Indian-American scientist working to tackle 'hot' laptops
Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 23:26 IST
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Washington: Faster and greater processing speeds are producing hotter and hotter miniaturised computer models like the laptop. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science are working to overcome the excess heat generating problem using nanoelectronics, expected to power the next generation of computers. "Laptops are very hot now, so hot that they are not 'lap' tops anymore," said Avik Ghosh, assistant professor at the University. "The prediction is that if we continue at our current pace of miniaturisation, these devices will be as hot as the sun in 10 to 20 years." Ghosh and Mircea Stan, also a professor in the department, are re-examining nothing less than the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law states that, left to itself, heat will transfer from a hotter unit to a cooler one - in this case between electrical computer components - until both have roughly the same temperature, a state called "thermal equilibrium." The possibility of breaking the law will require Ghosh and Stan to solve a scientifically controversial - and theoretical - conundrum known as "Maxwell's Demon." Introduced by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1871, the concept theorises that the energy flow from hot to cold could be disrupted if there were a way to control the transfer of energy between two units. Maxwell's Demon would allow one component to take the heat while the other worked at a lower temperature. This could be accomplished only if the degree of natural disorder, or entropy, were reduced. And that's the "demon" in Maxwell's Demon. "Device engineering is typically based on operating near thermal equilibrium," Ghosh said. But, he added, nature has examples of biological cells that operate outside thermal equilibrium. "Chlorophyll, for example, can convert photons into energy in highly efficient ways that seem to violate traditional thermodynamic expectations," he said, according to a University of Virginia report filed by Zak Richards. A closely related concept, Brownian "ratchets," will also be explored. This concept proposes that devices could be engineered to convert non-equilibrium electrical activity into directed motion, allowing energy to be harvested from a heat source. If computers could be made with components that operate outside thermal equilibrium, it could mean better computer performance. Basically, your laptop wouldn't burst into flames as it processes larger amounts of information at faster speeds. Combining Ghosh's command of physics with Stan's expertise in electrical engineering, the two hope to bridge the concept of tackling Maxwell's Demon and Brownian ratchets from theoretical physics to engineered technologies. "These theories have been looked at from a physics perspective for years, but not from the perspective of electrical engineering," Stan said. "So that's where we are trying to break some ground."
Source: IANS
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