The following press conference is scheduled for the American Physical Society (APS) meeting in Minneapolis March 20-24, 2000, the largest gathering of physicists this year.

BEYOND ELECTRONICS

The physics behind many of the products found in computers, cell phones, and VCRs started out at March APS meetings of past years, and this meeting is no exception. The four presentations here will illustrate how electronics can be combined with photonics, acoustics, and with the use of spins. David Bishop of Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies (paper A5.2; [email protected], 908-582-3927) will report on a microchip covered with tiny steerable mirrors which will be able to route a billion fiber-optic telephone calls at once. (Moore's law stipulates that the density of electronic components on a chip doubles every 18 months; for photonics the doubling occurs every 9 months.) Michael J. Naughton (paper A5.3; [email protected], 617-552-3598) of Boston College and Tau Sensors will describe how a cantilever used as a magnetometer was converted into a sensitive detector of sound waves and how from this he developed an acoustic device for locating and imaging underground objects, including plastic landmines. Astronomy is already the first fully digital science and becoming more so. Brian McLeod of Harvard-Smithsonian (paper C6.4, [email protected], 617-495-7023) will describe his new CCD camera which at 12,000 x 12,000 pixels will be by a factor of 4 the largest CCD array built for a major telescope. Finally, David Awschalom of UC Santa Barbara (co-author on a half dozen papers at the meeting, [email protected], 805-893-2121) and editor of the new Virtual Journal of Nanotechnology will report on the latest developments in spintronics, in which electron spins, and not just electron charge, plays a role.

Press Conference location:
Minneapolis Convention Center, room 203B.

APS Virtual Pressroom, with over 20 lay-language papers:
http://www.aps.org/meet/MAR00/baps/vpr.

Journalists intending to attend the meeting should send in their request for a press badge to Ben Stein at [email protected].