Successfully fabricated the world's smallest string

The world's smallest string (Photo: PhysOrgs)

Researchers at Delft Technical University and FOM Fund (Netherlands) have succeeded in manufacturing and ' up ' the world's smallest string. The strings are made of tiny carbon tubes with a diameter of about 2 nanometers. Researchers have published this study in this week's Nano Letters science journal.

Researchers at Delft's Kavli Nanoscience Institute and FOM Fund have created small wires from carbon nanotubes, about 1mm long and about 2nm in diameter. The tubes are attached to the electrodes and coated with silicon oxide at the beginning. This silicon oxide layer helps to partially counteract acid's effects, which causes the tube to be destroyed and drunk.

Silicon layers lie beneath a layer of silicon oxide. This layer allows a strong and regular movement of electric current, which causes vibrations in the tubes. Suspended tubes tend to attract and push each other. The maximum deviation measured by a tube is 8 nm. The distance from the tubes to the silicon layer affects the conductivity of the silicon layer. The operation of the nanowires comes from changes in capacity.

Professor Herre van der Zant
(Photo: rug.nl)

When the frequency of this current reaches the oscillation frequency of the quantum system of suspended tubes, it starts to vibrate more strongly. The magnitude of these frequencies can be up to several tens of MHz. By changing the magnitude and frequency of this current, the team of Professor Herre van der Zant succeeded in transferring the wire from a free-suspended form to a strain and oscillation. Professor Van der Zant added: ' and because it is like stretching piano strings or guitar strings, you can adjust this string as compared to the string. '

Delft researchers have developed a model that can predict the vibrations of nanotubes. The vibrating nanotubes are not only interesting from a scientific point of view but in the future they can also be used for special applications. Professor Van der Zant has identified a possible application that is an ultra-sensitive mass sensor. 'Nanotubes are extremely light. If you hang something in the tube that is also extremely light, like a virus, then the volume change is caused by different types of vibrations. From there, you can calculate the added volume and deduce whether this added volume includes the volume of that virus. ' Vibration tubes can be suitable for GSM applications (which today use resonance to generate oscillations at GHz range.)

Nano Tube (Photo: Rpi.edu)

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