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Radio Thinner Than Hair Invented

Nanotube radio could have widespread applications

By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 2, 2007 5:55 PM CDT
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(Newser) – A UC Berkeley team has invented the world's smallest radio, composed of a single carbon nanotube 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the device is the first fully functional radio to qualify as a piece of nanotechnology -- inventions no larger than a 100 billionths of a meter.

The nanotube radio could be applied as a space-saving addition to cell phones or perhaps a kind of ear-implanted cybernetic iPod. But the most revolutionary use of the nanotube may be in its role as a radio transmitter: theoretically, thousands of the devices could be distributed into the bloodstream, delivering to doctors vast amounts of cellular information covered in the most minute detail.

The experimental nanoradio is 100 billion times smaller than the first commercial radios of the early 20th century.
The experimental nanoradio is 100 billion times smaller than the first commercial radios of the early 20th century.   (Shutterstock.com)
Physicists at UC Berkeley have developed the world's smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Physicists at UC Berkeley have developed the world's smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.   (Shutterstock.com)
The world's smallest radio has been crafter from a carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.
The world's smallest radio has been crafter from a carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.   (Shutterstock.com)
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Listen to a recording of 'Layla' transmitted by the nanotube
San Francisco Chronicle

Abstract from the original paper published in Nano Letters
Environmental Science & Technology

The 'limits' of nanotechnology
WNYT

 
radio • UC Berkeley • nanotechnology

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