Aug 1, 1998 — Deep inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northeastern Ukraine, the site of the worst nuclear meltdown in history, is a room filled with radioactive slag that has kept man and machine at bay for more than a decade. Now a team of researchers, led by Maynard Holliday of Lawrence Liver-more National Laboratory, has constructed a robot it hopes to send into the abandoned reactor. Onboard will be the latest in a digital three-dimensional imaging system that will assist the team as the robot...

Aug 1, 1998 — Gary Hieftje and Radislav Potyrailo of Indiana University in Bloomington have designed a "distributed" sensor that uses optical time-of-flight spectroscopy. The scientists operate the sensor by sending a very short pulse of light down the length of...

Jul 1, 1998 — To evolve low-cost, portable land mine detection technology, researchers at Duke University have developed microelectromechanical devices that could become a two-part detection system for explosives. The first device uses ultrasound to loosen the...

Jul 1, 1998 — Engineers from the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies and department of civil engineering, along with technicians from Ontario, Canada's Ministry of Transportation, have installed experimental long-gauge fiber optic sensors on a...

Jul 1, 1998 — Astronomers have been able -- even with the greatest of telescopes -- to see only a small portion of the sky at a time. Professor Jim Gunn, a Princeton University astronomer, hopes to overcome this obstacle by building a telescope that images the...

Jul 1, 1998 — Long operating life, fuel efficiency, passenger safety and customer satisfaction - all important considerations in the transportation industry - rely heavily on precision alignment of body parts and operating components. In recent years, lasers and...

Jul 1, 1998 — Thanks to recently released images taken from a NASA/ Japan Space Agency spacecraft's lightning image sensor, scientists are gaining new insights into rainfall-producing cloud systems over the tropics. Sensors aboard a NASA satellite captured...

Jul 1, 1998 — Applications of photonics technology in research and development over the past decade have helped to create many technologies that will improve water safety, reduce wasted paper and make manufacturing and agriculture more environmentally friendly in...

Jul 1, 1998 — For years, scientists have sought the elusive, weightless particles known as neutrinos. Neutrinos, which behave somewhat like photons (they can travel without changing direction through matter), are weakly interacting particles and so can travel...

Jul 1, 1998 — In a discovery described as monumental, scientists report that neutrinos have a mass -- an observation that could alter current theories on dark matter and provide clues to the origin of the universe. The findings came from a $100 million detector...

Jul 1, 1998 — Scanning confocal laser microscopes are bulky and stay in one place. But a start-up company aims to find its success by miniaturizing these devices while still providing three-dimensional optical sectioning and high contrast. The battery-operated...

Jul 1, 1998 — The criteria that the military uses to develop its targeting and surveillance imagers may be useful to those who are developing other types of imaging systems, such as microscopes, machine vision systems, consumer digital cameras and surveillance...

Jun 1, 1998 — Golfers may soon be able to send their hand measurements electronically to a glove manufacturing facility and receive custom-made gloves in just a few weeks. Photonics once again is the backbone of this capability. 4DI technology has also been...

Jun 1, 1998 — A method for dip coating a substrate with organic polymers may increase the efficiency of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and computer displays while reducing costs and environmental hazards. The technique, being explored by a group of MIT researchers,...

Jun 1, 1998 — Over the past 30 years, lidar systems have become increasingly useful for the study of air quality and dynamics. Lidar can measure vertical profiles of airborne particulates, wind speed and direction, water vapor, temperature and chemical species...

Jun 1, 1998 — A computerized facial recognition system, employing advanced algorithms coupled with off-the-shelf imaging equipment, has given this state's motor vehicles division an advantage in determining a license applicant's identity. Not long ago, there were...

Jun 1, 1998 — University of Texas researchers and the Ford Motor Co. are collaborating on a spark plug that employs fiber to monitor pre-ignition fuel concentration. The goal, said developer Mathew Hall, is reduced engine pollutants and improved performance by...

Jun 1, 1998 — In a bid to provide an alternative to high-priced, cooled IR detectors, Sarcon Microsystems Inc. of Knoxille, Tenn., has developed a microcantilever-based sensor priced at about $4000 for a 240 3 320 array. Cooled IR detectors can cost upward of...

Jun 1, 1998 — Rarely is a suspect tried for murder in a case where no corpse has been found -- a frustrating predicament when law officials believe they know the crime has been committed and who the murderer is. Homicide investigators and search specialists often...

Jun 1, 1998 — Anyone who turned on CNN this winter remembers the images: expensive homes teetering on the edge of rocky cliffs, vulnerable to the Pacific's waves. Those familiar images were the result of El Niño -- the weather phenomenon blamed for...

Jun 1, 1998 — In an effort to coordinate a better defense among allied nations, the Pentagon has called for increased cooperation with Japan and Europe in the production of new weapons, including remote sensors. US Undersecretary of Defense Jacques Gansler said...

Jun 1, 1998 — A team of engineering students from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., took the No. 1 prize in an international contest to build a computerized robotic device that detects fire. The robot, dubbed Phoenix, employed IR sensors for edge and heat...

Jun 1, 1998 — Scientists at Princeton University in New Jersey have developed a class of metal-free cathodes for use in organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) along with phototransistors, photodetectors, solar cells and lasers. Typically, organic LEDs employ a more...

Jun 1, 1998 — A research group here has collaborated with an Italian team to evaluate the integrity of ancient monuments and historical structures using laser radar that was originally designed for atmospheric sensing. The problem of decaying artifacts is nothing...

Jun 1, 1998 — Astronomers and astrophysicists studying the nature of celestial objects require clear, sharp images collected by astronomical telescopes. To accomplish this, the engineers who design and build these instruments must ensure that light from the...