In the news

Spinning objects are hypnotic and fascinating, as last year's fidget-spinner craze overwhelmingly demonstrated. But even the fastest fidget spinner trails the new reigning champion of fast-whirling objects: a tiny dumbbell that can rotate 60 billion times per minute.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers have developed a technique they hope will provide valuable information about the growth of certain cancers and the ability of drugs to fight them.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A startup created by Purdue University professors is developing a sensor that can detect dangerous mosquito-borne tropical diseases faster and at a lower cost than current methods, giving health officials time to take action before the viruses are transmitted to humans. SMK Diagnostics has created biosensor technology to identify and monitor diseases such as Zika, which set off a global health crisis in 2015 and 2016, and dengue, which causes about 22,000 deaths a year worldwide, mostly among children. Dengue and Zika are from the same family of virus known as flavivirus

Joerg Appenzeller, the Barry M. and Patricia L. Epstein Professor of ECE, is the recipient of the 2018 Aristotle Award from the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC). The award recognizes professors for outstanding teaching and a deep commitment to the educational experience of students.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers have developed a large-scale manufacturing process that may change the way some grocery store foods are packaged. According to Credence Research, food packaging is a growing billion-dollar market, and overall predicted growth is expected to reach 6 percent by 2024. Advanced barrier coatings, which help to protect grocery items such as foods and beverages, are growing by as much as 45 percent each year.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Peide “Peter” Ye, the Richard J. and Mary Jo Schwartz Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, has been chosen as the 2018 Arden L. Bement Jr. Award recipient. One of Purdue University’s top three research honors, the Bement Award is given for significant accomplishments in pure and applied science and engineering.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Surfaces that repel water can support efficient boiling if all air and vapor is removed from a system first, according to research featured on the cover of the most recent issue of Physical Review Letters

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers at Purdue University and Stanford University believe they have found a novel laser light sensing technology that is more robust and less expensive than currently available with a wide range of uses, including a way to guide fully autonomous vehicles. The researchers say their innovation is orders of magnitude faster than conventional leading-edge laser beam steering devices that use phased antenna-array technology. The laser beam steering being tested and used by Purdue and Stanford is based on light-matter interaction between a silicon-based metasurface and short light pulses produced for example by a mode-locked laser with a frequency-comb spectrum. Such a beam-steering device can scan a large angle of view in nanoseconds or picoseconds compared with the microseconds current technology takes.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University researchers have demonstrated the ability of a thin film to conduct heat on just its surfaces, identifying a potential solution to overheating in electronic devices such as phones and computers. “When you try to make an electronic device, the heat dissipation is always a problem,” said Xianfan Xu, Purdue’s James J. and Carol L. Shuttleworth Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “So we are trying to provide an understanding of how heat can be dissipated in these future devices.”

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University is leading a new center to overcome the challenges of critical parts needed for low-power, high-performance computer chips in consumer electronics, vehicles and national security. The NEW LIMITS center is a three-year project supported by $4.5 million from a collaboration between the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NEW LIMITS will be one of four centers in the SRC nanoelectronics Computing Research (nCORE) program, and the only center selected to receive NIST funding. The SRC consortium operates university research programs both in the U.S. and globally, connecting them with sponsors in the semiconductor research industry. NIST, a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, advances measurement science, standards and technology to promote U.S. innovation and competitiveness. Purdue is working on the project with researchers from Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Dallas and Stanford University.