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Flexible Nanogenerator Technology
KAIST research team successfully developed the foundation technology that will enable to fabrication of low cost, large area nanogenerator.
Professor Lee Gun Jae’s team (Department of Materials Science and Engineering) published a dissertation on a nanogenerator using nanocomplexes as the cover dissertation of the June edition of Advanced Materials.
The developed technology is receiving rave reviews for having overcome the complex and size limitations of the nanogenerator fabrication process.
A nanogenerator is an electricity generator that uses materials in the nanoscale and uses piezoelectricity that creates electricity with the application of physical force.
The generation technology using piezoelectricity was appointed as one of top 10 promising technologies by MIT in 2009 and was included in the 45 innovative technologies that will shake the world by Popular Science Magazine in 2010.
The only nanogenerator thus far was the ZnO model suggested by Georgia Tech’s Professor Zhong Lin Wang in 2005.
Professor Lee’s team used ceramic thin film material BaTiO3 which has 15~20 times greater piezoelectric capacity than ZnO and thus improved the overall performance of the device. The use of a nanocomplex allows large scale production and the simplification of the fabrication process itself.
The team created a mixture of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) with BaTiO3 and either of CNT (Carbon Nanotube) or RGO (Reduced Graphene Oxide) which has high electrical conductivity and applied this mixture to create a large scale nanogenerator.
2012.06.18 View 14144 -
ICISTS-KAIST: Korea's Largest Scale University Student International Conference
An entirely student led and planned international conference will be held at KAIST.
KAIST student club ICISTS will be holding the ‘ICISTS-KAIST 2012’ conference from the 6th of August till the 10th of August.
This is the 8th annual conference which started in 2005 which is planned and executed entirely by undergraduate students. The conference aims at examining the rapidly changing relationship between science and technology and society and actively debate on the matter.
The 1st conference involved only 150 students of which only a few from abroad. However last year’s conference involved 300 students from 22 nations from all over the world.
The keyword of the conference in the much talked about ‘integration’ and therefore aims at establishing interdisciplinary networks that go beyond background and borders.
Not only does ‘ICISTS-KAIST’ involves panel talks by speakers, but also offers small scale lectures simultaneously which allows participants to attend talks that suit their individual preferences.
Group discussion session between participants and speakers will be held along with various performances and booths to introduce Korean traditional culture to international participants.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Age of Integration: Beyond the Borders of Knowledge”. It is comprised of 3 smaller conferences with themes of Art and Science, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, and Science and Technology and Human Society.
This year’s conference will host lectures by Professor S. Shyam Sundar of Pennsylvania State Communication University, Professor Bruce E. Seely Dean of Michigan School of Engineering, and Professor Shin Hui Seop who was named as the ‘1st National Scientist’ in 2005.
Registration ends on the 15th of July and more information can be found at www.icists.org.
2012.06.18 View 8896
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President Nam Pyo Suh receives Honorary Doctorate from Bilkent University, Turkey
President of KAIST Nam Pyo Suh received an Honorary Doctorate from Turkey’s Bilkent University on June 13th, 2012.
Bilkent University revealed that it is President Suh’s invention of a plastic manufacture process used all over the world and the combination of academic achievements like the creation of the axiomatic design theory that merits the Honorary Doctorate.
After the presentation ceremony, President Suh gave a lecture to professors and students at Bilkent University on the "University of the Future: Changing Education Paradigm."
Bilkent University is located in Ankara, the capital of Turkey and was established in 1984, which is largely regarded as Turkey’s best private university. It ranked 32 out of 50 universities in Times Higher Educations’ 100 Under 50 List of World’s Best New Universities.
2012.06.18 View 9329 -
Successful Development of Excavation System of Biomarkers containing Protein Decomposition Control Enzyme Information
A Korean team of researchers successfully developed a biomarker excavation system named E3Net that excavates biomarkers containing information of the enzymes that control the decomposition of proteins. The development of the system paved the possibility of development of new high quality biomarkers.
*Biomarker: Molecular information of unique patterns derived from genes and proteins that allow the monitoring of physical changes from genetic or environmental causes.
Professor Lee Kwan Soo’s team (Department of Biological Sciences) composed of Doctorate candidate Han Young Woong, Lee Ho Dong Ph.D. and Professor Park Jong Chul published a dissertation in the April edition of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. (Dissertation Title: A system for exploring E3-mediated regulatory networks of cellular functions).
Professor Lee’s team compiled all available information of the enzyme that controls protein decomposition (E3 enzyme) and successfully compiled the inter-substrate network by extracting information from 20,000 biology related data base dissertations. The result was the development of the E3Net system that analyzes the related cell function and disease.
Cells have a system that produces, destroys, and recycles proteins in response to the ever changing environmental conditions. Error in these processes leads to disease.
Therefore finding the relationship between E3 enzymes that control the decomposition of proteins and the substrates will allow disease curing and prevention to become much easier. E3 enzyme is responsible for 80% of the protein decomposition and is therefore predicted to be related to various diseases.
However the information on E3 enzyme and inter-substrate behavior are spread out among numerous dissertations and data bases which prevented methodological analysis of the role of the related cells and characteristics of the disease itself.
Professor Lee’s team was successful in creating the E3Net that compiled 2,201 pieces of E3 substrate information, 4,896 pieces of substrate information, and 1,671 pieces of inter-substrate relationship information. This compilation allows for the systematic analysis of cells and diseases.
The newly created network is 10 times larger than the existing network and is the first case where it is possible to accurately find the cell function and related diseases.
It is anticipated that the use of the E3Net will allow the excavation of new biomarkers for the development of personalized drug systems.
The research team applied the E3Net to find tens of new candidate biomarkers related to the major modern diseases like diabetes and cancer.
2012.05.30 View 13397
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KAIST hosts the first Can Satellite (Cansat) competition
Figure: The cansat is sent up into the air using a balloon and then separated at a certain height. The cansat slowly descends and sends terrestrial observation or atmospheric information back to earth.
KAIST will host the first ever Cansat Competition Korea, in which students from different age groups can participate in building and testing the performance of their custom satellites.
The Satellite Technology Research Center (SaTReC) at KAIST announced that it will take applications for the Cansat Competition Korea until May 25th. A cansat is a can-sized educational satellite that contains the basic elements of a real satellite. It is fired up to a few hundred meters in the air using balloons or small rockets and then separated like a real satellite, collecting data and sending the information back to earth. Cansat competitions are regularly held in the United States or Europe, where they have advanced space development programs, but this is the first time this competition will be held in Korea.
The competition caters to different age groups through a cansat experience science camp for elementary and middle school students and a cansat competition for high school and college students.
The science camp will be held from August 7th to 9th at KAIST and Sejong City and will include satellite education, visits to space development centers (KAIST Satellite Technology Research Center and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute), hand-on experience with basic cansat kits, and other various programs.
The science camp will consist of a maximum of 20 teams comprised of students from fifth to ninth grade. Each team will have an advisory teacher and 3 to 4 students and can apply for the competition at no cost.
The cansat competition will test high school and college students on their personally designed and built can satellites along with the creativity of their mission and developmental outcome.
The preliminary review will choose a maximum of 15 teams, while the secondary review will select the 5 teams that will make the final competition based on their design presentation. On August 9th, these 5 teams will be evaluated on their technical ability, mission capacity and presentation skills. The winning team will be given the KAIST presidential award along with a trophy and prize money.
Doctor Park from KAIST SaTReC explained that countries with advanced space technology actively support cansat competitions to expand the base of the field. He emphasized Korea’s need for regular cansat competitions to actively promote potential space researchers.
More information on the competition can be found on the homepage (http://cansat.kaist.ac.kr) or at the KAIST SaTReC (042-350-8613~4)
2012.05.14 View 12471 -
Korea's First MOU between a University Education Volunteer Work Group and Local Government
- 200 Adolescents from Yuseong-gu to Receive Education Community Services
Midam Scholarship committee which is composed of KAIST"s students and graduates, will draw up a contract that states that it will work together with the Yuseong-gu municipality for the development of the district education services on the 14th at the Yuseong-gu office.
Both sides will together ▲mentor the local students, ▲cooperate to run and develop creative programs, ▲exchange work for the development of the KAIST Midam Scholarship Committee, ▲conduct various other projects.
From now, the Midam Scholarship Committee will teach about 200 students in Yuseong-gu. The drawing of this contract has much meaning in that it is the first of its kind.
The Midam Scholarship Committee was founded on 2009 by students in KAIST to teach math, english, and science to students from families with low income levels.
This committee has made educational pacts with middle and high schools located in Daejeong such as Chungnam High School and Beobdong High School, and has not only taught these students but also has given scholarships to the selected students.
On one hand, the Midam Scholarship Committee has also supported 10 students in KAIST who were in need with 300000won each on the 6th. This fund was raised through the donations of alumni and mentoring projects.
The Midam Scholarship Committee has been recognized for its positive impacts on the society and has received an award from the Yuseong-gu municipality office.
2012.05.10 View 9240
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Professor Kyung Wook Baek Wins the Best Thesis Award at the 2012 Pan-Pacific Microelectronic Symposium
Prof. Kyung Wook Baek from KAIST"s material science department has won the Best Thesis Award at the 2012 Pan-Pacific Microelectronic Symposium.
The title of this thesis was "Recent Advances in Anisotropic Conductive Adhesives Technology : Materials and Processes". Prof Baek had the honor of having his thesis be appointed the best thesis of the symposium.
This thesis includes his 15 years of research on ACAs which are a key element of display and semiconductor packaging technology.
Prof. Baek"s research results has been recognized as incredibly innovative in the field of ACAs and ultrasonic connection devices. This thesis has been recognized as setting the foundation for commercialization by professionals from all over the world at the symposium.
Prof. Baek has announced two innovative technologies on ACAs at the symposium.
One is a technology that merges the nanofiber technology with the ATAs. This technology was highly applauded for overcoming the problem of electric connection in micro-pitch display semiconductors, and successfully applying this to electronic packaging materials.
Currently, commercialization process based on the patent is ongoing. It is expected that we will be able to take hold of the entire market once the commercialization succeeds.
The other technology was to improve the liability and overcome the limits of the current flow in ACAs through the use of solder molecules. This is also undergoing commercialization process for use in mobile electronic devices.
Together with this, Prof.Baek has reported an innovative case where the original heat compression process was replaced with a new ultrasonic process. This discovery is deemed to be extremely great due to its implications in replacing all heat compression systems. This too will soon be commercialized
Prof.Baek has played a crucial role in the development of electronic packaging material and processing technology. He has written the largest number of theses in this area, and has proven himself to be the world"s best through winning this award.
2012.05.10 View 10559
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KAIST Midam Institute Gives Donations Raised by Students
Midam Association which is consisted of students from KAIST (representatives Neung-in Jang and Minkyu Jin) has donated 300thousand won per person to ten KAIST students who are in need totaling a 3million won of donation. This donation was created through the mentoring activities of the members and donations from alumni and alumni corporations.
Midam Association which was created on July of 2009 teaches math, science, and English to children from lesser off families. It started as a club created by undergraduate students and has now turned into an NGO where other local volunteers could participate.
Currently as of March, there are ten schools including Bubdong Middle School, Jeon-min Middle School, Chungnam High School, and Jeonmin High School that have a pact with the Midam Association. The association has been conducting education assistance as well as giving donations to students in need.
Last January, UNIST has benchmarked KAIST"s Midam Association and has started free education volunteer programs in association with Ulsan city.
On the other hand, Midam Association of KAIST has been awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the Municipality of Yuseong-gu, Daejeon in recognition of their deed.
2012.05.10 View 8690
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New concept 'mole game' robot developed
A new game robot concept developed by KAIST researchers came in first place at a world-renowned virtual reality exhibition, despite being the first ever entry by a Korean team.
Professor Lee Woohun’s team from the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST won the first-place award of ‘Gran Prix du Jury’ at the famous virtual reality exhibition, Laval Virtual 2012, which was held between March 28th and April 1st, with the mole game robot, ‘MoleBot’.
MoleBot can be enjoyed in a completely physical environment unlike other virtual reality games and allows interaction between the virtual world and reality. Such imaginative interaction attracted numerous spectators during the exhibition.
The MoleBot table consists of approximately 15,000 small cubes, and as the object inside the table moves, the cubes slide as if a mole is inside. By using a joystick, users can enjoy physical interaction with the table and a wide range of games.
The MoleBot can also be operated with hand gestures using ‘Kinect’, a motion sensing input device developed by Microsoft, making it possible to enjoy games as if playing with a pet.
Professor Lee’s team came up with the project from a simple idea: ‘What if moles lived inside the table?’
The team first created a table that would hold and allow the movement of the cubes, and then placed a plastic mold underneath it with a layer of spandex in between to lessen the friction, allowing smooth and lifelike movement.
The mold contains magnets that allow the accurate delivery of mechanical movement. After two years of continued additional research, MoleBot was released to the world.
In the acceptance speech, Professor Lee said, ‘It is rare for a design team to win first place in an engineering exhibition’ and that ‘to achieve such a feat, the MoleBot’s technological creativity and artistic completeness became one’.
Professor Lee also said that ‘this concept of creating an interactive world on a table could potentially become a new game interface’ and that he would research on applying this MoleBot technology to different fields such as human-computer interaction, architecture, interior, and clothing.
Laval Virtual is a world-renowned exhibition that displays cutting edge technologies in the field of virtual reality. This year was the 14th exhibit, and over 10,000 people participated in it. The exhibition gives out 12 awards, one per field, and Professor Lee’s team won the highest award.
2012.05.07 View 11799 -
Biomimetic reflective display technology developed
Professor Shin Jung Hoon
The bright colors of a rainbow or a peacock are produced by the reflection and interference of light in transparent periodic structures, producing what is called a structural color. These colors are very bright and change according to the viewing angle. On the other hand, the wings of a morpho-butterfly also have structural colors but are predominantly blue over a wide range of angles. This is because the unique structure of the morpho-butterfly’s wings contains both order and chaos.
Professor Shin Jung Hoon’s team from the Department of Physics and the Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology at KAIST produced a display that mimics the structure of the morpho-butterfly’s wings using glass beads.
This research successfully produced a reflective display (one that reflects external light to project images), which could be used to make very bright displays with low energy consumption. This technology can also be used to make anti-counterfeit bills, as well as coating materials for mobile phones and wallets.
The structure of the morpho-butterfly’s wings seems to be in periodic order at the 1-micrometer level, but contains disorder at the 100-nanometer level. So far, no one had succeeded in reproducing a structure with both order and disorder at the nanometer level.
Professor Shin’s team randomly aligned differently sized glass beads of a few hundred nanometers to create chaos and placed a thin periodic film on top of it using the semiconductor deposition method, thereby creating the morpho-butterfly-like structure over a large area.
This new development produced better color and brightness than the morpho-butterfly wing and even exhibited less color change according to angle. The team sealed the film in thin plastic, which helped to maintain the superior properties whilst making it more firm and paper-like.
Professor Shin emphasized that the results were an exemplary success in the field of biomimetics and that structural colors could have other applications in sensors and fashion, for example.
The results were first introduced on May 3rd in Nature as one of the Research Highlights and will be published in the online version of the material science magazine, Advanced Materials.
This research was jointly conducted by Professor Shin Jung Hoon (Department of Physics / Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology at KAIST), Professor Park NamKyoo (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University), and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. The funding was provided by the National Research Foundation of Korea and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology as part of the World Class University (WCU) project.
Figure 2. The biomimetic film can express many different colors
Figure 3. The biomimetic diplay and a morpho-butterfly
2012.05.07 View 15479 -
The output of terahertz waves enhanced by KAIST team
KAIST researchers have greatly improved the output of terahertz waves, the blue ocean of the optics world. This technology is expected to be applied to portable X-ray cameras, small bio-diagnostic systems, and in many other devices.
Professor Ki-Hun Jeong"s research team from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering used optical nano-antenna technology to increase the output of terahertz waves by three times.
Terahertz waves are electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 100GHz to 30THz. They are produced when a femtosecond (10^-15 s) pulse laser is shone on a semiconductor substrate with photoconduction antennas, causing a photocurrent pulse of one picosecond (10^-12 s). Their long wavelengths, in comparison to visible light and infrared rays, give terahertz waves a high penetration power with less energy than X-rays, making them less harmful to humans.
These qualities allow us to see through objects, just as X-rays do, but because terahertz waves absorb certain frequencies, we can detect hidden explosives or drugs, which was not possible with X-rays. We can even identify fake drugs. Furthermore, using the spectral information, we can analyze a material"s innate qualities without chemical processing, making it possible to identify skin diseases without harming the body. However, the output was not sufficient to be used in biosensors and other applications.
Prof. Jeong"s team added optical nano-antennas, made from gold nano-rods, in between the photoconduction antennas and optimized the structure. This resulted in nanoplasmonic resonance in the photoconduction substrate, increasing the degree of integration of the photocurrent pulse and resulting in a three times larger output.
Hence, it is not only possible to see through objects more clearly, but it is also possible to analyze components without a biopsy.
Professor Jeong explained, "This technology, coupled with the miniaturization of terahertz devices, can be applied to endoscopes to detect early epithelial cancer" and that he will focus on creating and commercializing these biosensor systems.
This research was published in the March issue of the international nanotechnology journal ACS Nano and was funded by the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Figure: Mimetic diagram of a THz generator with nano-antennas
2012.04.29 View 13146 -
NPKI Launch Workshop Held
Molecular Physics Department Expected to Have ‘NPKI’ Launch Workshop
- Numerous physicists tracking the god-particle ‘Higgs’ attending-
The NPKI: New Physics at Korea Institute which was launched a six day workshop in Shinla Hotel, Seoul with 50 physicists from in and out of the country.
The event started with Professor Gi Woon Choi’s welcoming speech. A heated debate with the theme ‘Top physics and electroweak symmetry breaking in the LHC era’ took place in the event.
NPKI was created this year to search into the most fundamental workings of nature, research the meaning of such mechanisms, and share this knowledge with not only the general public, but also with the teenagers who wish to someday become physicists.
Professor Gi Woon Choi from KAIST, Professors Byoung Wong Ko and Eung Jin Jeon from the Advanced Science Institute, and more are participated in this workshop from Korea.
From abroad, world renowned professors such as Prof. Csaba Csaki from Cornell, Prof. Christophe Grojean from CERN, Prof. Erez Etzion from Tel Aviv University of Israel, and Prof. Zoltan Ligeti from UC Berkley participated in this event.
The ‘Seeds Program’ took place. This is a program where 20 high school and middle school students aspiring to become physicists were able to attend the work shop without any due fee to experience the world of physicists.
The students chosen for the program were able to attend the conference to watch debates of real physicists as well as experience the academic lives of physicists. They were also able to attend the lecture conducted by Prof. Gilad Perez from CERN and were granted question and answer sessions as well.
The workshop was hosted by NPKI, and sponsored by Shinla Hotel, BK21 KAIST Physics, department of physics of KAIST, department of physics in Seoul National University, the Advanced Science Institute, and the Center for Quantum Spacetime
2012.04.04 View 13487