An engine for the future
Our new acoustic Stirling heat engine efficiently converts heat to intense acoustic power in a simple device that comprises only pipes and conventional heat exchangers and has no moving parts. The acoustic power can be used directly in acoustic refrigerators or pulse-tube refrigerators to provide heat-driven refrigeration with no moving parts, or it can be used to generate electricity via a linear alternator or other electroacoustic power
transducer. Already the engine's 30% efficiency and high reliability may make medium-sized natural-gas liquefaction plants (with a capacity of up to a million gallons per day) and residential cogeneration economically feasible.

Soap films display fluid patterns
Studies of the turbulent patterns in soap films are providing insights into turbulence on faraway worlds (Jupiter's Great Red Spot), at majestic scales (the world's oceans), and in any other situation in which the flowtakes place principally in two dimensions. This research is being conducted by scientists in the Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics Group (MST-10).

Ultrafast microscope explores matter at the atomic level
Researchers in Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics (MST-10) recently developed an instrument that sees further into the depths of the microscopic world than ever before. By equipping a conventional scanning
tunneling microscope with a unique gallium-arsenide tip and combining it with a pulsed laser, scientists use this ultrafast scanning tunneling microscope to view atomic level spatial resolution -- as low as 10 nanometers -- at atomic level time scales -- events lasting a mere 1.5 picoseconds. This ability allows researchers to track, both spatially and temporally, phenomena such as single-electron transfer, soliton conduction, and chemical reactions on surfaces. Although the instrument will no doubt have an impact in the fields of physics, biology, materials science and chemistry, the most compelling technological applications could be in the development of next-generation electronic devices that embody sub-micron spatial features and sub-picosecond switching times. The ultrafast scanning tunneling microscope would provide critical subatomic views for nanotechnology.