SCI-TECH

US GOVERNMENT BOOST FOR SELF-DRIVING CARS

15

US vehicle safety regulators have said that the artificial intelligence system piloting
a self-driven Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major
step towards ultimately winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2016

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Pune Mirror, Pune, February 11, 2016 Pp.15

New film transistor paves

way for flexible electronics
The transistor is conducive to miniaturisation a common requirement in electronics and a feature TFT displays
lack. It also boasts power-handling capabilities ten times greater than commercially manufactured transistors
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esearchers have invented a thin film
transistor that could lead to the
development of flexible electronic devices with applications such as display
technology, medical imaging and renewable energy production.
Researchers were exploring new uses for
thin film transistors (TFT), which are most commonly
found
in
low-power,
lowfrequency devices like a computer display
screen.
Efforts to improve the performance of transistors have been slowed by the
challenges of developing new materials or slowly improving existing ones for use in
traditional thin film transistor architecture,
known as the metal oxide semiconductor field
effect transistor (MOSFET).
Instead of developing new materials,
researchers from the University of Alberta in
Canada improved performance by designing a
new transistor architecture that takes
advantage of a bipolar action.
Instead of using one type of charge carrier, as
most thin film transistors do, it uses
electrons and the absence of electrons
(referred to as holes) to contribute to electrical
output.
Their first breakthrough was forming an inversion hole layer in a wide-bandgap semiconductor, which has been a great
challenge in the solid-state electronics field.
Once this was achieved, we were able to
construct a unique combination of semiconductor and insulating layers that allowed us to
inject holes at the MOS interface, said Gem
Shoute from University of Alberta.

cientists have discovered hundreds of

galaxies just 250 million light years away from
Earth, which had been hidden from view until
now by our Milky Way galaxy.
The discovery may help to explain the
mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the
Great Attractor that appears to be drawing the Milky
Way and hundreds of thousands of other galaxies
towards it with a gravitational force equivalent of a
million billion Suns.
Using
Commonwealth
Scientific
and
Industrial Research Organisations (CSIRO) Parkes
radio telescope in Australia equipped with an innovative receiver, scientists were able to see through
the stars and dust of the Milky Way, into a previously
unexplored region of space.

LG recently displayed its 18-inch flexible display screen that can be rolled up like a newspaper
Adding holes at the interface increased the
chances of an electron tunneling across a dielectric
barrier.
Through
this
phenomenon, a type of quantum tunnelling,
researchers were able to achieve a transistor that
behaves like a bipolar transistor.
It is actually the best performing (TFT) device of its kind ever. This kind of device is normally limited by the non-crystalline
nature of the material that they are made of,
said Ken Cadien from the University of
Alberta.
The dimension of the device itself can be

scaled with ease in order to improve

performance and keep up with the need of miniaturisation, an advantage that modern TFT dislays lack. The transistor has power-handling capabilities at least ten times greater than
commercially produced thin film transistors.
Usually tunnelling current is considered a
bad thing in MOSFETs and it contributes to unnecessary loss of power, which manifests as
heat, said Shoute.
What we have done is build a transistor
that considers tunnelling current a benefit,
she added.

Vodafone launches 4G service in Mumbai

odafone India on Tuesday launched its
next-gen high-speed 4G network in
different business and residential
centres of the city and suburbs, a company
official said on Wednesday.
The Mumbai launch follows similar 4G
ventures in Delhi and the national capital
region, Kolkata, Karnataka and Kerala, said
company MD and CEO Sunil Sood. Vodafone
plans to cover the entire Mumbai area by
March-end.
Built on the efficient 1,800 MHz band, the
state-of-the-art
network
will
enable
Vodafone 4G customers to access internet via
mobile speeds across a range of smart devices,
including mobile Wi-Fi and dongles, Sood
said.
The 4G network has the potential to
revolutionise the mobile experience through
powerful innovation that impacts how we
work and live. With this, Vodafone is present
in five circles, which contribute 30 per cent of
industry revenues and nearly 50 per cent of
Vodafone India data revenues, Sood said,
adding the service will be launched in Banga-

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ICRAR

Hundreds of galaxies
hidden behind Milky
Way discovered

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis at the launch

of Vodafone 4G services in Mumbai
lore today.
The service can be readily accessed from
4G-enabled
handsets
of
leading
smartphones
like
iPhone,
Samsung,

Micromax, Microsoft, Lava and Xolo and

would significantly enhance the mobile
internet experience with faster download/upload of videos, music, seamless video chats and
greater ease in using apps.
Sood said the 4G service in Mumbai
where Vodafone is serving nine million
customers is built on a strong fibre backhaul
of 100G and supported by its superfast 3G services on a new and modern network.
Besides, it is the first and only telecom
service provider to offer international 4G
roaming to Indians visiting the United
Kingdom, Germany, Romania, Spain and the
Netherlands, with many more countries on
the anvil, said Sood.
In a bid to attract customers, Vodafone will
offer free upgrade to 4G for those with highseed 4G SIM, 100 per cent extra data for Vodafone 4G RED customers.
In addition, it is offering a three-month
complimentary subscription to TV, movies
and movies on Vodafone Play, 100-plus live
TV channels and leading entertainment with
over 7,500 movies, etc.
AGENCIES

An artists impression of the galaxies found in the

Zone of Avoidance behind the Milky Way
According to Lister Staveley-Smith, professor at
the University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy
Research (ICRAR), the team found 883 galaxies, a
third of which had never been seen before.
Scientists have been trying to get to the bottom
of the mysterious Great Attractor since major
deviations from universal expansion were first
discovered in the 1970s and 1980s, said StaveleySmith.
We dont actually understand whats causing
this gravitational acceleration on the Milky Way or
where its coming from, he said.
We know that in this region there are a few
very large collections of galaxies we call clusters or
superclusters, and our whole Milky Way is moving
towards them at more than two million kilometres
per hour, he said.
The research identified several new structures
that could help to explain the movement of the
Milky
Way,
including
three
galaxy
concentrations (named NW1, NW2 and NW3) and
two new clusters (named CW1 and CW2).
Astronomers have been trying to map the
galaxy distribution hidden behind the Milky Way
for decades.
Weve used a range of techniques but only
radio observations have really succeeded in
allowing us to see through the thickest foreground
layer of dust and stars, said Renee KraanKorteweg, a professor at University of Cape Town in
South Africa.
An average galaxy contains 100 billion stars. So,
finding hundreds of new galaxies hidden
behind the Milky Way points to a lot of mass we
didnt know about until now, she added.