form an LED array. It is these products that enable high performance and energy-efficient products for the general lighting market. The LED chips are essentially the building blocks from which LED arrays are formed.

EFY: Could you elaborate on your product line please?
Our product line is designed keeping in mind a vast number of applications.

At the lower power end, we offer LED arrays, which can be used to build and replace a traditional 40-60 watt incandescent bulb. Similarly, if you consider CFL based products, one can replace an 18 watt CFL with a 5 watt LED. This translates to impressive power savings in homes. These products are aimed at the general consumer market.

In the mid power range (11W-50W), we have LED array solutions for the retail and hospitality industry where the requirement is for high quality lighting. We have had a number of successful installations in Europe, North America and various parts of Asia using Bridgelux arrays. These installations include hotels, retail food environments, department stores and very high-end retail.

For high lumen output applications, we have products for Industrial applications such as High Bays. This lighting is typically used in factories, warehouses etc and can be at heights as much as 13 meters. These applications therefore, require significantly more power from the light source. For such applications, we have developed LED arrays that can deliver as much as 8000 lumens using only 90 watts in one single array, replacing 250-400 watt HID lights. Needless to say, besides providing excellent quality of light, you also get the benefits of tremendous energy savings reducing consumption by nearly 50 per cent or more.

EFY: Why do you say that LED lighting is better than conventional lighting in retail stores?

LED-based lighting has multiple advantages for the retail space. First is energy efficiency. In the retail environment, store or mall lighting is on 12 to 24 hours per day. Stores see immediate savings in their operating costs due to the energy efficiency alone. Many studies have demonstrated that the quality and quantity of lighting drives store turnover. No matter how efficient the lighting, no retail outlet is going to sacrifice the quality of the store lighting. So this leads to the second advantage that LED lighting and Bridgelux arrays have in the retail space—Bridgelux arrays deliver high quality and quantity of light demanded by retail. Third, LED lighting has no heat or infrared (IR) in the beam as do metal halide or halogen technologies. This means that high quantities of light may be delivered to draw customer attention to merchandise without creating a hot, uncomfortable shopping environment. It also allows merchants to reduce the amount of HVAC cooling in the store, since less heat is being generated in the shop. Fourth, LED lighting does not produce ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This means that even under high quantities of light fruits, vegetables and meats will not spoil and fabric colours will not fade.

EFY: Is there any particular section of the market that you are focusing on?
One of the very interesting products that Bridgelux has built is designed for street lighting. In Bengaluru for instance, we have about 4 lakh streetlights. So you can imagine the energy savings when a typical 250W streetlight is replaced by LEDs that reduce consumption by 50 per cent or even by 2/3rd. In a country like India, where we are always struggling for power, using these LED solutions can contribute significantly in reducing power consumption.

EFY: Is there any particular LED technology that has greatly affected the industry?
The biggest challenge for LED manufacturers has been cost, and the entire industry has been working towards reducing the cost of LEDs. One of the high cost elements in LED manufacturing is the use of a substrate upon which the LED is built. This material is a significant factor that adds to the manufacturing cost.

Several LED players from the industry have tried to use silicon as the substrate, since this material has been around for decades and is extremely inexpensive. In addition, the extensive experience of manufacturing in silicon based substrates means that there is huge capacity and depreciated cap-ex that can be leveraged for cost. The tremendous amount of automation that exists when working with silicon can also help to reduce costs significantly.

There are significant technical problems to build an LED chip on silicon due to mismatch in the thermal coefficient of expansion. Through its technical innovation, Bridgelux has been able to solve this problem and has demonstrated crack free Gallium Nitride on Silicon. We believe this will disrupt the manufacturing cost curve for LEDs. We expect to have deployed it in the marketplace in approximately 18 months.

EFY: What challenges do you expect to face in India?
If I look at the analogy of how India went through the transition to CFL, it all started with a flood of products coming in from outside with no product standards in place. With inferior products coming in, consumers had poor experiences and consequently blamed the technology for this. Fortunately, the government stepped in and played a strong role in introducing standards which overtime, led to maturity in adoption, and brought down the prices.

LEDs are no different. While standards are being developed, it is essential for companies such as Bridgelux to work closely with lighting companies to ensure that the entire design and integration of the product, including the drivers and thermal management systems are properly selected to meet the lighting product’s requirements. Our ecosystem partnerships were put in place to ensure that high quality products were being used to build the lighting fixture. We are constantly evaluating new drivers, heat sinks and optics and ensure the same is passed on to the customer base here in India.

We all understand prices will continue to come down as sales volumes grow. In addition, Bridgelux is also looking at creating innovative business models to help speed market adoption and overcome this potential barrier for the near term.

EFY: Could you give us an example of such innovation by Bridgelux?
Bridgelux worked with a program for light bulbs along with a North American Utility company. Low cost smart chips were built in the LED light bulb. These smart chips are able to communicate with the utility company through specially developed software. When there is a high load on the grid, typically in the afternoons, the LED bulb sends out a signal to the utility company, who in turn are able to reduce the light output by 15 per cent. This decrease is not noticeable to the human eye. However, the grid sees this reduction and it creates a significant opportunity to save energy. The savings resulting from this 15 per cent reduction, more than compensates for the cost of giving away the bulb for free to the consumers. We need more of such innovative models to help stimulate the demand.

EFY: How do you aim to help transform the energy landscape?
We aim to transform the energy landscape by bringing in solid technology and deploying the right LED solutions in India. We also have a vision of bringing in long term manufacturing in the country. Our goal is to train the people in India and set up the entire ecosystem in the country. As we build application labs in India, engineers that come out of colleges in the country will start to learn about LED technology so that ultimately, we will be able to eliminate our dependency on imports. As a nation, we have to become self reliant with access to the right technology, and the manufacturing of technology. That's the journey we are on.  

Atomtronics trying to replace Electronics....Using Ultracold Atoms Instead of Electrons, Atomtronics Could Revolutionize Computing

Atomtronics trying to replace Electronics...

We all have heard of electronics, mechatronics and maybe even spintronics, but the latest buzzword doing the rounds of physics labs is atomtronics—the science of creating circuits, devices and materials using ultra-cold atoms instead of electrons

Electronics is the field of electron movement in the circuits governed by the use of wires, silicon and electricity. All modern electronic devices contain transistors as the fundamental building blocks. Until recently, electronics had been based on a single property of electrons—their charge. But now physicists have begun to exploit another property—electron spin.

So-called spintronics promises to revolutionise electronics because it allows information to be encoded in an entirely new way. Though electronics is bestowed with a large number of inherited advantages, but in the era of quantum electronics it is facing new challenges. Because electrons lose any possible initial quantum state as they bounce around through the energy-dissipating semiconductor or metallic systems, they are ill-equipped for quantum computing. 

Atomtronics

We all have heard of electronics, mechatronics and maybe even spintronics, but the latest buzzword doing the rounds of physics labs is atomtronics—the science of creating circuits, devices and materials using ultra-cold atoms instead of electrons. What if atoms could be used to perform the functions that are currently the province of electronic devices? The goal of atomtronics is to do just that by creating analogues to the common items found in electronic and spintronic devices. 

Physicists Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein proposed in 1924 that large numbers of atoms could be chilled to the point that they joined together in a single quantum state, bringing subatomic effects to a scale accessible by laboratory experiments. But it wasn’t until 1995 that scientists made a Bose-Einstein condensate (ultra-cold gas) using lasers to carefully cool rubidium-87 atoms down to temperatures less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics celebrated this accomplishment, which was also achieved using sodium atoms.

Atomtronics is a young and mostly theoretical field based on the idea that atoms in unusual quantum states of matter may provide an alternative to the tried-and-true electron for making useful devices. The field’sproponents have drawn up blueprints for atomic versions of many traditional electronic components—from wires and batteries to transistors and diodes. The idea is to manipulate neutral atoms using lasers in a way that mimics the behaviour of electrons in wires, transistors and logic gates.

In atomtronics, the current carriers in electronics (electrons) are replaced with neutral, ultra-cold atoms; the  semiconductor material that the electrons traverse is replaced with an optical lattice; and the electric potential difference, which induces the flow of electrons around the circuit, is replaced by a chemical potential difference.

Over the last decade or two, physicists have become masters at creating optical lattices in which atoms can be pushed, pulled and prodded at will. This optical property of atoms has not attracted much attention of workers but now people have begun a program to put tame atoms to work. The problem is that atoms don’t behave like electrons. So, building the atomtronic equivalent of something even as straightforward as a simple circuit consisting of a battery and resistor in series requires some thinking out of the box.

The dynamics of atoms in optical lattices, which are basically crystals of light, has  been studied theoretically and experimentally for many years now. It is just a further addition to this field by theoretically demonstrating that the electronic properties of the diode and transistor can be observed in specifically tailored optical lattices.

Researchers believe that it is possible to emulate the behaviour of a semiconductor diode in these atomic systems. For example, simulations show that this augmented optical lattice will allow atoms to flow acros it from left to right, but forbids the atoms to traverse the lattice going the other way.

Ultra-cold atoms have interesting properties that conventional materials lack—superfuidity, superconductivity and coherence, to name just three. Being cold, they are also well-behaved enough to be manipulated by lasers. When several are held in a line or an array, these can link in a way that is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics and then the fun really starts.

These can be used to measure time on unimaginably short time-scales, can carry out simple calculations and may even form the basis of future quantum computers. Almost all of the atomtronics pioneers hope that for certain applications atoms will prove to be more interesting than electrons.

Fig. 1: Atoms spun by laser beams

The motivation to construct and study atomtronic analogues of electronic systems comes from several directions:
1. The experimental atomtronic realisations promise to be extremely clean. Imperfections such as lattice defects or phonons can be completely eliminated. This allows one to study an idealised system from which all inessential complications have been stripped.

Consequently, one may obtain an improved understanding of the essential requirements that make certain electronic devices work. It is possible that a deeper understanding may provide feedback to the design of conventional electronic systems leading to future improvements. This lies parallel to the recent interest in single-electron transistors in mesoscopic systems and molecules, where many themes common with atomtronics emerge.

A consequence of the near-ideal experimental conditions for optical lattice systems is that theoretical descriptions for atomtronic systems can be developed from firstprinciples. This allows theorists to develop detailed models that can reliably predict the properties of devices.

2. Atomtronic systems are richer than their electronic counterparts because atoms possess more internal degrees of freedom than electrons. Atoms can be either bosons or fermions, and the interactions between these can be widely varied from short to long range and from strong to weak. This can lead to behavior that is qualitatively different to that of electronics.

Consequently, one can study repulsive, attractive or even non-interacting atoms in the same experimental setup. Additionally, current experimental techniques allow the detection of atoms with fast, state-resolved and near-unit quantum efficiency. Thus it is possible in principle, to follow the dynamics of an atomtronic system in real time.

3. Neutral atoms in optical lattices can be well isolated from the environment, reducing de-coherence. These combine a powerful means of state readout and preparation, with methods for entangling atoms. Such systems have all the necessary ingredients to be the building blocks of quantum signal processors. The close analogies with electronic devices can serve as a guide in the search for new quantum information architectures, including novel types of quantum logic gates that are closely tied with the conventional architecture in electronic computers.

4. Recent experiments studying transport properties of ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices can be discussed in the context of the atomtronics framework. In particular, one can model the short-time transport properties of an optical lattice with the open quantum system formalism discussed here.

Latest developments
The atoms placed in an optical lattice, when super-cooled to form Bose-Einstein condensates, may form states analogous to electrons in solid-state crystalline media such as semiconductors. Impurity doping allows the creation of n- and p-type semiconductor analogue states, and an atomtronic battery can be created by maintaining two contacts at different chemical potentials. Analogues to diodes and transistors have also been theoretically demonstrated.

Although atomtronic devices have yet to be realised experimentally, the properties of condensed atoms offer a wide range of possible applications. The use of ultra-cold atoms allows for circuit elements, which further allow for the coherent flow of information and may be useful in connecting classical electronic devices and quantum computers.

The use of atomtronics may allow for quantum computers that work on macroscopic scales and do not require the technological precision of laser-controlled few-ion computing methods. Since the atoms are Bose condensed, they have the property of superfluidity and, therefore, have resistance-less current in which no energy is lost or heat is dissipated, similar to superconducting electronic devices. The vast knowledge of electronics may be leveraged to easily adapt to ultra-cold atomic atomtronic circuits.

Physicists have developed a new type of circuit that is little more than a puff of gas dancing in laser beams. By choreographing the atoms of the ultra-cold gas to flowas a current that can be controlled and switched on and off, the scientists have taken a step toward building the world’s first‘atomtronic’ device.

The research team used Bose-Einstein condensate to make atomtronic sensors. The team reports creating this gas by cooling sodium atoms suspended in magnetic felds. Researchers then trapped the atoms in a pair of crossed laser beams and further chilled the atoms to less than 10-billionths of a degree above absolute zero. The two beams also shaped the condensate that formed at these low temperatures into a flattened dough-nut with a radius of about 20 micrometre.

A second pair of lasers transferred energy to the dough-nut to start its rotation. Because atoms in the condensate behave as a single, coherent quantum particle, such a ring of the substance does not speed up or slow down gradually. It jumps between different speeds, much like a blender would, if it could change settings instantaneously.

The scientists chose the lowest setting for their ring; about one revolution every second. Because the condensate also happens to be frictionless, this ring should, in theory, rotate forever. Limited by technical diffiulties, the research team kept it going for about 40 seconds—the lifetime of their condensate.

Scientists believed that Bose-Einstein condensate could provide an extremely sensitive rotation sensor. They added a ‘weak link’ to their condensate ring—a barrier created by a blue laser that could speed up or shut down the flow. Theoretically, if the condensate were kept still and the barrier was attached to a rotating sensor, the barrier would cause a sudden jump in current at certain rotation speeds.

Atomtronic devices
The atoms in the condensate flow as a current, which can be switched on and off like a normal circuit. Atomtronics uses atoms in strange quantum states to power devices or computer memory. This is different from spintronics, which stores information based on the spin of individual electrons, allowing each one to store two bits of data instead of one.

Computer scientists and particle physicists have made several advances in these fields in the past several months. Using atoms instead of electrons to process information could change the way we think about computing. In quantum computing we store a quantum state on an object, perform operations on the object and then read out the final state. If the system is not coherent, the initial stored information is lost.

The current carriers i.e. electrons and the semiconductor materials in electronics are replaced by neutral ultra cold atoms and optical lattice respectively in atomtronics. Moreover the electric potential difference that induces the flow of electrons in the circuit is replaced by a chemical potential difference.

Fig. 2: Atomtronic analogy to diode circuit

Atoms trapped in optical lattices have been considered extensively for specific quantum computing schemes due to their inherent energy conserving characteristics. Therefore the dynamics of atomtronic devices would be coherent and potentially useful in quantum computing. It is also suggested that there is the possibility that atomtronics could be useful in obtaining sensitive measurements. It is thus concluded that atomtronic systems provide a nice test of fundamental concepts in condensed matter physics. While these ideas have been modeled, they are yet to be built.

Atomtronic diode

Atomtronic diode is a device that allows an atomic flux to flow across it in essentially only one direction. The atomtronic analogy of a diode is formed from the joining of p- and n-type semiconductor materials. Electrons are replaced by ultra-cold atoms, the battery is replaced by high and low chemical potential reservoirs, and the metallic crystal lattices (the microscopic medium that the electrons traverse) are replaced by an optical lattice. The atomtronic diode is achieved by energetically shifting one-half of the optical lattice with respect to the other.

The wires and atomtronic components are composed of optical lattices, and current refers to the number of atoms that pass a specifi point in a given amount of time. The desired function of an atomtronic transistor is to enable a weak atomtronic current to be amplified, or to switch on or off a much larger one. The team has also modeled an atomtronic transistor. The atomtronic version of transitor exhibits on/off switching behavior and acts as an amplifier.

By confiuring the optical lattice in a manner researchers show that it is possible to recover the characteristics of the conventional electronic transistor in the atomic world.


Limitations of atomtronics

Scientists are hoping to use the condensate in the way that superconductors have been used to make improved devices and sensors. Idea for a useful device was inspired by superconducting quantum interference devices, commonly known as SQUIDs. Scientists also believe that Bose-Einstein condensate could provide an extremely sensitive rotation sensor.

It is pointed out, however, that atomtronics probably won’t replace electronics as atoms are sluggish compared to electrons. This means it might be difficult to replace fast electronic devices with sluggish atomtronic devices.