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Dr. Michael Escuti in his lab at the Monteith Research Center on Centennial Campus. Photo by Marc Hall

Seventy-eight of the nation's brightest young engineers have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) 18th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.  Engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together for the 2 1/2 day event. The participants -- from industry, academia, and government -- were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from approximately 300 applicants.

"Our nation's health, quality of life, and security will depend on the engineering achievements of the 21st century," said NAE President Charles M. Vest.  "The Frontiers of Engineering program gives young engineering pioneers the opportunity to collaborate and share approaches across fields. We believe those interactions will generate new ideas for improving the future."

The symposium will be held on Sept. 13-15, 2012, at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich., and will examine serious games, vehicle electrification, climate engineering, and engineering materials for the biological interface.  Alan I. Taub, retired vice president of General Motors global research and development, will be a featured speaker at the symposium.

The following engineers were selected as general participants:

Pieter Abbeel - University of California, Berkeley

Andrea Armani - University of Southern California

Muhannad Bakir - Georgia Institute of Technology

Billy Bardin - Dow Chemical Co.

Halil Berberoglu - University of Texas, Austin

Alexandra Boltasseva - Purdue University

David Brumley - Carnegie Mellon University

Xi Chen - Columbia University

Gian Colombo - Carpenter Technology

Xiquan Cui - Qualcomm Inc.

Frank DelRio - National Institute of Standards and Technology

Zhiqun (Daniel) Deng - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Jennifer Dionne - Stanford University

Nathan Domagalski - Bristol-Myers Squibb

Ayman EL-Refaie - GE Global Research

Michael Escuti - North Carolina State University

Joelle Frechette - Johns Hopkins University

Yan Fu - Ford Motor Co.

Weiying Gao - DuPont

David Garrett - Broadcom Corp.

Brian Gerkey - Willow Garage

Sayata Ghose - Boeing Co.

Anindya Ghoshal - U.S. Army Research Laboratory

Jordan Green - Johns Hopkins University

Piyush Gupta - Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent

Robert Hampshire - Carnegie Mellon University

Jessica Harrison - DNV KEMA Energy and Sustainability

Steve Hartmann - Medtronic

Reed Hendershot - Air Products and Chemicals Inc.

Elizabeth Hillman - Columbia University

Jeremy Hollman - Aurora Flight Sciences

Mona Jarrahi - University of Michigan

Michael Jewett - Northwestern University

Suzette Johnson - Northrop Grumman

Anupama Kaul - National Science Foundation

Scott Klemmer - Stanford University

LaShanda Teresa Korley - Case Western Reserve University

Christopher Kruegel - University of California, Santa Barbara

T.C. Michael Law - Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers

Chunhao Lee - General Motors

Steven Little - University of Pittsburgh

Xiang Liu - Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent

Jason Lyons - Arkema Inc.

Brian MacCleery - National Instruments

Youssef Marzouk - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Kristyn Masters - University of Wisconsin, Madison

Meagan Mauter - Carnegie Mellon University

Jason May - HRL Laboratories

Timothy McKnight - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Brett McMickell - Honeywell Aerospace

W. David Merryman - Vanderbilt University

Rahul Mital - General Motors

Mohammad Mofrad - University of California, Berkeley

Nathan Moody - Los Alamos National Laboratory

Elisabeth Nguyen - Aerospace Corp.

Nicholas Peters - Applied Communication Sciences

Desiree Plata - Duke University

Yadunandana Rao - Motorola Solutions

David Reeder - Cargill Inc.

Kate Riggins - Procter & Gamble Co.

Wallace Sawyer - University of Florida

Charles Schroeder - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Stephanie Severance - Cummins

Behrouz Shafei - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Leena Singh - Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Shukri Souri - Exponent Inc.

Joshuah Stolaroff - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Tong Sun - Xerox Webster Research Center

Kevin Turner - University of Pennsylvania

Kimberly Turner - University of California, Santa Barbara

Chris Urmson - Google

Peter van Beek - SHARP Laboratories of America Inc.

Sergei Vassilvitskii - Yahoo!

Kuansan Wang - Microsoft

Kevin Wasson - Corning Inc.

Ulrike Wegst - Dartmouth College

Jianzhong Wu - University of California, Riverside

Miao Yu - University of Maryland

Speakers at this year's event are:

Matthew Gevaert - KIYATEC Inc.

Christopher Jones - Georgia Institute of Technology

Eli Kintisch - Science Insider

Ben Kravitz - Stanford University

Helen Lu - Columbia University

Arindam Maitra - Electric Power Research Institute

Rahul Mangharam - University of Pennsylvania

Richard Marks - Sony

Cory Ondrejka - Facebook

Zoran Popovic - University of Washington

Lynn Russell - Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Jeff Sakamoto - Michigan State University

David Schaffer - University of California, Berkeley

Constance Steinkuehler - Office of Science and Technology Policy

Matthew Willard - Naval Research Laboratory

The organizers of the 2012 symposium are:

Kristi Anseth (chair) - University of Colorado, Boulder

Karen Burg - Clemson University

Li-Te Cheng - IBM

Michael Degner - Ford Motor Co.

Ali Khademhosseini - Harvard University

Sanjeev Naik - General Motors

Ben Sawyer - Digitalmill

David Sholl - Georgia Institute of Technology

Armin Sorooshian - University of Arizona

Sponsors for the 2012 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering are General Motors, the Grainger Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Microsoft Research, and Cummins Inc.

The mission of NAE is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. The NAE is part of the National Academies (along with the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council), an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science and technology.

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Researchers used the technology to create a small picoprojector, seen here, which could be embedded in a smartphone, tablet or other device. (Image courtesy of ImagineOptix Corp.)

Researchers from North Carolina State University and ImagineOptix Corporation have developed new technology to convert unpolarized light into polarized light, which makes projectors that use liquid crystal (LC) technology almost twice as energy efficient. The new technology has resulted in smaller, lower cost and more efficient projectors, meaning longer battery life and significantly lower levels of heat.

All LC projectors - used from classrooms to conference rooms - utilize polarized light. But efficient light sources - such as light-emitting diodes, or LEDs - produce unpolarized light. As a result, the light generated by LEDs has to be converted into polarized light before it can be used.

The most common method of polarizing light involves passing the unpolarized light through a polarizing filter. But this process wastes more than 50 percent of the originally generated light, with the bulk of the "lost" light being turned into heat - which is a major reason that projectors get hot and have noisy cooling fans.

But the new technology developed at NC State allows approximately 90 percent of the unpolarized light to be polarized and, therefore, used by the projector.

The ImagineOptix-sponsored research team was also able to use the technology to create a small "picoprojector," which could be embedded in a smartphone, tablet or other device.

"This technology, which we call a polarization grating-polarization conversion system (PGPCS), will significantly improve the energy efficiency of LC projectors," says Dr. Michael Escuti, co-author of a paper describing the research and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. "The commercial implications are broad reaching. Projectors that rely on batteries will be able to run for almost twice as long. And LC projectors of all kinds can be made twice as bright but use the same amount of power that they do now. However, we can't promise that this will make classes and meetings twice as exciting."

Because only approximately 10 percent of the unpolarized light is converted into heat - as opposed to the more than 50 percent light loss that stems from using conventional polarization filters - the new technology will also reduce the need for loud cooling fans and enable more compact designs.

The technology is a small single-unit assembly composed of four immobile parts. A beam of unpolarized light first passes through an array of lenses, which focus the light into a grid of spots. The light then passes through a polarization grating, which consists of a thin layer of liquid crystal material on a glass plate. The polarization grating separates the spots of light into pairs, which have opposite polarizations. The light then passes through a louvered wave plate, which is a collection of clear, patterned plates that gives the beams of light the same polarization. Finally, a second array of lenses focuses the spots of light back into a single, uniform beam of light.

The paper, "Efficient and monolithic polarization conversion system based on a polarization grating," was published July 10 in Applied Optics. The paper was co-authored by Drs. Jihwan Kim and Ravi Komanduri, postdoctoral researchers at NC State; Kristopher Lawler, a research associate at NC State; Jason Kekas, of ImagineOptix Corp.; and Escuti. The research was funded by ImagineOptix, a start-up company co-founded by Escuti and Kekas.

Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.

"Efficient and monolithic polarization conversion system based on a polarization grating"

Authors: Jihwan Kim, Ravi K. Komanduri, Kristopher F. Lawler, Michael J. Escuti, North Carolina State University; D. Jason Kekas, ImagineOptix Corporation

Published: July 10, 2012, Applied Optics

Abstract: We introduce a new polarization conversion system (PCS) based on a liquid-crystal polarization grating (PG) and louvered wave plate. A simple arrangement of these elements laminated between two microlens arrays results in a compact and monolithic element, with the ability to nearly completely convert unpolarized input into linearly polarized output across most of the visible bandwidth. In our first prototypes, this PG-PCS approach manifests nearly 90% conversion efficiency of unpolarized to polarized for +/-11 degree input light divergence, leading to an energy efficient picoprojector that presents high efficacy (12 lm/W) with good color uniformity.

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Dr. Michael Escuti

ImagineOptix, a company developing a revolutionary projection technology for phones and other uses, is one of NC State's Fast 15 - startup companies launched by the campus research community.

The company is commercializing technology developed by Dr. Michael Escuti, head of the Opto-Electronics and Lightwave Engineering Group in the College of Engineering, who earned White House honors last year. Company officials say the technology they're developing will allow anyone to easily share presentations, photos and movies with crisp and clear resolution.

"We're now shifting from 'research mode' to 'production and sales mode' with the technology," Erin Clark, president and CEO of the Cary-based company, explains.

ImagineOptix and its Fast 15 peers exemplify the university's commitment to helping researchers take cutting-edge research to the marketplace. NC State established the Fast 15 in 2011 to help achieve an ambitious goal: doubling the number of startup companies launched by the campus research community.

The university's New Venture Services supports the Fast 15 through customized support for faculty and student projects and startups. The goal is to create stronger, more viable early-stage companies that are poised for future success.

The Fast 15 includes a spectrum of experience, from teams just starting with great ideas, to startups focusing on discoveries with great potential for commercialization, and also young companies marketing initial products but needing assistance to reach their full potential.

NC State staff, faculty, industry leaders and entrepreneurs vet potential Fast 15 participants. New Venture Services, within the Office of Technology Transfer, then provides mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs, business launch planning and assistance building management teams.

"The designation also offers the startup companies visibility that helps to attract interest from investors and prospective early stage stakeholders," adds Russell Thomas, who leads New Ventures services. The Fast 15 project complements the NC State's partnership with the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, which is working with several campuses in the Triangle.

Check out the Fast 15, listed in alphabetical order.

Certalgo

Small, highly transportable devices cool saline needed to induce hypothermia. With no refrigeration needed, they expand the situations where therapeutic hypothermia treatment can be used.

DiscoverLit

A concept for an e-publishing platform for short-form literature - serial novels, web fiction, poetry and short stories -has been put on hold as the developers focus on other projects.

Galaxy Diagnostics

A spinout from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Galaxy offers the most sensitive diagnostic test for the detection of active Bartonella bacteria, which infects animals and humans.

Huffines Design

These tactical defense accessories can be used in police and defense applications. The student designer anticipates licensing his patent to an established company.

ImagineOptix

ImagineOptix is developing the world's smallest, lowest-cost, and most battery-efficient "personal projectors" for consumer electronics. Additional products provide novel solutions to polarization challenges in optics.

Katharos

This filtration system removes blood phosphates during dialysis, extending the lives of those with chronic kidney disease and reducing or eliminating associated medications. Katharos is a joint venture between NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Knowit

This online, knowledge-sharing and curating platform enables users to share what they are learning with friends and followers.

Leiva Strings

A music education start-up company, Leiva Strings uses a color-coded learning system that enables individuals to learn to play stringed instruments faster - and with less frustration.

Oryx Bio

Based on Centennial Campus, Orxy Bio is a spin-out of the College of Engineering. Its bioseparations technology platform will improve the manufacturing of therapeutic biological products. Oryx acquired Ligamar in early 2012.

Nanovector

This nanoparticle-based therapy uses a plant virus to deliver therapeutics into a cell and its nucleus, technology developed in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Polymer Braille

A book-size electronic reading device for the blind and visually impaired will convert pages to Braille dots that rise up through the screen. The product could increase Braille literacy, a key for employment for the blind.

SPARKmoto

An intelligent, electric supercharger will improve the performance of motorcycles and cars.

Spitter Spatter

Ecofriendly, antimicrobial children's clothing will ease parents' lives. Look for products online and in select boutiques this fall.

Vapor Pulse

Using a new method for applying nanocoatings developed in the College of Engineering, Vapor Pulse has initial markets for fabric protection, defense, and healthcare applications. Vapor Pulse was selected for the Chancellor's Innovation Fund in 2011.

Xanofi

Using unique advances developed in the College of Engineering, this team produces quality nanofibers for filters and medical uses using a unique, liquid-based process. Xanofi is now operational with several customers.

Author: David Hunt | News Services

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