Education

News in brief

Quantum computer Researchers at TU Delft have succeeded in carrying out calculations with two quantum bits, the building blocks of a possible future quantum computer.

The Delft researchers recently published an article about this important step towards a workable quantum computer in Nature magazine. A quantum computer is based on the amazing properties of quantum systems. In these a quantum bit, also known as a qubit, exists in two states at the same time and the information from two qubits is entangled in a way that has no equivalent whatsoever in the normal world. Scientists at TU Delft are currently studying two types of qubits: one type makes use of tiny superconducting rings, and the other makes use of ‘quantum dots’.Now for the first time a ‘controlled-NOT’ calculation with two qubits has been realised with the superconducting rings. This is important because it allows any given quantum calculation to be realised. The result was achieved by the PhD student Jelle Plantenberg in the team led by Kees Harmans and Hans Mooij, at FOM (Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter).
Imagine Cup 2007

The TU Delft student team and their educational project Iconnect were the winners of the Dutch national round of the Imagine Cup, a programming competition organised by Microsoft. The winners will be off in August to the global final in Korea. The Delft idea is an application to enable children in different countries to communicate with each other using pictures. The Imagine Cup is a programming competition organised by Microsoft for technology students from around the world. 100,000 students from over one hundred countries are taking part. This year’s Imagine Cup theme is how to use technology to make education more accessible. The winning idea from Delft is an application to allow children from different countries to communicate with each other using an ‘icon-based language’. The children communicate with pictures. This universal language can be used for chatting or for playing games together. An advantage is that there is no need to speak each other’s language: the target group – children with widely varying cultural backgrounds from 6 to 10 years of age – understands the icon-based language intuitively.
Dimes

From its modest beginnings as a small research institute, the Delft Institute for Microelectronics and Submicron-technology (Dimes) has, over the past 20 years, developed into an organisation comprising 80 members of staff, 170 PhD students and 160 MSc students. On Thursday 21 June, during a symposium in TU Delft’s Aula, Dimes will look back at this 20-year history and cast an eye towards its future. Over the past decades, Dimes has excelled as an internationally renowned player in the field of microsystems and nanoelectronics.
Understanding rain

Weather models aren’t good at predicting rain. Particularly in hilly terrain, this can lead to great damage arising from late warnings of floods. From June 1 to September 1, 2007 Delft University of Technology is participating in a major international experiment in Germany’s Black Forest, to learn more about what causes rain. Aircraft and an airship are being used alongside ground-based observatories. Satellites are being used to gather large-scale information. The Black Forest has a lot of thunderstorms in summer, and the discrepancies between predictions and actual rainfall are enormous. This makes it an ideal natural ‘laboratory’. Spread over an area of 100 by 100 km, five temporary observatories have been set up with state-of-the-art remote sensing equipment to measure the atmosphere continuously. In July nine aircraft and an airship will also be deployed to carry out detailed measurements above, below and in the clouds. On June 4 TU Delft moved the Tara (Transportable Atmospheric Radar) atmosphere radar to Germany. The instrument is situated atop the Hornisgrinde (one of the highest peaks in the Black Forest), where it is measuring the atmosphere.
Electrical aircraft

Students at TU Delft’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and students from Queen’s University Belfast have designed a zero-emission electrical four-seater training aircraft. The plane is far more economical than current training aircraft. On-board batteries power an electrical motor, and the aerodynamic design resembles that of a glider. The quest for minimum weight dictated a high ‘gliding ratio’ of over 30 for the plane (meaning that in gliding flight the aircraft travels 30 meters horizontally for each meter of descent). This ratio was achieved by selecting an extremely slender wing, like the ones gliders have. The proposed lithium-sulphur batteries are not on sale just yet, but should be available by 2010. Even though a set of batteries is likely to cost about 39,000 euros, and will be scrapped after 300 charging cycles (over 1400 flying hours), the costs per flying hour work out significantly lower than for a conventional training aircraft running on avgas (aviation gasoline). Including the costs of green power (10 euro cents per kWh), each flying hour for the electrical training aircraft will cost just 30 euros.

Quantum computer

Researchers at TU Delft have succeeded in carrying out calculations with two quantum bits, the building blocks of a possible future quantum computer. The Delft researchers recently published an article about this important step towards a workable quantum computer in Nature magazine. A quantum computer is based on the amazing properties of quantum systems. In these a quantum bit, also known as a qubit, exists in two states at the same time and the information from two qubits is entangled in a way that has no equivalent whatsoever in the normal world. Scientists at TU Delft are currently studying two types of qubits: one type makes use of tiny superconducting rings, and the other makes use of ‘quantum dots’.Now for the first time a ‘controlled-NOT’ calculation with two qubits has been realised with the superconducting rings. This is important because it allows any given quantum calculation to be realised. The result was achieved by the PhD student Jelle Plantenberg in the team led by Kees Harmans and Hans Mooij, at FOM (Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter).
Imagine Cup 2007

The TU Delft student team and their educational project Iconnect were the winners of the Dutch national round of the Imagine Cup, a programming competition organised by Microsoft. The winners will be off in August to the global final in Korea. The Delft idea is an application to enable children in different countries to communicate with each other using pictures. The Imagine Cup is a programming competition organised by Microsoft for technology students from around the world. 100,000 students from over one hundred countries are taking part. This year’s Imagine Cup theme is how to use technology to make education more accessible. The winning idea from Delft is an application to allow children from different countries to communicate with each other using an ‘icon-based language’. The children communicate with pictures. This universal language can be used for chatting or for playing games together. An advantage is that there is no need to speak each other’s language: the target group – children with widely varying cultural backgrounds from 6 to 10 years of age – understands the icon-based language intuitively.
Dimes

From its modest beginnings as a small research institute, the Delft Institute for Microelectronics and Submicron-technology (Dimes) has, over the past 20 years, developed into an organisation comprising 80 members of staff, 170 PhD students and 160 MSc students. On Thursday 21 June, during a symposium in TU Delft’s Aula, Dimes will look back at this 20-year history and cast an eye towards its future. Over the past decades, Dimes has excelled as an internationally renowned player in the field of microsystems and nanoelectronics.
Understanding rain

Weather models aren’t good at predicting rain. Particularly in hilly terrain, this can lead to great damage arising from late warnings of floods. From June 1 to September 1, 2007 Delft University of Technology is participating in a major international experiment in Germany’s Black Forest, to learn more about what causes rain. Aircraft and an airship are being used alongside ground-based observatories. Satellites are being used to gather large-scale information. The Black Forest has a lot of thunderstorms in summer, and the discrepancies between predictions and actual rainfall are enormous. This makes it an ideal natural ‘laboratory’. Spread over an area of 100 by 100 km, five temporary observatories have been set up with state-of-the-art remote sensing equipment to measure the atmosphere continuously. In July nine aircraft and an airship will also be deployed to carry out detailed measurements above, below and in the clouds. On June 4 TU Delft moved the Tara (Transportable Atmospheric Radar) atmosphere radar to Germany. The instrument is situated atop the Hornisgrinde (one of the highest peaks in the Black Forest), where it is measuring the atmosphere.
Electrical aircraft

Students at TU Delft’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and students from Queen’s University Belfast have designed a zero-emission electrical four-seater training aircraft. The plane is far more economical than current training aircraft. On-board batteries power an electrical motor, and the aerodynamic design resembles that of a glider. The quest for minimum weight dictated a high ‘gliding ratio’ of over 30 for the plane (meaning that in gliding flight the aircraft travels 30 meters horizontally for each meter of descent). This ratio was achieved by selecting an extremely slender wing, like the ones gliders have. The proposed lithium-sulphur batteries are not on sale just yet, but should be available by 2010. Even though a set of batteries is likely to cost about 39,000 euros, and will be scrapped after 300 charging cycles (over 1400 flying hours), the costs per flying hour work out significantly lower than for a conventional training aircraft running on avgas (aviation gasoline). Including the costs of green power (10 euro cents per kWh), each flying hour for the electrical training aircraft will cost just 30 euros.

Editor Redactie

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