Submission + - Creating electric power from light using gold nano (gizmag.com)
cyberfringe writes: Professor of materials science Dawn Bonnell and colleagues at University of Pennsylvania have discovered a way to turn optical radiation into electrical current that could lead to self-powering molecular circuits and efficient data storage. They create surface plasmons that ride the surface of gold nanoparticles on a glass substrate. Surface plasmons were found to increase the efficiency of current production by a factor of four to 20, and with many independent parameters to optimize enhancement factors could reach into the 1000's. "If the efficiency of the system could be scaled up without any additional, unforeseen limitations, we could conceivably manufacture a 1A, 1V sample the diameter of a human hair and an inch long," Prof Bonnell explained.
Original study report published in the current issue of ACS Nano: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn901148m
Significance? Nano-sized circuits that can power themselves through sunlight (or other directed light source). Delivery of power to nanodevices is one of the big challenges of the field.
Original study report published in the current issue of ACS Nano: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn901148m
Significance? Nano-sized circuits that can power themselves through sunlight (or other directed light source). Delivery of power to nanodevices is one of the big challenges of the field.
