Slashdot Mirror
Efficiently Producing Quantum Dots
generica1 writes "The Edmonton Journal is reporting on the University of Alberta's National Institute for Nanotechnology's recent invention of a new method to produce quantum dots — what are currently the world's smallest quantum dots, possibly allowing for startling increases in the efficiency of semiconductor-based equipment. 'Roughly speaking, we predict there could be a 1,000-time reduction in power consumption with electronic computers built in this new way,' said Robert Wolkow, a physicist at the University of Alberta and leader of the team behind the breakthrough. Read the article for a description of the wave-like phenomenon employed by Wolkow's team to accomplish a vastly lower power consumption during the transfer of electrons."
"Previously developed quantum dots range in size from two to 10 nanometres -- a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre -- and contain groupings of 1,000 or more atoms."
"The quantum dot developed by Wolkow's team is much smaller; less than a nanometre in diameter and containing only one or two particles."
I guess your guess is wrong, because atoms are clearly not subatomic particles.
... They also claim that Physical Review Letters, is considered the world's premier physics journal. By whom?
By physicists.
It was 12th in the ranking in 2007....
by whom?
I actually agree with most of what your comments above-- there's more hype than reality in that press release-- but Phys Rev Letters really is the gold standard in peer-reviewed physics publication. If somebody ranks PRL as "12th", this is an indication that this ranking system is broken.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
They can, from what I gather in the story, act as gates in a digital circuit. Which means if they can be made this small and to operate at this low of a power and actually interconnected to work reliably, then we'll have very small and efficient CPUs once that has been moved from single-gate prototype through processor prototype and into manufacturing. I'm not a nanotechnologist, a physicist, or an electronics engineer, but that was my understanding of their role pretty much as soon as they were compared to on-chip transistors for storing and forwarding values.