Home > News > Blingtronics: Diamonds are a geek's best friend
April 28th, 2010
Blingtronics: Diamonds are a geek's best friend
Abstract:
It's like walking into a bank vault. Pass codes secure the doors. The walls and floor are made of reinforced concrete up to 2 metres thick - all built on solid sandstone. The ventilation ducts have automatic shut-offs. Not even cellphone signals can sneak in.
All this might seem fitting given that the place houses diamonds by the hundred. Yet this is no vault. It's a lab in the Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information at the University of Bristol, UK, and the diamonds stored here are each no bigger than a speck of dust. Diamonds this size might not interest a bank robber, but they are turning out to be a physicist's best friend.
And it's not just diamonds. Gold and silver, too, are acquiring new allure in the lab. These materials' superlative hardness, lustre and resistance to corrosion have been prized for centuries, but reduce this stuff to the nanoscale and other characteristics emerge; valuable properties which promise to transform the way we build electrical gadgets of every kind. Welcome to the shiny new world of "blingtronics".
Unravelling the remarkable riches of this nano-world takes an exceptionally steady hand - which is why the Bristol lab is so solidly built. Here physicist Neil Fox spends his day manipulating delicate films of diamond as thin as a human hair. The experiments are so sensitive that even the faintest vibration could spell failure.
Fox aims to turn these diamond films into a new kind of solar cell, one that generates electricity by absorbing heat rather than visible-light wavelengths.
Source:
newscientist.com
Bookmark:
| Related News Press |
News and information
Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025
Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025
A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025
Academic/Education
Rice University launches Rice Synthetic Biology Institute to improve lives January 12th, 2024
Multi-institution, $4.6 million NSF grant to fund nanotechnology training September 9th, 2022
Materials/Metamaterials/Magnetoresistance
Researchers unveil a groundbreaking clay-based solution to capture carbon dioxide and combat climate change June 6th, 2025
A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025
Institute for Nanoscience hosts annual proposal planning meeting May 16th, 2025
Announcements
Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025
Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025
A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025
Energy
KAIST researchers introduce new and improved, next-generation perovskite solar cell November 8th, 2024
Unveiling the power of hot carriers in plasmonic nanostructures August 16th, 2024
Groundbreaking precision in single-molecule optoelectronics August 16th, 2024
Solar/Photovoltaic
KAIST researchers introduce new and improved, next-generation perovskite solar cell November 8th, 2024
Groundbreaking precision in single-molecule optoelectronics August 16th, 2024
Development of zinc oxide nanopagoda array photoelectrode: photoelectrochemical water-splitting hydrogen production January 12th, 2024
Shedding light on unique conduction mechanisms in a new type of perovskite oxide November 17th, 2023
 |
||
 |
||
| The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
 |
||
|
|
||
| Premium Products | ||
 |
||
|
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
 |
||
|
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||
|
|
||