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Heike Riel, 32
Built large, bright, organic video displays using materials dismissed by contemporaries
IBM
Heike Riel left a furniture-making apprenticeship to study physics. A PhD later, she has built the world’s largest full-color display that uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)- paving the way fro a new generation of vivid-color, affordable , flat-panel televisions and computer monitors. Her 20-inch screen is brighter and more energy efficient than any other screen on the market. Cell-phone displays and other small screens have used OLEDs for streaming video, but larger-scale applications have proven elusive. In a large screen, each of millions of light-emitting pixels requires several transistors, and the transistor matrix had been difficult to manufacture uniformly. Researchers had steadfastly tried to improve the polycrystalline-silicon transistors, claiming that the alternative- amorphous silicon- would break down at the high currents needed for pixel emission, But Riel and her colleagues fashioned the OLEDs at IBM’s Zurich lab so that inexpensive amorphous-silicon transistors drew less current and, therefore, remained particular, tinkered with the width of the pixel’s thin organic layers, allowing significantly more light to be emitted. “People didn’t believe it could be done,” she says.
2003 TR35 Winners
Geoffrey Barrows
Gives unmanned reconnaissance planes insect vision
Serafim Batzoglou
Devises powerful tools for assembling and analyzing genomes
Cynthia Breazeal
Constructs robots whose expressive faces convey humanlike emotions
Ian Clarke
Pioneered software that delivers Web files quickly, anonymously
Andre DeHon
Designs architectures needed to build practical molecular computers
Daniel Gottesman
Works to improve quantum computers so they can speed drug design and perform other massive computing tasks
Kathryn Guarini
Fabricates three-dimensional integrated circuits that could vastly increase computer power
Vic Gundotra
Sparked Microsofts change to .Net
Andrew Heafitz
Invented inexpensive rocket-based surveillance systems
Steven Hofmeyr
Devised software that roots out security threats to a networks operating system
Mike Horton
Engineers tiny sensors that can be spread like crumbs around a battlefield or factory
Ayanna Howard
Writes programs that more intelligently guide actions of robots
Kevin Lee
Integrates photonics and electronics on chips to speed telecommunications
Desmond Lim
Develops high-volume manufacturing lines for making optical chips into commodities
Michael OConnor
Designed an automated tractor steering system that is saving farmers bushels of money
Joe Pompei
Delivers "spotlights" of sound for use in concerts, museums, and automobiles
Jovan Popovic
Makes simpler, more powerful animation tools for novices and professionals
Thomas Reardon
Tailors Internet application to cell phones
Torsten Reil
Employs simulations of human movement to create realistically animated characters
Heike Riel
Built large, bright, organic video displays using materials dismissed by contemporaries
Maximilian Riesenhuber
Programs computers to recognize objects the way the human brain does
Linda Rottenberg
Helps entrepreneurs in emerging nations turn innovations into business
Ted Sargent
Fashions photonic circuits that could speed voice and data to homes
Tim Sibley
Serves up customized audio and video gems
Alex Vasilescu
Transforms computers ability to recognize human faaces
Lorraine Wheeler
Codes software that makes handheld computers handier
Tsuyoshi Yamamoto
Builds brain-imaging machines that are faster and cheaper than magnetic-resonance imaging equipment