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If you`ve balanced a laptop computer on your lap lately, you probablynoticed a burning sensation. That`s because ever-increasing processingspeeds are creating more and more heat, which has to go somewhere--inthis case, into your lap.
Two researchers at the University of Virginia`s School of Engineeringand Applied Science aim to lay the scientific groundwork that willsolve the problem using nanoelectronics, considered the essentialscience for powering the next generation of computers.
"Laptops are very hot now, so hot that they are not `lap` topsanymore," said Avik Ghosh, an assistant professor in the Charles L.Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "Theprediction is that if we continue at our current pace ofminiaturization, these devices will be as hot as the sun in 10 to 20years."
To head off this problem, Ghosh and Mircea Stan, also a professor inthe department, are re-examining nothing less than the Second Law ofThermodynamics. The law states that, left to itself, heat willtransfer from a hotter unit to a cooler one--in this case betweenelectrical computer components--until both have roughly the sametemperature, a state called "thermal equilibrium."
The possibility of breaking the law will require Ghosh and Stan tosolve a scientifically controversial--and theoretical--conundrumknown as "Maxwell`s Demon."
Introduced by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1871, theconcept theorizes that the energy flow from hot to cold could bedisrupted if there were a way to control the transfer of energybetween two units. Maxwell`s Demon would allow one component to takethe heat while the other worked at a lower temperature.
This could be accomplished only if the degree of natural disorder, orentropy, were reduced. And that`s the "demon" in Maxwell`s Demon."Device engineering is typically based on operating near thermalequilibrium," Ghosh said.
But, he added, nature has examples of biological cells that operateoutside thermal equilibrium.
"Chlorophyll, for example, can convert photons into energy in highlyefficient ways that seem to violate traditional thermodynamicexpectations," he said.
A closely related concept, Brownian "ratchets," will also be explored.This concept proposes that devices could be engineered to convertnon-equilibrium electrical activity into directed motion, allowingenergy to be harvested from a heat source.
If computers could be made with components that operate outsidethermal equilibrium, it could mean better computer performance.Basically, your laptop wouldn`t burst into flames as it processeslarger amounts of information at faster speeds. Also, because it wouldoperate at extremely low power levels and would have the ability toharness, or scavenge, power dissipated by other functions, batterylife would increase.
Combining Ghosh`s command of physics with Stan`s expertise inelectrical engineering, the two hope to bridge the concept of tacklingMaxwell`s Demon and Brownian ratchets from theoretical physics toengineered technologies.
"These theories have been looked at from a physics perspective foryears, but not from the perspective of electrical engineering," Stansaid. "So that`s where we are trying to break some ground."
