Computer processors made with nano-wire?

Everyone here knows that a computer's cpu is made up of millions of discrete components called transistors. Each processor unit is etched out of a larger block of semi-conductive material. All integrated circuit components are manufactured in this same method. The theoretical limit to how small these components can be is close at hand and any smaller then the failure rate for the components becomes too great.

Now Harvard University engineers have devised a process that makes the process of manufacture much more error free and ICs / CPUs very very small. Instead of etching the new process builds up the components with nano sized wire.

These wires are not wires in the traditional sense at all but are made of a core of the element germanium and sheathed in a silicon shell, thousands of times thinner than a human hair. Each one of these "wires" can contain a logic state by applying a small electric potential.

Nano wire circuits are nothing new. However this is the first time that one of this density has been assembled or shown to be completely programmable. Electrical leakage has shown to be less than conventional components and as such the nano components may be as much as 10X more efficient.

Because of their efficiency and size these components are most likely leading towards an entirely new class of much smaller, lighter-weight electronic sensors and consumer electronics, but in reality the proponents of the new tech do not foresee it supplanting computer processors as the nano processors are substantially slower than silicone ones.

Read the complete BBC News article

Photon powered Nanomotors? Closer?

Ron Huber sends in an article from the University of Florida News on a newer light driven nano motor. These incredibly tiny engines (closed 2-5 nanometers and open 10-12 with a nano-meter being 1 billionth of a meter) can convert sunlight directly into motion.

These motors are the very first of their type to be built directly from a strand of DNA, which makes them simple and reliable and more important, much easier to develop.

The first issue that researchers have to address is unified movement. Because the motors are so small, to get any usable work a high percentage of the motors must move all at the same time. Also the motor's efficiency needs to improve. Right now they are far less efficient than solar cells but the amount of work that the engines can produce are in proportion to their size.

Uses could be: repair of single cells, anti viral or bacterial. Even on a macro scale it's not hard imagining billions or trillions of them powering a car or even a factory! Plus since they are DNA they would produce no waste.

Read the complete article here

Sperm powered Robots!

I can not resist an article that starts of with" Think we make this stuff up? No chance!" From MSNBC via Suicide Robots is an article describing how the whip-like tail of sperm could be harnessed to send nanobots throughout the human body. Up to this point it has proven very difficult to develop enough power to get a nanobot to move. Present day engineering would have motive engines formed from tiny springs and nuts and bolts. However at the nano scale, biology provides the best functional motors. One very efficient engine takes the form of the tail, or flagellum, that propels human sperm at a rate of about 7 inches per hour. (by comparison in human scale, the distance would be equivalent to swimming almost 4 miles in an hour. ) To supply the energy for its locomotion, a sperm cell’s tail is essentially studded with tiny assembly lines that produce a high-energy compound called ATP. Research is now going on on how to best attatch and control the tail to move the nanobot medical devices around the body. Read the complete article on MSNBC.

<- MSNBC article ->

Researchers develop Nano sized anti-cancer machines

Scientists have developed nanometer-sized anti-cancer drug delivery systems that can be injected into the bloodstream - without control from an external control system or detection by the body’s immune system, deliver anti-cancer drugs into tumors that might otherwise go untreated or undetected. Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT report that their system integrates therapeutic and diagnostic functions into a single device that avoids rapid removal by the body’s natural immune system. 1000 times smaller than a human hair, these microscopic cargo ships could one day provide the means to more effectively deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs to tumors in high concentrations without negatively impacting other parts of the body. The clever way the machines avoid detection is to coat the outside of the tiny machines with specially modified lipids--a primary component of the surface of natural cells, modified in such a way as to prevent the body from eliminationg them for up to several hours. This would allow them enough time to find and deliver the drugs to cancer cells.

<- USC news via Dvice ->