ECpE Distinguished Lecture Series – Daniel Stancil

When

October 10, 2014    
1:10 pm - 2:00 pm

Where

3043 ECpE Building Addition
Coover Hall, Ames, Iowa, 50011

Event Type

Daniel Stancil
Daniel Stancil

Title: On the Prospects of Realizing Communication Systems using Neutrinos and other Weakly-Interacting Particles

Speaker: Daniel Stancil, Alcoa Distinguished Professor and Department Head, ECE, North Carolina State University

Abstract: Every day we communicate using radio frequency and optical frequency photons. Even though this communication is enormously successful, transmission is often complicated by multipath reflections and obstruction of the line-of-sight. As a result, we sometimes have trouble receiving cellphone signals inside of large buildings, and talking with people over long distances requires relaying the signal from a satellite, or guiding the signal through an optical fiber. In contrast, neutrinos are elementary particles that have almost no interaction with matter. Since they can pass through anything, in principle you could realize global communication by sending the beam straight through the earth—there is no multipath propagation and the beam cannot be stopped or shielded. However, the attribute that makes neutrinos interesting for communications is also the source of the principal challenge: it is extremely difficult to generate and detect particles that have almost no interaction with matter! In this talk, we will describe the first demonstration of neutrino communication and explore possibilities for realizing practical systems. The possibility of using hypothetical weakly-interacting particles such as axions and hidden photons will also be briefly discussed.

Speaker Bio: Daniel D. Stancil is the Alcoa Distinguished Professor and Head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at North Carolina State University. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University in 1976, and the S.M., E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, 1979, and 1981, respectively. From 1981 to 1986 he was Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University. From 1986 to 2009 he was Associate Professor, then Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. While at CMU he also served as Associate Head of the ECE Department, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering. He returned to NC State as Head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in 2009. Dr. Stancil is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a past-president of the IEEE Magnetics Society. His research interests include wireless and neutrino communications. In 2010 he coordinated the interdisciplinary team that performed the first demonstration of neutrino communications at Fermilab.

Loading...