Carbon Nanotube Speakers Could Be Powered by Lasers, Blend into Windows and Transform Noisy Spaces into Peaceful Sanctums
A UT Dallas team’s study published in the Journal of Applied Physics expands the extraordinary capabilities of nanotechnology to include laser-powered acoustic speakers made from assemblies of carbon nanotubes.
The study confirms earlier research that carbon nanotubes that are stretched into sheets and electrically powered can produce intense sound, but researchers at UT Dallas’ Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute have made some important advancements. Continue Reading »
On March 4, 2010 IBM scientists today unveiled a significant step towards replacing electrical signals that communicate via copper wires between computer chips with tiny silicon circuits that communicate using pulses of light. As reported in the recent issue of the scientific journal Nature, this is an important advancement in changing the way computer chips talk to each other.
The report on this work, entitled “Reinventing avalanche photodetectors for on-chip optical interconnects” by Solomon Assefa, Fengnian Xia and Yurii A. Vlasov of IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. is published in March 4 issue of the journal Nature.
via IBM Research .
Scientists for decades have been hunting for ways to harness the enormous force of the sun and stars to supply energy here on Earth. The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory may spark the light at the end of the tunnel.
An openning ceramony of the facility is held today. via: UC
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Posted 29 May 2009
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Tagged: NIF
Chunlei Guo, an associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester, had use ultrafast laser to turn any metal pitch black. Now he has successfuly demonstrate a reverse process, make metal radiate light more effectively!
An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.
The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.
The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
More from University of Rochester
Black Holes Made of Light
Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Friedrich König used intense light pulses to create an artificial `event horizon’ – the defining feature of a black hole known as `the point of no return’. The development may allow researchers to test Professor Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes are not black at all but in fact radiate light.
It is the first time that scientists have successfully simulated an event horizon using light. There is no danger however of the scientists being sucked into deep space by an intense pull of gravity, since the tabletop device only acts on light in optical fibres and is perfectly harmless.
I really don’t understand it yet. Here is an explanaton from the author. Worth reading.
US researchers have made a nanolaser that could enable data to be stored with a density of 10 Tbit per square inch.
The nanolaser can focus light with a power of over 200 nW into a spot just 35 nm across. The result suggests that data storage beyond 10 Tbit per square inch could be possible at last.
More atoptics.org
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Posted 23 January 2008
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Tagged: nanolaser
