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World's Smallest FM Radio Transmitter Created With Graphene

Posted by samzenpus on from the smallest-morning-zoo dept.

minty3 writes "The team used graphene's mechanical 'stretchability' in order to create a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) – an electronic component that can generate an FM signal. The VCO was used to send and receive audio signals of 100 megahertz. The team used pure tones and more complex music signals to tune the VCO's output and found that both kinds of signals could be 'faithfully reproduced' by an ordinary radio receiver."

2 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Re:*world's smallest VCO by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The world will change once someone builds a quad-copter with microphone and radio transmitter, all fitting in a 0.1mm cube.

    Politicians will have to never, ever, ever, say what they think.

  2. Supplementary information by martyb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What they have demonstrate is how a graphene structure can be made into a tunable oscillator by constructing a rather crude but working FM 'radio-transmitter' using one.

    You are correct. And crude is an apt choice of wording... From the supplementary information (scroll to the bottom), there are links to: pdf containing data on setup, testing, and characterization as well as a .wav file (confusingly labeled "movie"). It appears to be a sample of a transmitted sound sample of "Gangnam Style!"

    The sound quality of this sample is more on the order of a noisy AM radio broadcast, but given the technology being used, quite impressive, nonetheless.

    FWIW, there is a (somewhat) better write-up at redorbit.

    And, yes, the 100MHz in TFS refers to the carrier frequency, which is but one of several that they tested. But, it also happens to be in the FM radio band and hence the (attention-grabbing) title.