Archive for the ‘materials science’ tag
From Scotch Tape to Graphene
The guys who have been messing with graphene got the Nobel Prize in physics. According to Alan Boyle, Geim and Nososelov first got on the trail of the material when they
used Scotch tape to pull thin layers of carbon off a block of pencil lead.
That was the start of something big. Atom for atom, graphene turned out to be 100 times stronger than steel — in large part because the single-layered atoms are tightly bonded together in a honeycomb lattice.
Graphene is the future of touch screens, big-panel TVs, body scanners and light, strong composites.
An atomically resolved image of a chiral nanotube as observed in STM experiments. Source: Wikipedia.
Scientists turn light into electrical current using a golden nanoscale system
Look! It’s a solar-energy harvester. No, it’s a computer storage device. No, it’s Golden Nanosclae System! Ah, the Golden Nano Scale – so much more pleasant to the ear than boring old C major….
Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit. The system, an array of nano-sized molecules of gold, respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons that induce and project electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.
The results may provide a technological approach for higher efficiency energy harvesting with a nano-sized circuit that can power itself, potentially through sunlight. Recently, surface plasmons have been engineered into a variety of light-activated devices such as biosensors.
It is also possible that the system could be used for computer data storage. While the traditional computer processor represents data in binary form, either on or off, a computer that used such photovoltaic circuits could store data corresponding to wavelengths of light.
via Scientists turn light into electrical current using a golden nanoscale system.
