Creating Electric Power From Light Using Gold Nanoparticles 77
cyberfringe writes "Professor of Materials Science Dawn Bonnell and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a way to turn optical radiation into electrical current that could lead to self-powering molecular circuits and efficient data storage. They create surface plasmons that ride the surface of gold nanoparticles on a glass substrate. Surface plasmons were found to increase the efficiency of current production by a factor of four to 20, and with many independent parameters to optimize, enhancement factors could reach into the thousands. 'If the efficiency of the system could be scaled up without any additional, unforeseen limitations, we could conceivably manufacture a 1A, 1V sample the diameter of a human hair and an inch long,' Prof. Bonnell explained. The academic paper was published in the current issue of ACS Nano. (Abstract available for free.) The significance? This may allow the creation of nano-sized circuits that can power themselves through sunlight (or another directed light source). Delivery of power to nanodevices is one of the big challenges in the field."
"Self-powering" (Score:2, Insightful)
If they're powered by light then they aren't really "self-powered", are they?
Re:"Self-powering" (Score:4, Insightful)
Although it is misleading, I think they meant that the actual structure of the circuit (the leads that run between devices) could actually generate the power, as opposed to having a PV cell somewhere to generate it and then carry it to the load through conventional means. The thought that you can get a watt (1A @ 1V) from a one inch piece of this stuff is really stunning. Considering how many useful things can run on a watt or less, it seems like an absolutely trivial physical package for providing power, the comparable PV cell would be a thousand times larger/heavier, if not more.
Re:"Self-powering" (Score:4, Insightful)
They have their own on-board power generation. Ergo, self-powered.
Any other definition means that nothing was self-powered except possibly and extremely hypothetically the Big Bang.
Re:"Self-powering" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WOW! (Score:3, Insightful)
One watt from an inch-long and hair-thin area? How freaking intense would that light source have to be? Pretty hard to believe.
Twice as bright as the sun with 100% energy-conversion efficiency, as the solar constant is roughly half a watt per square inch.