The American University in Cairo

<h3 id="overview">Overview</h3>
<p>The American University in Cairo was founded in 1919 by Americans devoted to education and service in the Middle East.</p>
<p>In line with the liberal arts approach to education to which the University is committed, the School of Sciences and Engineering (SSE) offers degree programs in natural sciences (biology, chemistry and physics), Mathematics and actuarial science and computer science and engineering, as well as a number of engineering programs (architectural and construction, electronics, mechanical and petroleum).</p>
<h3 id="research">Research</h3>
<p>AUC is committed to actively transfer research and innovation through technology licensing and collaborative partnerships delivering tangible benefits to the community.</p>
<p>The university boasts 16 research centers that promote collaborative research across a wide array disciplines.</p>
<p>The Yousef Jameel Science and Technology Research Center was established to promote research at AUC. Bringing together a qualified group of scientists and engineers since its inception in Fall 2003, the Center has experienced a spectacular rate of growth. It is now a very visible feature of AUC and is increasing gaining national and international recognition. The Center supports a variety of nanoscience and technology-oriented projects that make use of its state-of-the-art equipment. The center aims to attract high-caliber researchers from around the world who, together with AUC faculty, contribute to the center’s research themes and help steer its future research activities. </p>
<h3 id="industry-partnerships">Industry Partnerships</h3>
<p>AUC is committed to actively transfer research and innovation through technology licensing and collaborative partnerships delivering tangible benefits to the community.</p>
<p>The Technology Transfer Office (TTO) works with the University’s researchers and inventors to accelerate the process of bringing their developed technologies to the community. The office supports research at all stages and helps establish a connection between companies and the commercialization of intellectual property.</p>


<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
<p>The increasing trend of ubiquitous interconnection, automation, and miniaturization of sensors and other electronic devices—often referred as the Internet of Things (IoT)—pushes for the development of reliable energy systems that can cut down the environmental impact and economic costs associated with traditional architectures based on long power lines and periodic battery charging/replacement. Traditional energy storage capacitors are bulky in size and have many other limitations such as design complexity. There’s a need to design new solar-active energy storage devices that offer space saving advantages over traditional capacitors and the very complex solar cell/battery devices.</p>
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
<p>The proposed technology is based on the coupling of sunlight harvesting and energy storage in one device with simple design, packaging, and use. It depends on the optimized design of a 3-electrode device, where the first electrode (top layer) is made of a photoactive material deposited on a transparent substrate. The transparent layer will enable the light to go through and excite the photoactive material to generate charge carriers and be transferred and stored in the other two electrodes (supercapacitor).</p>
<h1 id="benefits">Benefits</h1>
<p>The solar-active energy storage devices are designed to be solid state, self-contained, powerful, and expansive offering space saving advantages over traditional capacitor energy storage technologies and the very complex solar cell/battery devices.</p>
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
<p>The device has many advantages of extending the range of communication, especially for cellular and Wi-Fi based IoT devices, which will enable users to offer better, smaller products with new capabilities, which further distinguishes their offering in the marketplace.</p>
