Highly Conductive and Elastic Conductors Created Using Silver Nanowires

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed highly conductive and elastic conductors made from silver nanoscale wires (nanowires). These elastic conductors can be used to develop stretchable electronic devices.
Stretchable circuitry would be able to do many things that its rigid counterpart cannot. For example, an electronic "skin" could help robots pick up delicate objects without breaking them, and stretchable displays and antennas could make cell phones and other electronic devices stretch and compress without affecting their performance. However, the first step toward making such applications possible is to produce conductors that are elastic and able to effectively and reliably transmit electric signals regardless of whether they are deformed.
The fabrication approach is very simple," says Xu. Silver nanowires are placed on a silicon plate. A liquid polymer is poured over the silicon substrate. The polymer is then exposed to high heat, which turns the polymer from a liquid into an elastic solid. Because the polymer flows around the silver nanowires when it is in liquid form, the nanowires are trapped in the polymer when it becomes solid. The polymer can then be peeled off the silicon plate.
After the nanowire-embedded surface has buckled, the material can be stretched up to 50 percent of its elongation, or tensile strain, without affecting the conductivity of the silver nanowires. This is because the buckled shape of the material allows the nanowires to stay in a fixed position relative to each other, even as the polymer is being stretched.
Some Important Links

• What are Nanowires?
• What are Polymers? 

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ARM + TSMC leading Intel in SOC technology, says East

ARM + TSMC is leading Intel in process technology for highly integrated mobile SOCs, ARM’s CEO Warren East tells EW.
Asked what he expected the performance of ARM-based Windows 8 computers would be like, East replies: "There are hints in the Microsoft Surface. There are two versions, one ARM, one x86. The ARM version weighed two thirds less, it was two thirds of the thickness and it didn’t have cooling vents. It suggests to me that it’s a lower power design."

Next year, Intel is intending to put its Atom processors onto its 22nm finfet process which may improve Atom’s power efficiency. It’s got some way to go. "An 800MHz ARM delivers the same performance as a 1.6GHz Atom," says East.
TSMC is moving to finfets at 20nm which will change the physical IP requirements, which is where ARM is working particularly closely with TSMC, but won’t change the processor desig
Some important Links

• What is SOC?
•  What is x86?
• What are Finfets? 
• Arm 
• TSMC 

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A Microbot That Can Walk And Jump On Water Too

Chinese researchers have announced a microbot that can repeatedly jump across the surface of water without tanking. The researchers from the country's School of Chemical Engineering and Technology used a highly repellent foam coating so that the strider-like bot's legs are able to stay afloat with every 14 cm leap it makes.
However, even the most advanced designs – including one from Pan's team last year – can only walk on water. Real aquatic striders actually leap, notes Pan. It's difficult to make a jumping robot because the downward force needed to propel it into the air usually pushes the legs through the water's surface. To overcome the challenge, Pan's group looked for novel mechanisms and materials to build a true water-striding robot.

With the use of a porous, super water-repellant nickel foam, the group made a robot that could leap more than 14 cms (5.5 inches), despite weighing as much as 1,100 water striders.

Some useful Links

What are water striders?

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World's Smallest Semiconductor Laser Created

Red (635 nm), green (532 nm), and blue-violet (445 nm) lasers

Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications from computing to medicine.

Miniaturization of semiconductor lasers is key for the development of faster, smaller and lower energy photon-based technologies, such as ultrafast computer chips; highly sensitive biosensors for detecting, treating and studying disease; and next-generation communication technologies.The device is constructed of a gallium nitride nanorod that is partially filled with indium gallium nitride. Both alloys are semiconductors used commonly in LEDs. The nanorod is placed on top of a thin insulating layer of silicon that in turn covers a layer of silver film that is smooth at the atomic level.

Nanolasers such as this could provide for the development of chips where all processes are contained on the chip, so-called "on-chip" communication systems. This would prevent heat gains and information loss typically associated with electronic devices that pass data between multiple chips.

Some useful wiki links

• What is a semiconductor Laser?
• What is a Laser? 

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