Scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing have just perfected a process by which nanotubes can be coaxed to emit sound, allowing for the construction of ultra-thin, transparent, flexible ‘speakers’, demonstrated above affixed to a waving flag. Unlike normal speakers, which produce sound with direct vibration, these sheets produce sound with wildly fluctuating temperatures that create pressure oscillations in the surrounding air. In other words, these nanotube speakers — in contrast to other forays into flat sound production — don’t vibrate at all.
Looks like I really wasn’t wrong when I said e-paper is in the news: Samsung’s just demonstrated its own funky e-paper tech, only this time the display uses carbon-nanotube electrode technology—also a technology that’s in the news. The colour carbon nanotube active matrix electrophoretic display (say that after a few pints of beer) works by rearranging charged pigment particles with an electric field, and is one of the first large-scale colour displays of its type. Plus it has the advantage of being flexible as well as demanding low power. And since Samsung’s display is 14.3-inches across, it’s making our dreams of next-gen e-books even more tantalising. [Gizmag]
Carbon nanotubes have been popping on Giz for a while, touted as one of the next wonder-materials—but a new development in their manufacture means they may not remain “future technology” for long. In fact the work of a team at CSIRO and the University of Texas at Dallas means that commercial-scale production of sheets of carbon nanotube “textile” is possible at up to seven metres per minute.
Japanese scientists are so hyped up on the possibilities of building a real life space elevator that in just two months’ time the country is playing host to a conference designed to set a production timetable. Carbon nanotube technology has advanced so rapidly that a material capable of withstanding the amazing forces in the space elevator cable is almost within reach: according to the chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association it’d only need to be four times stronger than the current strongest nanotube rope.
Carbon nanotubes are one of the surprising new carbon supermaterials, and it looks like their application in supercapacitors may have a role in replacing clunky old car battery tech. Scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas have invented a technique to make supercapacitor “paper” made from randomly tangled carbon nanotubes embedded in a polymer. Both chemical batteries and capacitors store electrical charge, in differing ways, but nanotech supercapacitors could store more energy in a smaller space, without the dangers associated with chemical systems. Potentially excellent news given the rise of the hybrid car. Better yet the new technique is “easily scalable for device fabrication on an industrial scale,” so it might end up in real products sooner rather than later. [Physorg]
Ah nanotubes. Is there anything you can’t almost possibly do? Well, now you can add bouncy mobile phones to the list because a team of Clemson University researchers have developed a way to make beds of tiny, shock-absorbing coiled carbon nanotubes which could be used to cushion objects from damaging impacts. They hope that these coiled nanotubes could be used in everything from body armour to mobile phones in the near future.
Japanese researchers have developed a new material capable of stretching to roughly twice its natural shape while conducting electricity—before snapping back with no damage to the circuit. It’s essentially a rubber polymer filled with carbon nanotubes, and it could be used to create anything from a curved eye-replacement camera (which is currently in development) to a new class of NERF footballs. So are you thinking what we’re thinking? Yes, bring on the prank Silly Putty. And who’s the sicko pasting T1000 shots on my friendly post? [Reuters via Newlaunches]
Yesterday we got a peek at the combined power of nanotubes–technology that makes a rope-driven space elevator feasible–but what can just one do on its own? Berkeley researchers have discovered that one nanotube can be used as a tiny platform to determine the mass of a single atom.
A Don at Oxford University has come up with a novel way to measure the hotness of chilli peppers objectively. Using carbon nanotubes and adsortive stripping voltammetry, Professor Richard Compton’s idea could end up replacing the Scoville test, a subjective taste test created almost a century ago, that uses volunteers, and works on a “which is hotter than which” basis.
According to legend, University of Tokyo professor Masayuki Nakao was bitten by a radioactive ramen bowl when he was a kid, which gave him the ability to spit 1-micron-wide bowls made out of silicon—full of dozens of 20-nanometer-think carbon noodles floating in an ethanol soup—at supersonic speeds. Or maybe he did this one with a metal particle beam to demo a new circuit manufacturing technology using carbon nanotubes. Whatever it is, they are low on sodium: two molecules per serving. [Pink Tentacle]
