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New Microscope Shows Nano-Fibre Formation

Posted by Hemos on from the from-the-ground-up dept.

Freshly Exhumed writes "An article, with mpeg and avi movies, in Chemical and Engineering News describes how researchers from Danish high-tech firm Haldor Topsoe and the Danish Technical University have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of nano-research. With the help of a specially designed microscope, researchers can now directly observe carbon nano-fibre formation. This is a prelude to actually controlling the growth of the fibres, which up until now has been very problematic. The new microscope's impact is expected to have tremendous significance for the development of future electronic components, energy extraction, and environmental technology."

5 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Waving the National Flag by Channard · · Score: 5, Funny
    My knowledge on nano technology is very limited, but I just want congratulate the Danish scientist! It's great that we can keep up in this field considering that we are a relatively small country.

    First pastries and bacon, now this. Is there anything the Danish can't do?

  2. Re:mmmm by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do you have a small nanotube ? Girls laugh at you ? No problem. You can make it grow... Fast.

    Your nanotube can grow up to 2-5 inches per month with our 100% natural and patented herbal carbon solution. No surgery needed, no risks. Thousands of happy customers around the globe. Just send me $50.

    --

    -
    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  3. Re:Micro, Nano... Tecto? by Qwerpafw · · Score: 5, Informative
    What's smaller than nano? (Keep in mind that nano means "one billionth", or unit * 10^-9)

    pico (symbol is "p") is 10^-12, or one-thousandth of a nano.

    femto (symbol is "f") is 10^-15, or one-millionth of a nano.

    atto (symbol is "a") is 10^-18, or one-billionth of a nano (nano means one-billionth, so atto is one billionth of a billionth)

    zepto (symbol is "z") is 10^-21, or nano divided by one trillion.

    yocto (symbol is "y") is 10^-24, or nano divided by one quadrillion.

    Yocto would be one-millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a unit. That's very small.

  4. Re:Step by BigBadBri · · Score: 5, Insightful
    No - the real help is that being able to video the fibre formation helps in understanding the reaction dynamics, which is important.

    This could lead to improvements in catalyst design, maybe to new methods of production with the sort of yield that will make these nanofibres economically viable.

    Well done the Danes, I say.

    --
    oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
  5. pardon me by cyfer2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    may be a little off topic, but I feel it is very important.

    The avi files are from http://pubs.acs.org, millions of researchers and professors and students in chemistry related areas arround the world need this web site to read publications from ACS.

    So please don't /. this website. Especially, if you are not really interest in the avi files, don't click them.

    Thank you.

    --
    There is a spark in every single flame bait point.