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Physicists Extend Moore's Law For Tiny Devices
schliz writes to mention that a team of quantum physicists have demonstrated how to significantly reduce the effects of "stiction," or the tendency for two very small, very close objects to stick together as a result of Casimir force. "'The Casimir force might be one of the many reasons that very small, movable components in micromechanical devices sometimes stick together,' said Ho Bun Chan, a assistant professor of physics at the University of Florida who is researching the Casimir force. 'The Casimir effect increases rapidly as the separation between components decreases. It becomes significant when the separation is reduced to below about 400 nm,' he told iTnews."
Now if only we could use it as a power source....I would LOVE a ZPM ala Stargate!
I always wondered why stuff always sticks to one of my sweaters..
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
We've already reduced and even reversed casmier effects, haven't we..?
Or is this different somehow?
For those of us who had to look it up again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I've read the article, read the Wikipedia entry, and I still haven't a good handle on what causes the Casimir Effect. Would anyone care to elaborate a little bit for those of us in the audience whose physics background is of a more Newtonian bent? Is this a manifestation of zero-point energy? Is it energy we can extract in any useful way? Is this just a trick of electrostatic forces, or something else entirely? Thanks!
We dodged a real bullet there, I tell ya! I mean, had they not enacted this extension when they did, we would have been stuck. And I mean STUCK with the large devices are forced to use now.
I think Casmir should be taken out behind the tool shed and whipped for his bad behavior.
Bearded Dragon
Casimir Effect.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Which is it?
If you could alter the shape of the molecules that are on the surface of the object (for example using current passing through nanowires under the surface) this could alter the force in different parts of the surface and actually cause the moving parts to move.
For a meaningful design though, there would have to be a very good model of the strength of the force as the surface shape changes.
If they can do that then it could well end up being an opportunity, and not a problem for nanotechnology.
Moore's Law has nothing to do with mechanical components. For that matter, strictly speaking, all Moore's Law was ever about was the number of components in an IC. Not speed, not cost, not even size. And definitely not the size of MEMS!
The author of the article was either confused or isn't explaining things well, because he writes that corrugations reduce the surface area... when the opposite is true... corrugations increase the surface area rather than reduce it. ANyone know whether that was just a typo or he's referring to something subtle that I'm too thick to understand.
It runs on literally "nothing": the captured energy of vacuum energy. Much cheaper than gasoline.
The stiction effect has been an issue for many years in the disk drive world. The heads in a HDD are planar against a disk that is also a polished planar surface. The net effect is to require amps of current (briefly) when spinning a disk drive up.
After coming up to speed, there is an air bearing between the two, as the head float on a cushion of air. This effect has been an issue in the HDD world for over 30 years.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
.....
The solution to freeing a stuck mechanical device is well known.
Hit it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Since we have negative index materials that can reverse the casmir effect:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/06/1212259
And we are on our way to modifying the attractive effect, there is nothing in the laws of physics prohibiting us from cycling the plates through an attractive then repulsive process, extracting force over distance (energy) in each cycle.
We would need something like a material that can have the index changed rapidly and with minimal energy input and sandwich it in a miniature piezo crystal system to convert the mechanical energy to electrical energy which poses many engineering challenges. Though there will be losses in switching the system between attraction and repulsion, it seems probable that an infetesimal but real amount of power could be extracted in this way. Could be an interesting source of power for mems microdevices if it can be done.
Perhaps you ought to take a look at this patent submitted recently: http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2008039176
Law "A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity"
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
have I read this statement in the last 10 years? mabey it shouldnt be a law any moore...het it moore. thank you ill be here all week, tip your waitress, try the veal. nothing to see here move along...
Extended Murphy's Laws 1. When you miniaturize your devices some quantum effect will certainly go wrong 2. Smaller the device, bigger the problem 3. Your problems will double every 18 seconds
The city CAN and HAS flown using just one ZPM (sure, it needed a little extra energy boost from a thermal vent power station, but let's give them a bit of a break as far as that goes - they were being fired on by ONE HELL of a energy weapon and had an entire fucking ocean on top of them at the time.).
If only there were a way to put words from the comment into some sort of a search giving a list of urls that, when clicked, took you directly to the post.