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Student Innovator at Rensselaer Uses Sound Waves, T-Rays for Safer Detection of Bombs and Other Dangerous Materials
$30,000 Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prizes
Awarded to Students Nationwide; Four Leading Institutes
Celebrate Winners
Benjamin Clough is dedicated to making the world a safer
place for emergency first responders, police and military
personnel, chemical plant employees, and many others. The
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute doctoral student has developed
a novel method for extending the distance from which powerful
terahertz technology can remotely detect hidden explosives,
chemicals, and other dangerous materials.
A student in the Department of Electrical,
Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer, Clough has
demonstrated a promising, cost-effective technique that employs
sound waves to boost the effective distance of terahertz
spectroscopy from a few feet to several meters. For this
innovation, Clough has been named the winner of the 2011 $30,000 Lemelson-MIT
Rensselaer Student Prize. He is among the four 2011 $30,000
Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prize winners announced
today.
“We live in an age of continuous innovation, where
technologies come together in unexpected and serendipitous
ways. This mash-up culture, where data and applications
constantly are being combined to bring value in ways that
exercise the imagination, is where many stellar Rensselaer
student researchers find their inspiration,” said Rensselaer
President Shirley Ann
Jackson. “Benjamin Clough is a prime example, with his
invention of a new method that combines mature audio technology
with leading-edge research to extend the operational usefulness
of terahertz sensing. We congratulate him, and applaud all of
the winners and finalists of the Lemelson-MIT Collegiate
Student Prize for innovating a brighter, better future.”
Clough is the fifth recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer
Student Prize. First given in 2007, the prize is awarded
annually to a Rensselaer senior or graduate student who has
created or improved a product or process, applied a technology
in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable
inventiveness in other ways.
“The Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prize winners have
shown their potential to invent broadly and bring new
innovations into the world,” said Joshua Schuler, executive
director of the Lemelson-MIT
Program. “These inventive achievements, and the students’
creativity, persistence, and overall collaboration, must be
celebrated at the collegiate level.”
For videos and photos of Clough and other award finalists,
please visit: www.eng.rpi.edu/lemelson
Eavesdropping on Terahertz Waves
With his project, titled “Terahertz Enhanced
Acoustics,” Clough has developed a method to circumvent one of
the major fundamental limitations of remote terahertz
spectroscopy.
The Rensselaer Center for
Terahertz Research is one of the most active groups
worldwide to apply terahertz wave technology for security and
defense applications. Sensors using terahertz waves can
penetrate packaging materials or clothing and identify the
unique terahertz “fingerprints” of many hidden materials.
Terahertz waves, or T-rays, occupy a large segment of the
electromagnetic spectrum between the infrared and microwave
bands. Unlike X-rays and microwaves, T-rays pose no known
health threat to humans.
A key practical limitation of terahertz technology, however,
is that it only works over short distances. Naturally occurring
moisture in air absorbs terahertz waves, weakening the signal
and sensing capabilities. This distance limitation is not ideal
for applications in bomb or hazardous material detection, where
the human operator wants to be as far away as possible from the
potential threat.
Clough’s patent-pending solution to this problem is a new
method for using sound waves to remotely “listen” to terahertz
signals from a distance. Focusing two laser beams into air
creates small bursts of plasma, which in turn create terahertz
pulses. Another pair of lasers is aimed near the target of
interest to create a second plasma for detecting the terahertz
pulses after they have interacted with the material. This
detection plasma produces acoustic waves as it ionizes the air.
Clough discovered that by using a sensitive microphone to
“listen” to the plasma, he could detect terahertz wave
information embedded in these sound waves. This audio
information can then be converted into digital data and
instantly checked against a library of known terahertz
fingerprints, to determine the chemical composition of the
mystery material.
So far, Clough has successfully demonstrated the ability to
use acoustics to identify the terahertz fingerprints from
several meters away. He has separately demonstrated plasma
acoustic detection from 11 meters, limited only by available
lab space. Along with the increased distance from the
potentially hazardous material, an additional advantage is that
his system does not require a direct line of sight to collect
signals, as the microphone can still capture the audio
information. Potential applications of Clough’s invention
include environmental monitoring of atmospheric conditions,
monitoring smokestack emissions, inspecting suspicious
packages, or even detecting land mines – all from a safe
distance.
For additional information on terahertz research at
Rensselaer, visit: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2748
Determined Innovator and Engineer
Clough joined Rensselaer as a doctoral student in
2007 as a member of the research group of Xi-Cheng Zhang, the
J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Science at Rensselaer and director
of the university’s Center for Terahertz Research. In his time
at the Institute, Clough has presented his findings at several
international conferences, and the details of his work have
been published in peer-reviewed journals including Optics
Letters and Physical Review
E.
“There is no doubt Ben is one of the most brilliant students
I have ever worked with. He continues to prove, time and again,
his remarkable creativity and innovative thinking,” said Zhang,
who is Clough’s academic adviser. “Ben’s idea for the sonic
detection of terahertz takes the global T-ray community in a
new and very promising direction. I am delighted at his
success, and congratulate him on this outstanding
recognition.”
A National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education
and Research Traineeship (IGERT) fellow, Clough is deeply
committed to his research activities. He received the
Rensselaer Founders Award of Excellence in 2009, as well as the
Rensselaer NSF IGERT Best Presenter Award in 2010.
Hailing from Albuquerque, N.M., Clough grew up immersed in
science and technology. He inherited a love of research from
his father, a retired chemist, and a strong work ethic from his
mother, a retired professor of nursing. Along with his parents,
Clough’s wife, Kara, and older sister, Sandy, are overjoyed
that he won the 2011 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prize.
Clough said the idea for his prize-winning innovation struck
him while relaxing on the beach in Mexico during a winter
vacation with his family.
Following graduation, Clough said he plans to pursue his
passion for science and engineering at a national laboratory
where he can gain experience in a fast-paced research and
development environment. He said he hopes to apply his broad
interdisciplinary background in electrical engineering and
physics to continue to explore the boundaries of current
technology.
Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prizes
In addition to Clough’s pioneering work, the other
winners of the annual Lemelson-MIT Collegiate Student Prize
were announced today at their respective universities:
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Lemelson-MIT
Caltech Student Prize winner Guoan Zheng developed an
on-chip, inexpensive microscopy imaging technology with many
potential applications, including improved diagnostics for
malaria and other blood-borne diseases in the developing
world and rapid screening of new drugs.
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Lemelson-MIT Illinois
Student Prize winner Scott Daigle developed a system that
utilizes automatic gear shifting to reduce the efforts
exerted by wheelchair operators. Daigle’s company,
IntelliWheels Inc., has an entire suite of products to
improve the everyday actions of wheelchair users.
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Lemelson-MIT
Student Prize winner Alice A. Chen developed an
assortment of innovations with promising drug development
implications, including a humanized mouse with a
tissue-engineered human liver designed to bridge a gap
between laboratory animal studies and clinical trials.
About the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student
Prize
The $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prize is
funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program,
which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to
outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.
About the Lemelson-Mit Program
Celebrating innovation, inspiring
youth
The Lemelson-MIT Program celebrates outstanding innovators and
inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers
through invention.
Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific
inventors, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT
Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.
It is funded by the Lemelson Foundation and administered by the
School of Engineering. The Foundation sparks, sustains, and
celebrates innovation and the inventive spirit. It supports
projects in the U.S. and developing countries that nurture
innovators and unleash invention to advance economic, social
and environmentally sustainable development. To date the
Lemelson Foundation has donated or committed more than U.S.
$150 million in support of its mission. http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Past Winners of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer
Student Prize
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Published
March 9,
2011 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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