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Nanowires of Unlimited Length
StCredZero writes with word of a research team from the University of Illinois who have developed a way to manufacture nanowires of any length from various materials. Not, unfortunately, carbon nanotubes, or we would be looking for news on space elevators soon. The process is analogous to drawing with a fountain pen — as liquid is drawn from a reservoir, a solvent (water or an organic) evaporates and the solute precipitates onto a substrate. The researchers have demonstrated a way to spin and wind a nanowire onto a spool; they have produced a coil of microfiber 850 nm in diameter and 40 cm long. Here's the abstract from the journal Advanced Materials.
From TFA (The Fine Abstract):
Abstract
No abstract.
IMHO, is this:
To further demonstrate the versatility of the drawing process, for which the U. of I. has applied for a patent, the researchers drew nanofibers out of sugar, out of potassium hydroxide (a major industrial chemical) and out of densely packed quantum dots.
Nanowires made of quantum dots? Sounds like an outstanding way to make a super efficient solar panel.
You could lay out nano structures of quantum dots with whatever spacing and precision you'd like. And unlike all the other advances we usually see here on /. this one is already working.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
In other news a goofy red-blue character with the habit of spinning threads of various lengths has been seen roaming the streets of New York.
On a more serious note this is what many silk spinners do. They excrete silk as liquid and it becomes a wire or a sheet a few ms later. Some silk spinners manage threads which are in micrometers in diameter as well.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Now we can finally start closing the so called "garotte gap" with the Russians.
expandfairuse.org
doesn't it have to be around or under 100nm to be considered nano?
And over there is my intergalactic spaceship. And here's where I keep assorted lengths of wire.
God spoke to me.
And could you convert that to a unit of cars or library of congresses?
Is it... is it connected yet?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
There's only one image I see when I read the word 'nano'. My brain always doubles it up into 'nano nano'.
Am I alone?
Please say I am. I wouldn't wish it on anyone...
Max.
Space Elevators going up to geosynchronous orbit aren't needed, so carbon nanotubes aren't needed either. We could build a Space Pier - which is a series of towers 100km tall with an accelerator on the top - out of pressurized cylindrical columns made out of boron. (The linked article talks about diamondoid materials, but other researchers have looked into more conventional materials which would allow us to build towers 100km high.) Also, Robert Zubrin has looked into a Hypersonic Skyhook which doesn't extend all the way to the ground or out to geosynch. However, it's a lot easier to design and build a SSTO or TSTO craft that can acheive 100km altitude and 4 or 5 km/s delta-v, as opposed to 8.5 km/s needed for low earth orbit. It is rumored that Burt Rutan's White Knight Two is designed to also launch a higher performance rocket plane that could acheive this. (In addition to the Space Ship Two space tourism craft.)
It would take three or four Hiroshimas worth of power to spin a single Library of Congress length of nanowire, but amazingly it would only weigh one Escalade despite being able to support five Empire State Buildings. Unfortunately, it would also cost one Medicaid budget per Los Angeles to Sydney length of cable the width of a human hair.