Isn't there a slight problem with this method of address? You'd have to be really careful not to inadvertently excite an electron on the buckball to an excited state. If I remember correctly, the first excited state of a carbon-based buckyball is a 'cinched-belt' state (where the center of the ball shrinks in radius creating a two-lobed form). If there was something analagous in the silicon based structure, I'd worry about the integrity of the 'qubit' written to the tungsten core due to possibly enhanced interactions with the surrounding cage (which would now have a rather different electronic structure).
Then again, this might not be a problem with radio frequency waves - their energy is probably far too low to excite the electron in the first place. But, on the other hand there are some weird low energy states that could be accesible in a metal-nonmetal system like this.
Just a thought.
Sorry to argue, but....last I checked, covalent bonding is stronger than ionic bonding. The covalent bond is a pair of shared electrons, you are right there. This bond involves an overlap of the orbitals of the two atoms involved, which leads to rather large bonding energy. Ionic bonds are the result of electromagnetic force between two oppositely charged ions, as you correctly mentioned. This bond, however, is weaker than the covalent bond, as the energies involved are lower. As its quite late, I won't go into the math involved here, but I will present an example.
Compare the melting points of sodium chloride (which is held together by ionic bonds) and diamond (which is held together by covalent bonds); Sodium chloride melts at 801C, while diamond melts at 3550C. As the melting point is directly related to the strength of bonding in a solid, it is apparent that covalent bonding is stronger than ionic bonding.
This small-molecule organic display business is quite good, and Forrest is a great researcher in this field, but I think the best is yet to come. I work with light-emitting polymers at UCSB, and I just wanted to comment that in terms of processability and general 'toughness' (i.e. resistance to physical damage) polymer displays will be the ones used in your palm pilots and cel phones. Of course, the only polymer displays that I have seen working have been one color devices for cel phones, so full color is still a ways off yet. Another thing to note is that while it is great to see someone from my field make it to slashdot's front page with what appears to be 'industry-ready' technology, no-one has commented on the great drawback of organic displays (both small-molecule and polymer)- they are tremendously air and UV sensitive. If left exposed to air and normal light, these materials can degrade very rapidly, and engineering an protective layer is not as easy as you think (i.e. you can't just coat it in a transparent polymer layer - oxygen can still diffuse through it). Just be patient for a year or so, and then start looking for this stuff commercially. As a side note to all this, light-emitting polymers can be made into solar-cells with a little modification, so keep your eyes peeled for some light and cheap solar cells in the near future!
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't there a slight problem with this method of address? You'd have to be really careful not to inadvertently excite an electron on the buckball to an excited state. If I remember correctly, the first excited state of a carbon-based buckyball is a 'cinched-belt' state (where the center of the ball shrinks in radius creating a two-lobed form). If there was something analagous in the silicon based structure, I'd worry about the integrity of the 'qubit' written to the tungsten core due to possibly enhanced interactions with the surrounding cage (which would now have a rather different electronic structure). Then again, this might not be a problem with radio frequency waves - their energy is probably far too low to excite the electron in the first place. But, on the other hand there are some weird low energy states that could be accesible in a metal-nonmetal system like this. Just a thought.
Sorry to argue, but....last I checked, covalent bonding is stronger than ionic bonding. The covalent bond is a pair of shared electrons, you are right there. This bond involves an overlap of the orbitals of the two atoms involved, which leads to rather large bonding energy. Ionic bonds are the result of electromagnetic force between two oppositely charged ions, as you correctly mentioned. This bond, however, is weaker than the covalent bond, as the energies involved are lower. As its quite late, I won't go into the math involved here, but I will present an example. Compare the melting points of sodium chloride (which is held together by ionic bonds) and diamond (which is held together by covalent bonds); Sodium chloride melts at 801C, while diamond melts at 3550C. As the melting point is directly related to the strength of bonding in a solid, it is apparent that covalent bonding is stronger than ionic bonding.
This small-molecule organic display business is quite good, and Forrest is a great researcher in this field, but I think the best is yet to come. I work with light-emitting polymers at UCSB, and I just wanted to comment that in terms of processability and general 'toughness' (i.e. resistance to physical damage) polymer displays will be the ones used in your palm pilots and cel phones. Of course, the only polymer displays that I have seen working have been one color devices for cel phones, so full color is still a ways off yet. Another thing to note is that while it is great to see someone from my field make it to slashdot's front page with what appears to be 'industry-ready' technology, no-one has commented on the great drawback of organic displays (both small-molecule and polymer)- they are tremendously air and UV sensitive. If left exposed to air and normal light, these materials can degrade very rapidly, and engineering an protective layer is not as easy as you think (i.e. you can't just coat it in a transparent polymer layer - oxygen can still diffuse through it). Just be patient for a year or so, and then start looking for this stuff commercially. As a side note to all this, light-emitting polymers can be made into solar-cells with a little modification, so keep your eyes peeled for some light and cheap solar cells in the near future!