Forget the iPod Nano, this radio is the real deal
Hot on the heels of the University of California at Irvine's single nanotube demodulator, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley team has created a fully functional radio from a single carbon nanotube.
A single carbon nanotube molecule serves simultaneously as all essential components of a radio antenna, tunable band-pass filter, amplifier, and demodulator.
"Using carrier waves in the commercially relevant 40-400 MHz range and both frequency and amplitude modulation (FM and AM), we were able to demonstrate successful music and voice reception," explained Alex Zettl, who led the team that created the radio, in a release at Berkeley Labs Research News.
The possible applications for the radio are practically limitless. The self assembling nanotubes could be used in everything from biological and medical systems, to listening devices and sensors -- even the hand held music box.
The core of the radio consists of a carbon nanotube connected to an electrode in close proximity to a counter-electrode. Applying a DC voltage bias creates a negative electrical charge on the tip of the nanotube which sensitizes it to oscillating electric fields. The components are enclosed in a vacuum in a form similar to a conventional vacuum tube.
The charged tip of the nanotube interacts with incoming radio waves, causing it to vibrate. These vibrations are only significant when the wave frequency coincides with the flexural resonance frequency of the nanotube. This resonance frequency can be tuned during operation allowing it to receive a single channel of wavelength.
Further operations using the unique properties of the field-emission currents created by the concentration of the electric field of the negative DC bias and the geometry of the nanotubes allows the signal to be amplified. As field emission is a non-linear process, it can also demodulate an AM or FM radio signal, similar to the diodes used in conventional radios.
The first song played through the carbon nanotube radio was, aproppriately, Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.
Listen to and watch the radio playing the main title theme from Star Wars here.
"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007
|
DailyTech Poll
Which web browser do you use on your primary personal machine?
44 Comments
Most Popular ArticlesEasy Fix to Prevent Microsoft From Bricking Xbox 360s HDDs Arrives
November 18, 2009, 6:41 AM
Built Around the Browser, Google's Chrome OS Launches, Reinvents the Operating System
November 19, 2009, 2:40 PM
OCZ Technology Announces 3.5" 1TB Colossus SSDs
November 17, 2009, 6:48 PM
Climategate: Stunning Deception and Misconduct at UK Warming Research Center Revealed
November 20, 2009, 4:00 PM
GM Sheds Light on Volt's Greatest Problems, How it Hopes to Overcome Them
November 18, 2009, 12:19 PM
|