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Researchers Make Tiny Radio From Nanotubes
By Julie Steenhuysen Reuters Monday, January 28, 2008; 5:04 PM
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Transistor radios tinier than a grain of sand, made using nanotechnology, can not only tune in to the traffic report, but may end up outperforming current silicon-based electronics, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The researchers made the microscopic radios out of carbon nanotubes -- tiny strands of carbon atoms -- and say in theory they could lead to faster devices.
They overcame a series of obstacles that have defeated efforts to make nano-radios, including getting amplification, by making their devices on quartz wafers.
"Our goal is not to make tiny radios per se, but really to develop nanotubes as a higher-performing semiconductor," said John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois.
. . . "The radio itself is not interesting," Rogers said. "But the fact that we are at a point that we can do things like a radio is a …