Nano Electronics Researcher Decodes Radio Signals Using Atom-Sized Component

Nano Electronics Researcher Decodes Radio Signals Using Atom-Sized Component

A scientist has unveiled a working radio built from carbon nanotubes that are only a few atoms across, or almost 1,000 times smaller than today's radio technology.

The nanotech device is a demodulator, a simple circuit that decodes radio waves and turns them into audio signals. By hooking the decoder up to two metal wires, University of California at Irvine professor Peter Burke transmitted music via AM radio waves from an iPod to speakers across the room.

"People have been working on nanoelectronics for many years, and there have been advances at the device level on switches and wires," said Burke, who reported his findings in the November 14 issue of the American Chemical Society's Nano Letters. "This work takes a step towards showing nanoelectronics in systems."

The process centers on working with tiny tubes of carbon only discovered in the 1980s. They are sometimes called buckytubes, after the noted inventor Buckminster Fuller.

Nanoelectronic systems are considered crucial to the continued miniaturization of electronic devices. Many companies are interested in the long-term potential of the technology. Nanomix has received over $15 million in venture capital to commercialize various nanoelectronic devices from Okapi Venture Capital. The company intends to commercialize carbon nanotubes that will work with standard semiconductor technologies.

Burke's system is not wholly constructed of nanomaterials. Aside from the demodulator, the rest of the radio setup was off-the-shelf. But the nanocomponent is a crucial step in developing a fully nano-sized radio.

"Though we have only demonstrated the critical component of the entire radio system out of a nanotube (the demodulator), it is conceivable in the future that all components could be nanoscale, thus allowing a truly nanoscale wireless communications system," Burke wrote in the paper.

François Baneyx, director of the Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Washington, said nanotubes have attracted a lot of attention because of unique electrical properties that arise at the atomic scale.

"They can behave as a semiconductor or metallic system and they have a very high physical strength," he said. "Researchers are actively working on a large number of nanotechnology applications. In nanoelectronics the focus is on the unique properties that arise at the nanoscale. They are looking to take advantage of the electronic properties of the nanotubes." Video on the talk in this article is at this link(http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1815813330?bclid=0&bctid=12084665001).

While the potential for nanoelectronics is big, major manufacturing problems remain. When scientists are working at the atomic scale, imperfections of a couple of atoms have drastic repercussions.

"If one atom is out of place in a regular transistor, it's not a big deal," Burke said. "If one atom is out of place in the nanotube, it has a big impact on the electronic properties."

That impact means that it is nearly impossible to make identical components time and again, an obvious necessity for commercial production.

"The cost and manufacturability are the big unsolved issues in nanotechnology," Burke said.

Burke's team is also looking at the interfaces between biological systems and nanotechnologies. He sees opportunities in manipulating human proteins, since they are about the same size as the nanoelectronics.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/nano_radio#