New nanomaterial could speed up technology


Australian scientists have produced a new two-dimensional material they claim could revolutionize the electronics market with thinner, faster and lighter gadgets. Silicon chips have reached their limit in terms of speed and ability to store an electrical charge. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University and CSIRO researchers have made a new flat material, made up of layers of crystal known as molybdenum oxides, which has properties that encourage the free flow of electrons at ultra-high speeds.They say this could boost speed of communication and capacitance, the ability to store an electrical charge, using the same size chips as are used today. Writing in my favorite weekly scientific journal Advanced Materials, they explain how they adapted the ground breaking material graphene to create a new conductive nanomaterial. Graphene was created in 2004, and was touted as the two dimensional material of the future, winning its UK inventors a Nobel Prize in 2010.However, some of its physical properties prevent it from being used for high-speed electronics.

 RMIT's Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh explains that if electrons could pass through a structure quicker, devices that transfer data at much higher speeds could be made smaller and the breakthrough could lay the foundation for a new electronics revolution and they are looking forward to exploring its potential. CSIRO's Serge Zhuiykov was clear that the new nanomaterial was made up of layered sheets similar to the graphite layers that make up the core of a pencil. The importance of the new discovery is how quick electrons that conduct electricity are able to flow through the new material, according to Serge Zhuiykov.Also, he claims we will be able to transfer data more quickly and the functionality of devices will improve. Serge Zhuiykov also said the only thing stopping that from happening will be the ability of the software developers to write new programs which make the most of these speeds. In my opinion as a software developer, I do not see any inability to handle such. At the moment it is beyond our imagination where this new material could be applied, but it could be employed to create thinner mobile phones, new types of flexible electronics or lighter laptops.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2013: The year of mobile photography

Today is the 366th day of 2012 and as we wind up, millions of pictures will be taken and shared on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter by people across the world. Young and old alike will take more photographs than any new year celebration before and I bet big that traditional camera makers will miss out on a bigger share of the love. The latest research has found smartphone as one of the two popular devices used for taking pictures together with traditional cameras and is considered to be a bigger motivator for amateur photographers irrespective of the age and gender. Some studies have been quoted as saying that eight in every ten smartphone users take at least one picture a week on their phone, while less than half who use a point-and-shoot camera take pictures at the same frequency.This year, analysts believe that majority of people take pictures with a smartphone with less than a third taking pictures with a digital single lens reflex while a quarter of i...
Read more

Telecoms in East Africa should look to data for mobile growth

Mobile network operators in East Africa should look to data traffic growth and increased data prices as a means of arresting voice revenue decline in one of the fastest growing mobile market in sub Saharan Africa. Over the last few months, a couple of operators have been sending pricing signals to customers to help manage this finite resource. Unlike two years ago, there is a clear movement towards data usage among users in the four member states of East African community namely Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda where customers are using less mobile voice and SMS services. The loss of SMS service business is fatal to mobile operators and is highly attributed to the rise of over the top apps such as WhatsApp and iMessage that have become a hit with mobile subscribers in the region. Such apps have provided rich communications over a data connection, allowing customers to forgo SMS use. Customers have an economic incentive to use over the top apps...
Read more

Diabetes rising among Africa’s young adults

A group of software developers in Africa are developing mobile health apps among them application that will help monitor diabetic patients. Their interest in diabetes monitoring apps came after Doctors in Africa warned several years back that diabetes is on the rise among young people in the continent, attributable largely to sedentary urban lifestyles and increasingly high levels of obesity. An estimated 29 percent in urban areas and 14 percent in rural areas suffers from the disease, most of them young adults, while 36 percent are at high risk of getting it, according to a study conducted last year. That figure is up from estimates of 2.4 percent in 1989 and 0.6 percent in 1979. The study also showed that Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo and Dar Es Salaam had the highest prevalence of obesity in the continent, with 51 percent of the 1,000 men and women in the 22 -35 age range surveyed falling under that category. Doctors blame the high level of diabetes in the capital a...
Read more