One student’s “Smile Mask” used a combination of sensors and LED lights to promote social distancing. Get too close and the green smile switches to a red frown. (Image: Penn Engineering)
High school students lead ‘Maskathon’ during remote summer program
A virtual Maskathon showcased high school students’ problem solving, product development, and creativity with their tech-integrated face masks.
Engineers manipulate color on the nanoscale, making it disappear
A new system of nanoscale semiconductor strips uses structural color interactions to eliminate the strips’ intrinsic color entirely, with implications for holographic displays and optical sensors, or new types of microlasers and detectors.
Rooting out systemic bias in neuroscience publishing
An interdisciplinary research team has found statistical evidence of women being undercited in academic literature. They are now studying similar effects along racial lines.
Engineering’s Stephanie Weirich designs tools for a safer world
Stephanie Weirich, ENIAC President’s Distinguished Professor in Computer and Information Science, aims to make software systems more reliable, maintainable, and secure.
Aflatouni’s (left) lab works to make the electronic and photonic components of our modern information delivery infrastructure work together. (Pre-pandemic image: Penn Engineering)
Firooz Aflatouni has built his career on designing clever combinations of electronic and photonic technology with applications from laser-based 3D imaging, to microwave “cameras.”
A pair of studies from Penn Engineering provides new ways to increase information density in optical communications, paving the way for a massive increase in the bandwidth of fiber optic networks.
A molecular simulation of a grain boundary (green) migrating. (Image: Penn Engineering)
Understanding the ‘fundamental nature’ of atomic-scale defects
New research provides a deeper mathematical understanding of the dynamics of a material’s atomic-level defects, which could enable new ways to imbue substances with unique and desirable properties.
This three-square-millimeter filter chip can take the output of low-cost lasers and convert it such that it has the same frequency noise as bigger and significantly more expensive lasers. (Image: Penn Engineering)
State-of-the-art lasers at the micro level
New filter chips created by Penn engineers could enable high-quality lasers at a fraction of their current size and cost.
In this artist’s conception, fleets of flyers could be launched from ground-based rovers and steered with lasers to collect samples. Planets and moons with thin atmospheres and low gravities would enhance these flyers’ ability to levitate by shooting air through their corrugated channels. (Image: Penn Engineering)
‘Nanocardboard’ flyers could serve as Martian atmospheric probes
As NASA plans to launch its next Mars rover, Perseverance, this summer, Penn Engineers are now testing their ‘nanocardboard flyers’ ability to lift payloads.
Rather than a battery, the researchers’ metal-air scavenger vehicle gets energy from breaking chemical bonds in the aluminum surface it travels over. The vehicle keeps going until the hydrogel slab it’s dragging dries out or the surface is completely corroded, but a freely moving robot could seek out new sources of water and metal.
New scavenger technology allows robots to ‘eat’ metal for energy
Penn Engineering researchers’ new metal-air scavenger vehicle gets energy from breaking chemical bonds in the aluminum surface it travels over, rather than from batteries.
