USA Conference & Expo 2009 Alexandru Bratu

7/31/2019 USA Conference & Expo 2009 Alexandru Bratu

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Review by Alexandru Bratu (Masters Student in NanoBioPhysics)

Nanotechnology has always at the brink oh human discovery. Since 1998(April 6 - 8)

@ the San Juan Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino San Juan, Puerto Rico, U.S.A. this

breed of conferences have started sinking into the heart of science and also into the minds

of the people that attended them.

Clean Technology handled the area of Energy, Water and Environmental

Technologies deployed across all industry sectors. In these sectors we had energy renewal

and management for grid networks for electricity consumption for both industrial and

domestic.

TechConnect connects the world of business and global marketing with innovative

technologies such as F500 developments and it help scientists know better the prospect of

patenting and IP security.

TechConnect WORLD connects the three “Clean Technology, Conference & Expo

2009” with “TechConnect, Summit 2009” and “Nanotech, Conference & Expo 2009” events

together into a world class conference with innovative technologies in nanotechnology.

The mornings were organized in a professional manner with keynotes speakers who

spoke for all the 3 major events. They were: 1.Bayer Material Science’s Chief AdministrativeOfficer: Robert J. Kumpf , 2.Continental Airlines’ Chairman and CEO: Larry Kellner, 3.The

Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Director: Dan Arvizu,

4.Exelon Power’s President: Mark A. Schiavoni, 5.Hayes & Boone Partner, and former COO

for the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy: Paul Dickerson, 6.Lockheed

Martin Corporation’s CTO: Ray O. Johnson, 7.Simmons & Company International’s

Chairman: Matt Simmons & 8.Renowned author, former CIA director, and current Partner

at Vantage: James Woolsey.



Of all of them the most inspirational was the one given by Larry Kellner because there

was great enthusiasm and prosperity being shown. He discussed how since about 1995 the

company has been suffering massively by having low ratings in terms of luggage

performance and quieter engines. The important aspect was that he managed to help the

company out of an already mind-blowing difficulty of 2 bankruptcies and he managed to

raise their level of airline luggage transportation quality from the last few places to number1. He later explained to us the difficulties of administrating the company as a CEO with

technology innovation and nanotechnology for use in clean and environmentally sound

aircrafts. The greatest challenge was to reduce cost by finding an alternative to oil (oil price

at about $54/barrel, estimation given by Bloomberg) using biofuels such as wind and/or

solar energy.

My project involves plasma physics, photonics and simulation software for

theoretical modelling. Thus my main interests were the fields of nanophotonics and

theoretical simulation modelling software techniques. So i decided to attend those who’s

titles matched my course project description. I also have a flavour for environmental

prospects and energy conservation so I also attended the electrical power lectures on

energy saving. After attending this year’s NOVA course on business I decided to attend one

of the business presentations with regards to patenting by U.S. legislations and IP security

and preservation for scientific inventions.

There were many events to attend so it was crucial to plan out my days and attend

the relevant lectures and power – presentations some with assisted personnel for better

understanding of the matter at hand.

May 3rd

Registration for me was done at about 8:00 am. I was registered as a student so I

only attended May 4th - 7th since the 3rd of May was workshop which included an extra fee.

Thus I only read the instruction manual they gave us with respect to the workshop sessions

taking place such that I could get a feel for the days to follow.

May 4th

The greatest idea with respect to my project (Metamaterial lens design for

ultrahigh-resolution fluorescent microscopy) was given by R. Magnusson (with his talk on

Photonic Leaky Mode Resonators) with respect to modelling the fluorescence with respect

to wavelength graphically and how to use MATLAB’s associate Simulink (another theoretical

modelling software) for TE waves since in my project I do not include a magnetic field hence

TM waves were not considered.

For the electrical energy conservation and power networking national grids I

attended the Smart Grid Technologies to Business. It involved the power grid being set up

at Austin, Texas which took upon new technological advancements such as : new smart

phones, 130,000 wireless meters, 65,000 wireless thermostats, new wireless PCs for mobile

crews and their processes, new PCs, wireless sensors. These were believed to generate

targets such as improved distribution of energy and savings of about 30% by 2020.



May 5th

This day was solely dedicated to exploring the exhibitions and to discover the

potential and enthusiasm of nanotechnology not just in the USA and Ireland, but also from

other countries like Russia (RusNano), Italy, Germany, Spain, South Korea and Japan.

My main interests included going around to each booth and investigate and

understand the physical concept to my best perception of the new inventions on the market

and the improvements on already existing ones.

There were many promising ones such as improvements in air conditions and saving

of about 10-15% of energy while doing so. Many others included manufacture of nanotubes

from graphene-like structures such a cheaper substitute may exist on the market for

manufacture.

The newest comers to the global economy of nanotechnology were Russia. At the

Russian booth I saw that there was going to be a worldwide event from October 6- 8 2009

and a demonstration of new technologies developed by the government and private

educational institutions. Further in-depth details were given in small pamphlets with

RusNano written on it.

At the German booth I observed and studied a new highly advanced prototype in carsafety along with many various opportunities for student to study abroad, as from my

discussion with Dr.Zoz. As a small measure I also gave a few personal CV’s to some of the

booths such as this one.

At the Italian booth there seemed to be studies involving GFPs(Green Fluorescent

Proteins) along with new methods for improving light resolution. However to my surprise

very seemed to be aware of the aspect of metamaterials and negative refractive index to

allow sub-wavelength measurement and improve resolution. I presumed they were

investigating effects of confocal microscopy and physical dilation of the lens when

stimulated at certain levels of electricity. There was also a PhD student discussing her views

on nanotechnology within 15 – 20 years from now in terms of light and power usage for

mechanical units.There were also booths with separate individual teams whom discussed about their

invention or company opportunities for graduates or postgraduates.

Some of these were transportation for water and other liquid substances through

nano – fluidic channels that could allow in the future for better drug delivery. I also took

some of the papers since they also discussed about software simulation such as VMD 1.8.6.

and AMBER and CHEM. For the data obtained the biologists and physicists seemed to follow

the same procedure and obtain the original data for each protein from the PDB (Protein

Data Bank) website.

After yesterday i also observed some very interesting aspects. For one thing when I

was attending the presentation on Smart Grid i took notice that the overall prices given by

the 3 CEO’s. The prices were in the range of 11, 13 and 15 $c/kWh, while the companiesthat involve hydroelectric plants charged at about 5c almost a one-third of that.

Along theses separate ones were also companies like Biophotonics and iEEE explore

which gave opportunities for joining their online journal subscription. The Biophotonics one

was free for a limited time so I went for that one and because it was more relevant to the

work of my project. The booth also offered a small ventilation unit with a small chip that

could inscribe writing only on one side and then vanish uniformly in thin air. Like many

inventions its unique property comes from the fact that it was solar-powered.



I also took notice of the posters that were drawn in the back, with also relatively new

ideas such as dye-synthesized solar cells (DSSCs) which were considered as an alternative for

silicon solar based cells which were more expensive.

May 6th

As I had viewed the patents lectures on the 5th may i then wanted to study in high

depth the lecture on “Computational Methods, Simulation & Software Tools: Electronic Materials”.

The ones that were of use to me “Controlled Electron Transport Through Single Molecules” by V.

Garcia-Suarez and C. Lambert as it showed the use of density functional theory and non –

equilibrium Green functions formalism(NEGF).

Another part of the talk included “Modelling of Electronic Transport in Molecular

Devices” by V.K. Lamba, D. Engles, S.S. Malik and M. Verma whom discussed about out-of-

equilibrium electron distribution and the potential of the system states.

Later in the afternoon I attended the lecture given by Dr. S.Link “An Overview of Sensing

and Waveguiding with Plasmon Building Blocks” which conveyed the surface plasmon excitation

behaviour in a conduction band of electrons. The parts that were of greater importance to me was

the plasmon resonance sensing and the plasmonic waveguiding.

When the lectures were over I also took journal papers on plasma resonance from the

booths of Japanese and Austin (Texas) senior physicists. One thing that was not available however

was clear reference to obtaining data and some did not seem to be published elsewhere or perhaps

they did not submit it directly to Science Direct or other major scientific journal-keepers.

May 7th

As this was the last day of lectures, I also wanted to attend Dr. Nick Quirke’s (my conference

supervisor) biology lecture on “Atomistic scale simulation of the interaction of nanomaterials with

biological fluids”. The lecture showed the use of SWCNTs with micro-fluidic channels and the

picoscale timeline used to transfer small water molecules through these channels. The theoretical

formulae agreed with experimental observations thus the transport of liquids was highly successful.

Afterwards I closed my books and went back to the hotel to have a short tour of the city.

May 8th

The conference was a breath of fresh – air and an eye-opening experience in the real world

of physics on a global scale and i would be very excited to go to another one.

For this great opportunity I would like to thank my coordinator Dr. Nick Quirke and the

following sponsors for co-hosting the event and helping in sponsoring the TechConnect 2009 event.

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USA Conference & Expo 2009 Alexandru Bratu