Present Breakthroughs

Inventions and Technological Breakthroughs

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). Space is full of high-energy particles of many types (collectively called "cosmic rays"), many of them originating in supernova explosions in distant galaxies. AMS detects them using a huge superconducting magnet and six highly specialized, ultra-precise detectors. It will sit on the International Space Station's (ISS) main truss--far above the obscuring atmosphere, and making full use of the ISS's irreplaceable support systems--and gather data for three years. MIT Physics Professor Ulrich Becker, in collaboration with many institutes world-wide, works on the AMS, searching for anti- and dark matter from space using a TRD to isolate positrons.

Deep-Space Rocket Propulsion Systems. Franklin Chang-Diaz SCD '77, director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, won Discover Magazine's 2003 Innovation Award for Space Science and Technology in the space explorer category. He has been developing a rocket engine that is expected to enable long-term human exploration of outer space.

Mars Biosatellite. In 2006, a team of engineers and scientists from MIT, as well as other researchers from around the world, hope to launch mice into a low Earth orbit aboard a rotating satellite which will simulate the force of gravity on the surface of Mars. To generate "artificial gravity" for the animals on board, the satellite will spin rapidly, making roughly one rotation every two seconds (34 rpm). The five-week mission will conduct the first in-depth study of how mammals adapt to a reduced-gravity environment. Groundbreaking data from this mission and its successors will be essential in determining future possibilities for human space exploration.

Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). As the initial LIGO interferometers start to put new limits on gravitational wave signals, the LIGO Lab, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and international partners are proposing Advanced LIGO to improve the sensitivity by more than a factor of 10. This new detector, to be installed at the LIGO Observatories, will replace the present detector once it has reached its goal of a year of observation, and will transform gravitational wave science into a real observational tool. It is anticipated that this new instrument will see gravitational wave sources possibly as often as daily, with excellent signal strengths, allowing details of the waveforms to be read off and compared with theories of neutron stars, black holes, and other highly relativistic objects.

Plasmatron. A bus in Indiana is the latest laboratory for MIT's plasmatron reformer, a small device developers believe could significantly cut the nation's oil consumption as well as noxious emissions from a variety of vehicles. Researchers report that the plasmatron, used with an exhaust treatment catalyst on a diesel engine bus, removed up to 90 percent of nitrogen oxides (NOx) - the primary components of smog - from the bus's emissions. The plasmatron reformer also cut in half the amount of fuel needed for the removal process. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to institute the new limits by 2007.

Quantum Dot Optics. MIT researchers have combined organic materials with high-performing inorganic nanocrystals to create a hybrid optoelectronic structure - a quantum dot-organic light - emitting device (QD-OLED) that may one day replace liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as the flat-panel display of choice for consumer electronics. The work, reported in Nature, is a collaborative effort between Moungi Bawendi, professor of chemistry, and Vladimir Bulovic, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, working through MIT's Center for Materials Science and Engineering.

New Optical Fiber. MIT researchers have created a low-loss optical fiber that may lead to advances in medicine, manufacturing, sensor technology, and telecommunications. Scientists and members of MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics and Center for Materials Science and Engineering developed the photonic bandgap fiber, which has a hollow core surrounded by a highly confining reflective surface dubbed "the perfect mirror" when MIT researchers invented it in 1998. The fiber conducts an intense stream of laser light that would melt traditional fiber-making materials. "Due to the efficient confinement of light in the hollow core, enabled by the mirror surface, we are able to utilize materials that would normally be damaged under such intense illumination conditions," said team leader Yoel Fink, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.