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October 21, 2004
Nanoscale Silicon Grass
Source: Computerworld Vol 38 No 41, October 11, 2004 Quicklink: 49480
Recently Computerworld ran a story called Grazing the Nanograss which described a fascinating new nanomaterial being developed at Bell Labs. According to the article, nanograss is a surface with "upright silicon posts a thousand times thinner than a human hair."
Apparently Bell Labs and its partners have come up with many novel uses for this high-surface-area ultra-low-friction material...
One such use is the creation of liquid lenses. Indeed, the sample piece of material showed a bead of water moving gracefully across the silicon surface without "wetting" it. The immediate use would be to put a super-high-quality water-droplett-sized lens in the camera of your cellular phone.
Another novel use: new computer heatsinks. After all, with these nanoscale silicon posts, you have dramatically increased surface area. Additionally, it seems there are some fascinating electrical properties, which would enable the heatsink to be adapted to different cooling needs.
A third use is to create batteries that have longer shelf-lives. A battery could be made that keeps electrodes and electrolytes separated until the battery is installed in a device, allowing it to sit without any loss of life, on shelves for years or even decades. Additionally, there are plans to develop batteries with up to 3-4 times the power-to-weight ratio of current standard AA batteries. Another boon for the cellular telephone universe.
-- The Shelanman
Posted by andrew at October 21, 2004 07:48 PM
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