Nanotechnology Gallery - StumbleUpon. Carbon Nanotubes. Transmission electron microscopy of carbon nanotubes: a warning. Carbon nanotube science and technology Carbon nanotubes are molecular-scale tubes of graphitic carbon with outstanding properties. They are among the stiffest and strongest fibres known, and have remarkable electronic properties and many other unique characteristics. For these reasons they have attracted huge academic and industrial interest, with thousands of papers on nanotubes being published every year.
Commercial applications have been rather slow to develop, however, primarily because of the high production costs of the best quality nanotubes. History The current huge interest in carbon nanotubes is a direct consequence of the synthesis of buckminsterfullerene, C60 , and other fullerenes, in 1985. A transmission electron micrograph of some multiwalled nanotubes is shown in the figure (left). Structure The bonding in carbon nanotubes is sp, with each atom joined to three neighbours, as in graphite. Synthesis Properties. Graphene optical modulators could lead to ultrafast communications - StumbleUpon. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated a new technology for graphene that could break the current speed limits in digital communications. The team of researchers, led by UC Berkeley engineering professor Xiang Zhang, built a tiny optical device that uses graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of crystallized carbon, to switch light on and off.
This switching ability is the fundamental characteristic of a network modulator, which controls the speed at which data packets are transmitted. The faster the data pulses are sent out, the greater the volume of information that can be sent. Graphene-based modulators could soon allow consumers to stream full-length, high-definition, 3-D movies onto a smartphone in a matter of seconds, the researchers said. Schematic illustration of the graphene-based optical modulator. Zhang worked with fellow faculty member Feng Wang, an assistant professor of physics and head of the Ultrafast Nano-Optics Group at UC Berkeley. Nanotechnology. NIH Home > Research & Training What is Nanotechnology? Nanotechnology is defined as the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, a scale at which unique properties of materials emerge that can be used to develop novel technologies and products.
At the nanoscale, the physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials differ from the properties of matter either at smaller scales, such as atoms, or at larger scales that we use in everyday life such as millimeters or inches. Nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter only a few nanometers in size.
What is Nanoscale? Animation in Flash (FLV - 6.3MB) Animation in QuickTime (MOV - 29.7MB) Innovative Medical Research at the Molecular Scale (PDF - 2.3MB) New Understanding, New Capabilities, & New Approaches for Improving Health (PDF - 650KB) This page last reviewed on April 8, 2011.