Slashdot Mirror
Behind the Scenes At a Quantum Dot Factory
Tekla Perry writes: In a nondescript office complex in Milpitas, Calif., Nanosys is making enough quantum dots to populate 6 million 60-inch television screens annually. "The process goes on in what looks like a microbrewery. In about half a dozen large metal tanks ... Nanosys combines cadmium and selenium and adjusts the temperature, concentration, and catalysts added to force these precursors to combine into stable crystals of cadmium selenide. Then, by readjusting the conditions, the system stops the formation of crystals and triggers the beginning of crystal growth. A computer controls the process according to a programmed “recipe;” staff members monitor the growth of the crystals by shining light on them and measuring the wavelength of the fluorescence; the smallest crystals don’t fluoresce at all, then, as the crystals get larger, the wavelength changes. Nanosys stops the process when the fluoresced light hits the target wavelength, which varies depending on what particular display industry standard that the batch of film is designed to meet."
The button to Submit a story is right in front of your nose a the top of the page.
Unless you're implying the editurs are idiots and ignore perfectly nerdulent story suggestions.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A few tens of nanometers in diameter. Dots emit light at (more or less) a single frequency (it's actually Gaussian around the chosen frequency.) To emit that photon, the dot has to absorb a photon of higher energy. Since right now dots are absorbing visible, it's energetically possible to emit in microwave or radio frequencies. While I believe it's possible to do so, existing methods may be more efficient (energy-wise or cost-wise), or we may not have discovered dot materials that allow for those emission frequencies.