Friday, 11. September 2009, 10:23:21
nanowires, nanotechnology, electronics
Gaze into the electron microscope display in Frances Ross’s laboratory here and it is possible to persuade yourself that Dr. Ross, a 21st-century materials scientist, is actually a farmer in some Lilliputian silicon world.
Dr. Ross, an I.B.M. researcher, is growing a crop of mushroom-shaped silicon nanowires that may one day become a basic building block for a new kind of electronics. Nanowires are just one example, although one of the most promising, of a transformation now taking place in the material sciences as researchers push to create the next generation of switching devices smaller, faster and more powerful than today’s transistors.
The reason that many computer scientists are pursuing this goal is that the shrinking of the transistor has approached fundamental physical limits.
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/science/01trans.html?_r=2&8dpc
Friday, 22. August 2008, 09:08:50
nanowires, integrated circuits, nanotechnology, electronics
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created the first integrated circuit that uses nanowires as both sensors and electronic components. With a simple printing technique, the group was able to fabricate large arrays of uniform circuits, which could serve as image sensors. "Our goal is to develop all-nanowire sensors" that could be used in a variety of applications, says Ali Javey, an electrical-engineering professor at UC Berkeley, who led the research.
Nanowires make good sensors because their small dimensions enhance their sensitivity. Nanowire-based light sensors, for example, can detect just a few photons. But to be useful in practical devices, the sensors have to be integrated with electronics that can amplify and process such small signals. This has been a problem, because the materials used for sensing and electronics cannot easily be assembled on the same surface. What's more, a reliable way of aligning the tiny nanowires that could be practical on a large scale has been hard to come by.
Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/21244/?a=f
Friday, 11. April 2008, 08:15:27
User Interface, nanowires, computers, OLED
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Engineers have created the first "active matrix" display using a new class of transparent transistors and circuits, a step toward realizing applications such as e-paper, flexible color monitors and "heads-up" displays in car windshields.
The transistors are made of "nanowires," tiny cylindrical structures that are assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic. The researchers used nanowires as small as 20 nanometers - a thousand times thinner than a human hair - to create a display containing organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDS. The OLEDS are devices that rival the brightness of conventional pixels in flat-panel television sets, computer monitors and displays in consumer electronics.
Source:
http://physorg.com/news126202412.html
Friday, 21. March 2008, 08:21:40
nanowires, solar cells, nantechnology
Silicon nanowires grow more densely when blasted with Deep Purple than any other music tested, says an Australian researcher. But the exact potential of music in growing nanowires remains a little hazy.
David Parlevliet, a PhD student at Murdoch University in Perth, presented his findings at a recent Australian Research Council Nanotechnology Network symposium in Melbourne.
Parlevliet is testing nanowires for their ability to absorb sunlight in the hope of developing solar cells from them. One way he grows the nanowires involves blasting a voltage through silane gas to produce a plasma that pulses on and off 1000 times a second.
Parlevliet says one day his supervisor wondered what would happen if the usual method of generating the pulsed plasma was replaced with music instead.
Source:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/03/12/2186535.htm?site=science&topic=latest
Tuesday, 19. June 2007, 10:40:12
nanowires, medicine, nanotechnology, flexible displays
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Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Hawaii have developed an easy way to align nanowires and carbon nanotubes over areas 100 times larger than is possible using existing methods. The researchers are also able to fabricate the nanowires on a number of different surfaces. The advance potentially paves the way to mass production of electronics devices based on these promising nanostructures.
The technique, based on high-volume manufacturing methods used to produce plastic bags, could make it practical to employ nanowires and carbon nanotubes for controlling pixels on large, flexible displays and for accurately detecting multiple chemicals, viruses, and biomarkers for diseases.
Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/18802/
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