Light-Producing Nanotubes Could Mean Faster Chips 181
CannibalBob writes "From PCWorld: Researchers at IBM have used carbon molecules to emit light, a breakthrough that could replace silicon as the foundation of chips and lead to faster computers and telecommunication equipment. This is the first time light has ever been generated from a molecule by applying electricity. Read the article."
First Time... (Score:5, Funny)
I always assumed with enough power ANYTHING could emit light.. if only for a brief time
Re:First Time... (Score:1)
First Time--where'd they pull it from? (Score:2)
Not only that, I didn't see it mentioned in the article. What is our honoured submitter smokin'?
Re:First Time... (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point being that a carbon molecule/nanotube could be the equivalent of a light transistor in the optics world.
Re:First Time... (Score:5, Informative)
That can't be the point.
Re:First Time... (Score:5, Informative)
Single molecule? (Score:2)
OLED: ORGANIC LIGHT EMITTING diodes. (Score:2)
OK, sorry, cheap shot. I work with this stuff... and carbon has been emitting light for a very long time. If the focus is a specific molecule, well, look at dopants- thats where the energy is released (hence the name)... and thats where the light comes from. Hosts provide the path.Kodak OLED information [kodak.com]
Re:First Time... (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC, one of the more recent topics in modern biochemistry/biophysics is isolating DNA 'molecules' (about the same size as some of the carbon tubes) and exciting them in different ways. Different ways that include photon and electron scattering (or 'passing electricity').
I'm not too sure on the results, and was too lazy to find the correct terms through google, but i know that single molecule systems have been seen to produce light through electron scattering.
Re:First Time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dr. Wilson Ho [uci.edu] has been doing this for a while at UCI with individual atoms.
You really should check that out. It's hard to believe, but true.
Re:First Time... (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:First Time... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First Time... (Score:1)
Re:First Time... (Score:1)
Hi
Tungsten molecules? It's a metal !
Please pay attention in high-school chemistry okay?"
Re:First Time... (Score:2, Redundant)
The carbon nanotube... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First Time... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First Time... (Score:1, Interesting)
A classmate of mine managed to get an ordinary transistor to generate light. The case drew blood, where it hit his forehead. Yes, it was a very brief flash.
Someone else already pointed out that getting light out of a single molecule really is new. Unless you count burning Buckyballs.
Re:First Time... (Score:2)
With that irresistable straight line I have to link to this webpage.
Gonads and Strife [threebrain.com]
Or if that site is Slashdotted same thing... [albinoblacksheep.com]
Hello Kitty Ate My BuckyBalls!
(Every party needs a jester)
First time? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First time? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:First time? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, any light form needs energy - and electricity is a common way of providing this.
Light bulbs emit light because they are heated by electricity. Unfourtunately, about 95% of the light emitted is not visible to humans, and thus wasted (human eyes are tuned to best view light from a certain body at about 6000 degrees, and this is much hotter than the light bulb - thus the inefficiency).
There are, however, ways to convert electricity to light without heating anything. LEDs do this - all energy is converted to light of a single certain frequency - which we can see. This is true for lasers also, but they go even further by not only having light of a single frequency but also aligning the light waves that compose the light.
But both light bulbs and LEDs are made of big crystals of metal / silicon (as opposed to molecules). What is new here is the atomic structure of the of the light emitting material; it is nanotubes which technically are big molecules. This is a major discovery - although it is probably too early to tell exactly what it will be useful for in the future.
Tor
Re:First time? (Score:2)
Re:First time? (Score:4, Funny)
The molecules in a light-bulb filament (called lightrodes) are ramp-shaped. When the electricity flows along the filament, some of the electrons hit this lightrodes and they fly out into the room. Hence, the light you see is simply dispersed electricity. It sounds crazy, I know, but, that's where static electricity comes from! How else would you explain electricity getting onto the carpet?
I would explain florescent lights, but you would need an advanced degree in science (30+ yrs of school) to even understand the basic concepts.
Re:First time? (Score:1)
Put the brains back behind slashdot. Perhaps if we apply enough electricity their brains may shed some light....
This is cool, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is cool, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is cool, but... (Score:1)
You obviously don't do much grillin' (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, if you put too much lighter fuel on the charcoal and apply your electric grill lighter while standing too close you'll see PLENTY of light from those charcoal molecules!
Re:You obviously don't do much grillin' (Score:2)
Then the double challenge is to make a good barbeque out the result.
Re:You obviously don't do much grillin' (Score:1)
Oh man...
They didn't have a barbeque so much as a hunk of melted metal with some carbon molecules left over.
Anybody know of a mirror?
Re:You obviously don't do much grillin' (Score:3, Funny)
*sigh* Got halfway into a nice rant about the right to think before ba
Doesn't everything now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't it seem like this catch-phrase is tacked onto every new discovery? Couldn't these folks just be making nifty flashlight bulb replacements? Does EVERYTHING need to give us faster computers?
--
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:1)
We could have "Light at the speed of e-Business at the speed of light!"
This is interesting? (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:2)
Lemme think (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:2)
Which means AMD's electricity-based chips will still be faster than any optics-based hardware Intel produces for quite a while now.
Re:Doesn't everything now? (Score:2)
m$ and slower computers (Score:2)
What can't they do? (Score:5, Funny)
-A.M.
Re:What can't they do? (Score:1)
Re:What can't they do? --NEWSFLASH-- (Score:2, Funny)
Melony Swayback, an IBM test subject states, "These new nanotube implants work great! Now they look perky without even wearing a bra!"
Director of IBM R&D states, "Wow! What CAN'T these things do??"
- My oranges are RIPE!
Re:What can't they do? (Score:5, Funny)
Be cheap.
Re:What can't they do? (Score:2)
Mass Production (Score:3, Insightful)
Pardon me for being skeptical (I am a theorist, not an experimentalist), but isn't there a revolutionary new 'Carbon Nano-tube Technology' every 2 months? I mean, how many of these technologies will be applicable with thier current specifications?
And not only that, but it seems that nano-tubes are not currently being mass produced in any reasonable way. If they are, why aren't more small graduate materials labratories basing research on them?
I'm not against plausible speculations to applied science, but it just seems that the carbon nano-tube technology is still in its beginning phases, and we won't see these 'small optical fibers' or any other applied devices anytime before 2020.
Re:Mass Production (Score:1, Informative)
Thankfully, some newish production methods are being put through, and a couple dedicated factories are being built. From what I read in new scientist, it should drop the price down to $5/kilogram instead of $500/milligram (or some similar outlandish figure)
Re:Mass Production (Score:3, Interesting)
The first semiconductor transistor (the point-contact transistor) was produced in 1947. The junction field-effect transistor was invented a few weeks later, and the first working prototype was produced in 1949. By 1958 integrated circuits were being made with them.
Re:Mass Production (of nanotubes) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a graduate physics student (experimentalist), and I'll be working with nanotubes. But we're just building up our lab now (my advisor just arrived here only a few months ago). We'll be doing measurements with carbon nanotubes, initially continuing what we did last summer (at her old postdoc lab) by measuring superconducting nanowires. If you're curious, these nanowires are created by sputtering a superconducting alloy (MoGe) on top of a nanotube substrate. They're interesting because the system dimensions are small enough that the wires are effectively one-dimensional, which means they can't support long-range order and thus cannot allow Cooper-pair supercurrents to flow unimpeded through the wire.
It's hard to create nanotubes, and harder to put them where you want them. One way to create them is to use chemical vapor deposition (CVD), where you basically try to create a controlled environment where some hydrocarbon (eg methane) is ignited (the environment is somewhat oxygen-deficient so CO2 isn't the only carbon species produced) The 'soot' that is subsequently deposited on your substrate should contain nanotubes if the right conditions are met.
To get the tubes in certain places, sometimes little 'seeds' of iron particles are used, in hopes the nanotubes will grow/branch from them. It's hard to create good SWNT (Single-Walled Nanotubes), but easier to form 'ropes' of many nanotubes intertwined together.
Another difficult factor to control is the 'chirality' of the tube. Basically, a carbon nanotube is a rolled graphite sheet, but when the sheet is rolled, it can have certain 'twist' to it. For example, if you rolled lined paper into a cylinder, you can have zero helicity, in which case your lines will form independent circles. Or you can shift the lines by an integer number, in which case the lines will form helices of varying pitch. This factor in nanotubes determines the electronic band structure, which mandates whether the tubes are metallic or semiconducting. It would be highly desirable to be able to produce consistently tubes of the same chirality.
I hope this makes sense, I was up all night doing E&M homework (ya gotta love Jackson), so my brain is kinda fried right now.
Re:Mass Production (of nanotubes) (Score:2)
And the reason that I bring up mass production of the stuff is because it is often overlooked. I mean, Kroto and Smaley (the scientists that discovered fullerenes and won the nobel prize for it) analyzed spectrums to determine that there was a new form of carbon, but they couldnt separate it from the 'soot' and noone could really do experiments on it.
I know this because one of my undergrad profs at UofA Dr. Huffman talked about it quite a bit when he was able to use an enzyme to separate
Sense or not (Score:2)
Re:Mass Production (of nanotubes) (Score:1)
Stability (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stability (Score:1)
You mean our non nano-level computers shouldn't be affected if I give it a hard kick? Dang!!! Shouldn't have trusted that guy when I tried to RMA my Dell...
Nano Nano (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, then kill you because nanostuff gets through your skin and the light give you malinoma from the inside.
Nanotube display? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nanotube display? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nanotube display? (Score:2, Funny)
And we'd find out how many applications all crash because they're using 16-bit integers to track the display resolution. Of course, some of us may have a bigger problem buying the 281,025 gigabytes of video RAM may be a bigger problem for you.
You want how much memory capacity on the GeForce-5 chipset now???
How to use for computers? (Score:1)
Re:How to use for computers? (Score:2, Interesting)
Am I the only one... (Score:2)
Anyways, couldn't they get much better performance if they had a electrical signal that had a not so fast not so regular repeating pattern of pulses of light and then used a second out of phase signal to modify it to get the correct pattern. Both signals could run at a lower rate (leaving room for improvement and lowering costs of developm
Heading in the right direction (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. The article doesn't mention much about how light will be recieved (though I suspect it will just happen in the reverse - light will generate electricity), and it also fails to point out that with the immense complexity of today's chips, it wouldn't be just an easy jump to convert existing designs to accept light pathways over silicon. This would require a new industry apart from the semiconductor sector, with ne
Re:Heading in the right direction (Score:2)
Carbon? (Score:2)
Maybe as a corollary? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure several orders of magnitude more of these nanotubes would fit in the space of a solar cell.
Stephenson's aerostats just might work.
Perhaps someone with a background could answer.
- OrbNobz
I don't care about the answer, the nano-machine operating my fingers is asking.
Re:Maybe as a corollary? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope, they explode [slashdot.org]
Re:Maybe as a corollary? (Score:1)
I'm sure several orders of magnitude more of these nanotubes would fit in the space of a solar cell.
Stephenson's aerostats just might work.
Perhaps someone with a background could answer.
Well, I don't know about that, but you might be able to pull somebody who doesn't know jack about electricity, solar cells, or nanotubes, but is extremely opinionated, and they could say s
Re:Maybe as a corollary? (Score:2, Informative)
That's convenient! (Score:2, Funny)
Could another electrical engineer tell me if... (Score:1, Interesting)
Where's NanoGator? (Score:1)
Oh my god! They've killed NanoGator with their evil research! Those bastards!
It's a joke - laugh.
obligatory post (Score:2, Funny)
Light (Score:1, Insightful)
Posted on physicsweb (Score:5, Informative)
One more step in the grand plan (Score:3, Funny)
After that it is only a matter of time before fusion power is harnessed and our units are twice as strong as the enemies!
Make humans glow! (Score:1)
Re:Make humans glow! (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know how facetious you're being, but I'll answer anyway. The carbon atoms in a carbon nanotube are in a highly ordered arrangement (a nanotube is essential a crystal with well-defined point symmetry groups), which means the potential energy (ignoring end-effects of the tube) is invariant under certain symmetry operations, namely translation and rotation. These symmetries will manifest themselves when you solve Schro
Re:Make humans glow! (Score:2)
Cheaper chips? (Score:1)
Graphite pencil leads (Score:1)
Having RTF(under-detail-laden)A, a couple of questions spring to mind:
1) What's done to prevent the rapid
Re:Graphite pencil leads (Score:3, Informative)
In your experiment, the graphite glowed because it got hot. It also oxidized because it got hot. It's a simple case of resistive power dissipation.
In this case, the carbon is emitting light through a quantum process, not thermal radiation. The graphite doesn't get hot and therefore doesn't oxidize.
Re:Graphite pencil leads (Score:1)
Re:Graphite pencil leads (Score:2)
Re:Graphite pencil leads (Score:2)
Finally (Score:1)
single molecule light transmission -- examples (Score:1)
- L.A.S.E.R. light
- Light Emitting Diodes
- electriluminecent films
- Organic polymeric light (OLED)
All of these and -more- emit light when an electrical voltage is applied. One molecule at a time, even though there are plenty of them in aggregation.
So, the nanotube emitters are wonderful... but hardly the first. Just the _latest_. Still extremely interesting technology nonetheless.
Isn't it felicitous... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thinking about it, would it not be feasible to make them emit harmonics (375nm blue, anyone?) for use in optical storage too?
I'm just a dumb old maths guy, not a physicist, but surely someone can enlighten us?
Another application: Nano optocouplers? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if they could use these "lighted" carbon nanotubes to put an optocoupler directly on the IGBT of the dimmer...that, as my coworkers would say, would be "freakin' awesome"!
nanoprinting? (Score:2, Interesting)
-- Dossy
Silicon Does Not Emit Light? (Score:3, Informative)
I beg to differ. Silicon has been made to emit light in various ways for over a decade.
"Scientists at Surrey University, led by researcher Kevin Homewood, are showing off a prototype silicon-based light-emitting diode (LED) -- an invention that could be of significance to the whole electronics and communication industry.
"By enabling silicon to emit light, the scientists say they may have found a way to use light to efficiently transfer data around microchips. This could lead to smaller, more powerful computers and improve data communications significantly."
ZDNet UK: Light-emitting silicon boosts chip speeds: 8th March 2001 [zdnet.co.uk]
"The photoluminescence emanating from a regular array of 1.2 m sized dots composed of Si nanocrystals was studied with spatial, spectral and temporal resolution."
New Journal of Physics: Nanostructuration with visible-light-emitting silicon nanocrystals [iop.org]
"GENEVA, Switzerland -- STMicrolectronics claims to have achieved a breakthrough in the creation of light-emitting silicon and said it would have engineering samples of monolithic silicon devices based on the technology, combining electrical isolation and optical communication, before the end of 2002.
"The development allows silicon light emitters to match the efficiency of compound semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide for the first time, the company said."
EE Times: STMicro claims light-emitting silicon breakthrough: October 28, 2002 [eetimes.com]
"The discovery of visible luminescence from porous silicon [1] has stimulated a large interest in this material. Numerous studies have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve efficient visible luminescence from porous silicon layers [2]. This material system has significant economic potential as efficient visible emitters could be fabricated on silicon wafers and incorporated with current microelectronic devices using existing silicon processing technologies."
[1] L. T. Canham. "Silicon quantum wire array fabrication by electrochemical and chemical dissolution of wafers." Appl. Phys.Lett., 1990, 57 1046 - 1048.
[2] For a recent review of the work in porous silicon see : Thin Solid Films, 1995, 225 and "Porous Silicon", edited by Z. Chuan and R Tsu, World Scientific, Singapore, 1995.
A Visible Large Area Light Emitting Diode Fabricated From Porous Silicon Using A Conducting Polyaniline Contact [dur.ac.uk]
BTW, technically, photocells are optoelectronic devices, as are LEDs.
Light + Nanotube = Fire (Score:5, Funny)
That explains... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Stupid quote (Score:1)
Previously we've needed many molecules.
Getting the Facts on Light Emitting Carbon Nanotub (Score:5, Informative)
IBM Research Light Emitting Carbon Nanotube news release [ibm.com]
There's also an animation [ibm.com], but the pictures in the release are easier to follow.
First Paragraph (Score:2, Informative)
Was this a troll?
"Researchers at IBM have used carbon molecules to emit light, a breakthrough that could replace silicon as the foundation of chips and lead to faster computers and telecommunication equipment." (emphasis added)
It was also reported a year ago [slashdot.org] that they had created transistors [nytimes.com] using nanotubes, although not with light.
Re:First Paragraph (Score:1)
Next in /. (Score:2)
Re:first molecule ... I think not ... (Score:2)
From my understanding, it's a first because they went from electrical signal to light emission from individual molecules without any intermediary.
"That would surprise the people working on organic LEDs,"
Diodes aren't individual molecules, diodes are groups of molecules organized in a very specific way so that electricity can only flow through the group of molecules in one direction only. You're not going to get a single molecule to work like