Each chip on this wafer has 10,000 nanotube transistors on it.
For more than ten years, engineers have been worrying that they are running out of tricks for continuing to shrink silicon transistors. Intel’s latest chips have transistors with features as small as 14 nanometers, but it is unclear how the industry can keep scaling down silicon transistors much further or what might replace them.
Continue reading… “Commercial nanotube transistors could be ready by 2020”
Graphene and carbon nanotubes can generate intense surface plasmons for use in nanoelectronics and cancer therapy.
Engineers at Monash University Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering (ECSE) have modeled the world’s first “spaser” (surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) to be made completely out of carbon.
Continue reading… “Smartphones in the future could be printed on your clothes”
As much computing power as a 8-bit computer.
Nano-sized entities made of DNA that are able to perform the same kind of logic operations as a silicon-based computer have been introduced into a living animal. A computer inside a cockroach.
Continue reading… “DNA computers deliver drugs inside cockroaches”
Researchers embedded carbon nanotubes in the chloroplasts of the plants to create “artificial antennae.”
Plants make life possible. Chloroplasts are the tiny organelles with a plant’s leaves. The chloroplasts use incoming sunlight to split water molecules and then knit together the energy-rich carbon and hydrogen compounds found in everything from food to fossil fuels. The leftover “waste” is the oxygen that we and the rest of the animal kingdom depend on to survive and thrive.
Continue reading… “Bionic plants use nanotechnology to boost photosynthesis”
A nanomotor inside a HeLa Cell.
A Pennsylvania State University team has discovered that nanomotors made from tiny metal rods can be manipulated by sound waves and magnets, giving them precise control over their actions inside of cells.
Continue reading… “Tiny motors that fit inside human cells could one day treat diseases”
A new wrinkle in the control of waves.
Flexible, layered materials textured with nanoscale wrinkles could provide a new way of controlling the wavelengths and distribution of waves, whether of sound or light. The new method, developed by researchers at MIT, could eventually find applications from nondestructive testing of materials to sound suppression, and could also provide new insights into soft biological systems and possibly lead to new diagnostic tools.
Continue reading… “Flexible materials could provide new ways to control sound and light”
The battery is the biggest limitation for electric vehicles (EV). Tesla, General Motors, Nissan and others install heavy batteries that limit vehicle range and performance. The batteries take up as much as 15% of the vehicle’s total weight.
Prieto Battery’s copper foam.
Power plants, wind farms, and smartphones all suffer from the same basic ailment — they lack cheap, reliable, long-life batteries to store large amounts of energy for when the sun goes down, the wind stops blowing, or the device is unplugged for a long time.
Researchers unveil the first working computer built entirely from carbon nanotube transistors.
A group of researchers at Stanford University have moved a step closer to answering the question of what happens when silicon, the standard material in today’s microelectronic circuits, reaches its fundamental limits for use in increasingly small transistors.
Continue reading… “Stanford engineers successfully build world’s first carbon nanotube computer”
UCLA smartphone virus scanner
Scientists have finally developed a technology that makes it possible to avoid a trip to the doctor. The UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science scientists have created a lightweight, virus-detecting device that attaches to a common smartphone and is able to scan the human body for human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles. The troublesome virus is the root of various illnesses, including birth defects like deafness and brain damage. HCMV can also expedite the death of adults who have HIV, a weak immune system and those who have undergone organ transplants, making early detection of the virus useful.
Hybrid optoelectronic nanostructures with controlled variation in photoconduction properties.
University of Pennsylvania reasearchers have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient optoelectronic devices used in communications.
Continue reading… “Researchers demonstrate new method for harvesting energy from light”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPHJyaUDiVI[/youtube]
University of Rochester researchers recently demonstrated how beams of light can actually levitate nanoscale diamonds. And while they’re not actually suggesting that we construct a light-driven hoverboard made of the precious gems, the things we might be able to do with floating diamonds are pretty cool in their own right.
Continue reading… “Researchers levitate nanoscale diamonds with a laser beam”
