Nanocarpet

Nanocarpet

Nanocarpets are carpets made of tiny cylinders called carbon nanotubes used to enhance the flow of heat at a critical point where computer chips connect to cooling devices called heat sinks, promising to help keep future chips from overheating.

Researchers are trying to develop new types of "thermal interface materials" that conduct heat more efficiently than conventional materials, improving overall performance and helping to meet cooling needs of future chips that will produce more heat than current microprocessors. The materials, which are sandwiched between silicon chips and the metal heat sinks, fill gaps and irregularities between the chip and metal surfaces to enhance heat flow between the two.

By mixing a salt compound with a hydrocarbon, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created molecules able to sense their environment. Then they used these molecules to develop self-assembling nanotubes which look like 'nanocarpets'. These nanostructures can change colors when their environment is modified and can be trained to kill bacteria, such as E. coli. Now, they plan to develop products that would both detect and destroy biological weapons.

A 2004 article mentions a form of this technology that uses the addition and removal of chloroform for self-assembly into a nanocarpet structure to be used in regenerative medical applications.[1] These particular researchers define a nanocarpet as "containing pillars of three or four upright nanotubes clustered together," which has a backing layer of material that has a thickness of 120 nm.[2] By contrast, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory defines a nanocarpet as a structure consisting of an array of carbon nanotubes. [3]

More recently, these structures' properties were examined for application as protective coatings [4]

References

  1. ^ Nanocarpets for Regenerative Medicine - Regenerative Medicine at the McGowan Institute
  2. ^ Telford, Mark. "Biosensing, biocidal ‘nanocarpets’ Bionanotechnology, "Materials Today, Volume 7, 12, Supplement 1, December 2004, Page 10.
  3. ^ NASA Tech Briefs - Nanocarpets for Trapping Microscopic Particles
  4. ^ http://www.ecmjournal.org/journal/supplements/vol014supp03/pdf/v014supp03a035.pdf


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