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Nanowires of Unlimited Length

Posted by kdawson on Mon Feb 11, 2008 01:43 AM
from the eat-your-heart-out-spiderman dept.
Science
StCredZero writes with word of a research team from the University of Illinois who have developed a way to manufacture nanowires of any length from various materials. Not, unfortunately, carbon nanotubes, or we would be looking for news on space elevators soon. The process is analogous to drawing with a fountain pen — as liquid is drawn from a reservoir, a solvent (water or an organic) evaporates and the solute precipitates onto a substrate. The researchers have demonstrated a way to spin and wind a nanowire onto a spool; they have produced a coil of microfiber 850 nm in diameter and 40 cm long. Here's the abstract from the journal Advanced Materials.
+ -
story

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  • Hee hee hee (Score:5, Funny)

    by Warui Kami (104676) on Monday February 11 2008, @01:48AM (#22376692)
    From TFA (The Fine Abstract):

    Abstract
    No abstract.

  • You know what they say (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2008, @01:51AM (#22376706)
    It's not the length of the wire, it's how you use it.
  • But they only made the wires out of sugar, and various other water soluble compounds. While they said they could make wires out of ingredients that dissolve in volatile organic compounds, when will they be able to make them out of metal?

  • Best part of the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Weaselmancer (533834) on Monday February 11 2008, @01:54AM (#22376722)

    IMHO, is this:

    To further demonstrate the versatility of the drawing process, for which the U. of I. has applied for a patent, the researchers drew nanofibers out of sugar, out of potassium hydroxide (a major industrial chemical) and out of densely packed quantum dots.

    Nanowires made of quantum dots? Sounds like an outstanding way to make a super efficient solar panel. [wikipedia.org]

    You could lay out nano structures of quantum dots with whatever spacing and precision you'd like. And unlike all the other advances we usually see here on /. this one is already working.

    • the researchers drew nanofibers out of sugar

      Ladies and gentlemen, this is an unparalleled breakthrough in cotton candy technology.

    • Re:Best part of the article (Score:5, Interesting)

      by googlebear (625615) <ian AT ianroessle DOT org> on Monday February 11 2008, @03:36AM (#22377072) Homepage
      Yeah the nano wires of quantum dots sounds very interesting. In my introduction to Nanotech course at school I did a presentation on qunatum dot cellular automata. Essentially they design logic circuits out of precisely laid out circuits of quantum dots. The technology is proof of concept and was awaiting improvements in production technologies . Maybe this will indeed be the key to unlocking 10-20ghz processors (They don't have the same leaky qualities when as densely packed as chips built with MOSFETT. They use electron interactions as a means of propagating signals as opposed to actual current flow) .. Anyhow here is a link to the university doing the research on QCA's for those of you interested... HERE [nd.edu] -Ian Roessle

  • Spiderman sitings ahoy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arivanov (12034) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:03AM (#22376758) Homepage
    In other news a goofy red-blue character with the habit of spinning threads of various lengths has been seen roaming the streets of New York.

    On a more serious note this is what many silk spinners do. They excrete silk as liquid and it becomes a wire or a sheet a few ms later. Some silk spinners manage threads which are in micrometers in diameter as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stereoroid (234317)
      Fibres in the m range are nothing new - that's where optical fibre lives, with the long-range fibres below 10 m. This story is about fibres in the nanometre range, a thousandth the diameter of optical fibre.

      I wonder how strong the fibre is, and how long it will be before it gets turned in to a weapon? Attach it to a stick, hang a weight on the other end, and whoops! there goes my head, rolling down the stairs.

    • Re:Spiderman sitings ahoy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jesus_666 (702802) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:50AM (#22377138)
      This could mean that artificial silk is around the corner. And I don't mean some silk-like synthetic but instead something with the exact properties of real silk but a much lower price. If they do manage to make silk that way I predict that in a few years silk will be the next big fad. Of course this doesn't work like a real silk gland at all, but maybe something workable can be achieved.

      Outside of the fashion world (where things actually matter), this might also mean a big step towards artificial spider silk, which a lot of people are very interested in - spider silk is very tough and is would be useful wherever you need a very light tough fabric, especially when you want something that is biodegradable. Currently we can produce the protein, but we can't spin it. Perhaps this technology might enable us to create something reasonably similar to real spider silk.
      • W00T PANTS!! Where's my Spiderman webslinger?!!
      • Bah! You young whippersnappers!

        I'd rather get my silk the old-fashioned way, by milking goats:

        http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/889951.stm [bbc.co.uk]

        • That's what I meant with "we can produce the protein". The problem with goat silk is that it's just the protein in raw form. Spiders do some very specific things with their silk protein in order to form strands of it. The company that came up with goat silk tried to replicate it but failed - they finally abandoned the effort. However, if this new technology also worked for spider silk protein, we could get close to the real deal. It'd probably still not match what real spiders produce, but it's better than
    • "This is my drawer full of various lengths of wire... that's my interstellar spaceship.... here, let me show you some wire..."

  • good (Score:5, Funny)

    by rastoboy29 (807168) * on Monday February 11 2008, @02:04AM (#22376760) Homepage
    Now we can finally start closing the so called "garotte gap" with the Russians.

  • wait... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2008, @02:14AM (#22376796)
    doesn't it have to be around or under 100nm to be considered nano?

    • Re:wait... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Garridan (597129) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:51AM (#22376926)
      Apparently, a thing needs only be measured in nanometers to be considered "nano". My car is also nano-scale, being a scant 1524000000 nanometers tall!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by slaingod (1076625)
        I hear you, but in this case, I think because it lies within the range of nanometers ( ie. less than 1 micrometer) that it is an accurate and valid usage.
        • Do you doubt that I could measure my car to within a range of +/- 1 micrometer [wikipedia.org]? No sweat. My micrometer is about 3.5 inches long, and my car is 5' tall, plus or minus an inch. That puts it at a height of 17.15 +/- 0.28 micrometers. No wonder shuttles keep crashing... you Americans know nothing about the metric system!

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by slaingod (1076625)
            Um, that wasn't the point. The point is that they are 850nm thick which is less than a micrometer. In no way is any dimension (of the usual 3 :) of your car less than 1 micrometer.
      • Apparently, a thing needs only be measured in nanometers to be considered "nano".

        Or, rather small and made by Apple.

    • Re:wait... (Score:4, Informative)

      by julesh (229690) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:45AM (#22377120)
      doesn't it have to be around or under 100nm to be considered nano?

      AFAIK, the most common definition is under 1um, so this just qualifies.
      • I think the gp is right.. under 100 nm is still the most common standard. But, IIRC, a few months ago a seminar speaker in my department casually remarked that many people in the micro- and nanofluidics community were applying the nano label to structures under a micron.

  • Been watching too much Futurama (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 (809850) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:22AM (#22376824) Journal
    And over there is my intergalactic spaceship. And here's where I keep assorted lengths of wire.
  • there's nothing to see here. move along.

  • I've created an infinite length nanowire (Score:4, Funny)

    by doomy (7461) on Monday February 11 2008, @02:59AM (#22376962) Homepage Journal
    It looks like this "O"

  • unlimited? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Drantin (569921) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:30AM (#22377054)
    How long will it take to manufacture a nanowire of infinite length?

  • I dont think that word means what you think it mea (Score:5, Funny)

    by dissy (172727) on Monday February 11 2008, @03:31AM (#22377056)

    Nanowires of Unlimited Length
    So would that be comcast unlimited length, timewarner unlimited length, or AT&T unlimited length?

    And could you convert that to a unit of cars or library of congresses?

    • Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)

      by C10H14N2 (640033) on Monday February 11 2008, @12:40PM (#22380878)
      It would take three or four Hiroshimas worth of power to spin a single Library of Congress length of nanowire, but amazingly it would only weigh one Escalade despite being able to support five Empire State Buildings. Unfortunately, it would also cost one Medicaid budget per Los Angeles to Sydney length of cable the width of a human hair.
  • The moment I read the first sentence, the subject of the second sentence popped into my mind. Then I read it.

    Heavy sigh.

    But it's still progress.

  • nano nano (Score:5, Funny)

    by dwater (72834) on Monday February 11 2008, @04:32AM (#22377252)
    There's only one image I see when I read the word 'nano'. My brain always doubles it up into 'nano nano'.

    Am I alone?

    Please say I am. I wouldn't wish it on anyone...
  • They're NULs (nanowires of unlimited length)...
    Either that, or they've gone to /dev/NUL
    There's too many jokes here...

    • Re:Shigawire!! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tancred (3904) on Monday February 11 2008, @04:11AM (#22377206)

      Frank Herbert was prescient....

      Yeah. Must have been all the melange.

      Anyone else remember the ornithopters dragging a big loop of shigawire in an assassination attempt? Probably around the Children of Dune / God Emperor time period.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Kreigaffe (765218)
        [geekhat]
        actually, I believe it was Heretics of Dune, when Sheeana was on the rooftop of the Priesthood of Rakis's building, and was saved by a Bene Gesserit who I *believe* wound up cut up by the shigawire.. but it's been a little bit since I've read the series, it might've been someone in the Priesthood who got cut up
        [/geekhat]

    • Space Elevators Not Needed for Cheap Launch (Score:5, Interesting)

      by StCredZero (169093) on Monday February 11 2008, @11:25AM (#22380000)
      Space Elevators going up to geosynchronous orbit aren't needed, so carbon nanotubes aren't needed either. We could build a Space Pier [wisegeek.com] - which is a series of towers 100km tall with an accelerator on the top - out of pressurized cylindrical columns made out of boron. (The linked article talks about diamondoid materials, but other researchers have looked into more conventional materials which would allow us to build towers 100km high.) Also, Robert Zubrin has looked into a Hypersonic Skyhook [harvard.edu] which doesn't extend all the way to the ground or out to geosynch. However, it's a lot easier to design and build a SSTO or TSTO craft that can acheive 100km altitude and 4 or 5 km/s delta-v, as opposed to 8.5 km/s needed for low earth orbit. It is rumored that Burt Rutan's White Knight Two [wikipedia.org] is designed to also launch a higher performance rocket plane that could acheive this. (In addition to the Space Ship Two space tourism craft.)

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