Photon-transistors for the supercomputers of the future

Scientist from the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen and from Harvard University have worked out a new theory which describe how the necessary transistors for the quantum computers of the future may be created. The research has just been published in the scientific journal Nature Physics.

Researchers dream of quantum computers. Incredibly fast super computers which can solve such extremely complicated tasks that it will revolutionise the application possibilities. But there are some serious difficulties. One of them is the transistors, which are the systems that process the signals.

Nano ‘resonators’ form tiny logic gate

A nanoscopic ‘”resonator”‘ that could form the building blocks forof the logic gates inside an electromechanical computer has been developed by US researchers.

Sotiris Masmanidis at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and colleagues suggest that computers constructed from nanoscale electromechanical components could be more efficient and robust than purely electronic computers.

The resonator consists of a piece of gallium arsenide crystal 4 micrometres long, 0.8 micrometres wide and 0.2 micrometres deep, attached to a base. One side of the crystal “beam” is doped to provide extra electrons, while the other is doped so that it lacks them. When an alternating current (AC) voltage is applied across the post, an electric field is formed across the centre of the bar. A piezoelectric effect then kicks in, causing the gallium arsenide crystal to deform. If the AC voltage has the right frequency, the bar will resonate, vibrating like a metal bar after being struck.

Read the article at New Scientist

Nanoparticle technique could lead to improved semiconductors

Devices made from plastic semiconductors, like solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), could be improved based on information gained using a new nanoparticle technique developed at The University of Texas at Austin.

Automation of Nanotech Manufacturing May Be Ahead

In an assist in the quest for ever smaller electronic devices, Duke University engineers have adapted a decades-old computer aided design and manufacturing process to reproduce nanosize structures with features on the order of single molecules.

The new automated technique for nanomanufacturing suggests that the emerging nanotechnology industry might capitalize on skills already mastered by today’s engineering workforce, according to the researchers.

Silicon nanowires upgrade data-storage technology

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), along with colleagues at George Mason University and Kwangwoon University in Korea, have fabricated a memory device that combines silicon nanowires with a more traditional type of data-storage. Their hybrid structure may be more reliable than other nanowire-based memory devices recently built and more easily integrated into commercial applications.

Tomorrow’s green nanofactories

Viruses are notorious villains. They cause serious human diseases like AIDS, polio, and influenza, and can lead to system crashes and data loss in computers.

A new podcast explores how nanotechnology researcher Angela Belcher, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is working with viruses to make them do good things. By exploiting a virus’s ability to replicate rapidly and combine with semiconductor and electronic materials, she is coaxing them to grow and self-assemble nanomaterials into a functional electronic device. Through this marriage of nanotechnology with green chemistry, Belcher and her team are working toward building faster, better, cheaper and environmentally-friendly transistors, batteries, solar cells, diagnostic materials for detecting cancer, and semiconductors for use in modern electrical devices—everything from computers to cell phones.

Transparent transistors to bring future displays, ‘e-paper’

Researchers have used nanotechnology to create transparent transistors and circuits, a step that promises a broad range of applications, from e-paper and flexible color screens for consumer electronics to “smart cards” and “heads-up” displays in auto windshields.

The transistors are made of single “nanowires,” or tiny cylindrical structures that were assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic.

New technology will allow for flexible television and computer screens

Organic light emitting diodes (OLED) are the technology used in making light emitting fabrics used in cell phones and televisions. The fabrication of flexible OLEDs has up to now been held back by the fragility of the brittle indium tin oxide layer that serves as the transparent electrode. But researchers at the Regroupement Québecois sur les Matériaux de Pointe (RQMP) have found a solution.

Researchers create smallest organic light-emitters

To help light up the nanoworld, a Cornell interdisciplinary team of researchers has produced microscopic “nanolamps” — light-emitting nanofibers about the size of a virus or the tiniest of bacteria.

In a collaboration of experts in organic materials and nanofabrication, researchers have created one of the smallest organic light-emitting devices to date, made up of synthetic fibers just 200 nanometers wide (1 nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). The potential applications are in flexible electronic products, which are being made increasingly smaller.