DailyDirt: Beyond Silicon For Computers

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Moore's Law has held up for a surprisingly long time, but we can see the horizon now where current semiconductor technology won't be able to keep up with the exponential improvement. It won't be the end of the (tech) world if computers stop getting faster and faster at the same rate, but the shift might change several large industries. There are a few technological alternatives that could provide alternatives to our current computational standards. Quantum computers have promised a significant advance -- if they can be built.

• Diamonds could be useful as a new semiconductor material, but it could also be used for quantum computing. Arrays of diamond crystal vacancies can be modified with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and observed with standard optical methods in order to create quantum computers. [url]
• Quantum computers are still custom and "hand made" machines, even after decades of development. It's still quite difficult to build a general-purpose quantum computer. Fortunately, there have been some advancements in detecting qubit error rates, and scaling up the size of quantum computers is becoming more and more practical. [url]
• Physicists have discovered evidence that properties of samarium hexaboride might be useful for quantum computers. More and more materials have been found that exhibit Dirac electrons at super cold temperatures, so maybe we're getting closer to building sizable quantum computers. [url]

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Filed Under: diamond, dirac electrons, magnetic resonance imaging, moore's law, mri, quantum computing, qubit

DailyDirt: Allotropes Of Carbon

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Most people are familiar with graphite and diamonds, but elemental carbon comes in plenty of other forms. Buckyballs weren't discovered until 1985, but since then, all kinds of fullerene structures and carbon nanotubes have been made. And maybe we haven't found all the different kinds of carbon yet. Here are just a few links on some of them.

• Carbon nanofoam can exhibit magnetic properties temporarily. This form of carbon is a spongy solid, and it was first made in a lab in 2004 using pulsed lasers that create a web of carbon tubes at temperatures exceeding 10,000°C. [url]
• A linear form of carbon (called carbyne or linear acetylenic carbon) could be strangely strong, exotic material. However, it's not easy to come by carbyne chains that are more than a few dozen atoms long (so far). [url]
• There's a patented process for making chaoite -- the naturally-occurring mineral form of carbon found near meteorite impacts. The exact structure of chaoite is not well known, but the patent office still granted a patent for making the stuff. [url]

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Filed Under: allotrope, buckyball, carbon, carbyne, chaoite, chemistry, diamond, fullerenes, linear acetylenic carbon, materials, nanofoam, science

DailyDirt: Pocketful Of Useless Coins

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people hate carrying around coins and just save them up in jars or throw them into water fountains. There is a never-ending discussion over whether or not to stop printing the US penny, but some folks just don't like rounding to the nearest nickel. Some new coins have been extremely popular (eg. the US state quarters), and all sorts of organizations are starting to print new kinds of collectible coins. Here are just a few examples of some not-so-rare coins.

• Military "challenge coins" are generally bestowed upon members of the armed forces for exemplary service and to boost morale. But other areas of the government have printed coins, too -- such as the secretaries of education, transportation and agriculture, as well as the Department of Agriculture's Office of Information Technology. If this coin tradition spreads, will there be inflation? [url]
• The US mint has previously produced half-cent, two-cent, three-cent and 20-cent coins -- so why not an 18-cent coin or a 32-cent coin? The argument is that these additional coins would minimize coin transactions, but how about a 99-cent coin? [url]
• The world's smallest coin could be a speck of diamond (about 750 nanometers across) with Elizabeth Windsor's profile etched on it. Nano-etching the lab-grown diamond demonstrates the capabilities of the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Glasgow -- and similar processes could be used to produce patterns for novel semiconductors and nano-transistors. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: coins, collectibles, diamond, money, nanofabrication, trinkets

DailyDirt: Contrary To Popular Belief, Diamonds Aren't Forever

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are plenty of good reasons why gold is a valuable element that has been used as money instead of other substances in nature. Diamonds might have been an interesting form of carbon to use in a monetary system, but diamonds don't actually last forever. Here are just a few quick links on diamonds.

• Candle flames can create diamond particles very briefly, but the diamonds are burned away in the process. About 1.5 million diamond nanoparticles are created every second as a candle burns, actually. [url]
• Diamond is thermodynamically unstable, but it was only recently discovered that it can actually lose mass slowly under UV light. Physicists found this out when they couldn't make a diamond-based UV laser that lasted for more than 10 minutes... [url]
• Diamonds have a high index of refraction that makes them sparkle. But there are possibly other forms of carbon that could be more sparkly -- if only they could be synthesized. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: candle, diamond, nanoparticles, refraction, uv laser