Hasta La Gadget!

1.5 nanometers: that’s how small these letters are — half a nanometer shorter than those inscribed by inferior brains back in October. Physicists at Stanford achieved the record (which ties Hitachi’s work from 1991) by manipulating individual carbon monoxide molecules on a copper surface and then exciting the copper to bounce a holographic pattern off the CO. Software ensures that the molecules are positioned correctly to scatter electron waves into particular shapes, in this case an “S” and “U,” before finishing with a “CK IT CAL,” presumably. The work could ultimately lead to densely packed storage devices… or not. Just saying.

Filed under: Storage

Molecular projector scatters the world’s smallest letters originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Graphene-based gadgets are coming, we just know it. Trouble is, we’re still a long, long ways away. That said, a team of South Korean scientists are bringing us ever closer to bendable, durable gizmos by creating a graphene film with a diameter of 10 centimeters by “adopting a conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique.” Furthermore, the crew’s development of what’s being called the “world’s first circuit patterning technology for the graphene film has the potential to replace silicon-based semiconductors.” If this is just way too heavy for your mind to digest on a Friday, here’s the skinny: the newfangled manufacturing process has, for all intents and purposes, overcome the limitations of graphene, which could not be made large enough for commercial applications in the past.

[Image courtesy of ScienceFriday, thanks Agustin]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

South Korean scientists get one step closer to graphene-based gadgets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A team of scientists at the University of Glasgow just came into all sorts of cash, and they’ll be using it to advance imaging. If you’re looking for specifics (and we’re assuming you are), a £489,234 grant from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council will be used to study a certain phenomenon called surface plasmon resonance, “which is an effect exhibited by certain metals when light waves fall onto their surfaces.” In short, the gurus behind the research are hoping to discover a method of “creating patterns or small nanostructures in the metal film on the CMOS, which should increase the sensitivity of the sensor and result in higher quality images.” The bad news? The project is expected to last until 2012, which is like, forever from now.

[Image courtesy of Photo]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Researchers tapping into nanotechnology for sharper images originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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