Major Shaitan Singh
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3,550
- Reaction score
- 43
- Country
- Location
Uniquely coating two glass slides with some chemicals, Indian scientists have come up with a memory storage device, which is capable of seeing "invisible" aircraft used in warfare and can be used in the heart of future target tracking devices.
After four years of diligent research, a team at National Physical Laboratory (NPL), here under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have been able to develop the memory storage device which is superior to existing storage devices as it can store images up to one year. The NPL team got patents on the novel system in US, Japan, Germany UK and South Korea.
Using the NPL device, Instrumentation Research and Development Establishment (IRDE) a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory at Dehradun, is working to create an improved target-tracking equipment since the indigenous system is capable of seeing the invisible.
Many nations today use aircraft coated with a radar absorbing paint that make such planes invisible to the radar. "But our device converts invisible images into visible images making these planes visible.
It can see throughout the spectrum â from ultraviolet to visible to infrared range â which is an added advantage," NPL team leader Dr Ashok Biradar told Deccan Herald. The system identifies the planes within a fraction of a second.
On the civilian side, the device can be used for storing holographic images, Dr Biradar said, adding that the commercial potential of the application had not been explored so far. The device runs on one pencil battery and cheaper than semiconductor-based storage devices used in computers.
To prepare the storage device, two-glass plates were coated with a chemical called indium tin oxide. On the coated glass plate, a second coating by a polymer was given. A spacer is used to maintain a tiny gap between the two plates.
But what makes the entire system unique, is a grooving which the scientists were able to create on the polymer surface by controlling the polymer formation and manually rubbing the material.
âThe uneven grooves and the thickness of the coating are the two vital components of the storage device. A slightly thicker coating than what is normally used leads to the memory effect while the grooves hold the images that can be seen on a display,â he explained.
For image conversion the optical storage system needs to be integrated with a chemical known as ferroelectric liquid crystal.
The problem area is lack of repeatability as the team has failed in repeating the particular pattern on the polymer by manually rubbing the surface in 90 per cent cases. But NPL is importing a machine that scientists feel will do away with the uncertainty by mechanically rubbing the surface in an orderly fashion.
After four years of diligent research, a team at National Physical Laboratory (NPL), here under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have been able to develop the memory storage device which is superior to existing storage devices as it can store images up to one year. The NPL team got patents on the novel system in US, Japan, Germany UK and South Korea.
Using the NPL device, Instrumentation Research and Development Establishment (IRDE) a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory at Dehradun, is working to create an improved target-tracking equipment since the indigenous system is capable of seeing the invisible.
Many nations today use aircraft coated with a radar absorbing paint that make such planes invisible to the radar. "But our device converts invisible images into visible images making these planes visible.
It can see throughout the spectrum â from ultraviolet to visible to infrared range â which is an added advantage," NPL team leader Dr Ashok Biradar told Deccan Herald. The system identifies the planes within a fraction of a second.
On the civilian side, the device can be used for storing holographic images, Dr Biradar said, adding that the commercial potential of the application had not been explored so far. The device runs on one pencil battery and cheaper than semiconductor-based storage devices used in computers.
To prepare the storage device, two-glass plates were coated with a chemical called indium tin oxide. On the coated glass plate, a second coating by a polymer was given. A spacer is used to maintain a tiny gap between the two plates.
But what makes the entire system unique, is a grooving which the scientists were able to create on the polymer surface by controlling the polymer formation and manually rubbing the material.
âThe uneven grooves and the thickness of the coating are the two vital components of the storage device. A slightly thicker coating than what is normally used leads to the memory effect while the grooves hold the images that can be seen on a display,â he explained.
For image conversion the optical storage system needs to be integrated with a chemical known as ferroelectric liquid crystal.
The problem area is lack of repeatability as the team has failed in repeating the particular pattern on the polymer by manually rubbing the surface in 90 per cent cases. But NPL is importing a machine that scientists feel will do away with the uncertainty by mechanically rubbing the surface in an orderly fashion.
