X-Message-Number: 24157
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 13:47:12 -0700
Subject: Re: Tiny Bearings And Springs Out Of Carbon Nanotubes
From: Kennita Watson <>

On Thursday, May 27, 2004, at 02:00 US/Pacific, Doug Skrecky 
<> wrote:

> Tiny Bearings And Springs Out Of Carbon Nanotubes
>
> UC Berkeley Physicists Create Tiny Bearings And Springs Out Of Carbon
> Nanotubes For Use In Microscopic Machines
> Berkeley - Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have
> peeled the tips off carbon nanotubes to make seemingly frictionless
> bearings so small that some 10,000 would stretch across the diameter 
> of a
> human hair.
>
I thought this was new, but a Google search on "tiny bearings
and springs" showed it was old news:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/07/27_nano.html
> UC Berkeley physicists create tiny bearings and springs out of carbon 
> nanotubes for use in microscopic machines
> 27 Jul 2000
>
> By Robert Sanders, Media Relations
> EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 2 P.M. EDT (11 A.M. PDT) THURSDAY, JULY 
> 27, 2000, TO COINCIDE WITH PUBLICATION IN THE JOURNAL SCIENCE
>
> Berkeley - Physicists at the University ....

Yoicks!  What are these guys doing now?  Have they made progress?

Let's see -- a search on the name of the advisor (Alex Zetti), and
Physics, netted only a couple of pages:

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA318844?stt=001&pubdate=09%2F08%2F0 
			
> Motion Control + Power Transmission
> Nanomotor
> Design News
> September 8, 2003A University of California, Berkeley 
> (www.berkeley.edu) team, headed by physics professor Alex Zetti, has 
> built a 500 nm electric motor the world's smallest from carbon 
> nanotubes and silicon....
>
??  Hm -- it's actually "Zettl" -- ah, 750 pages, including:
http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~seminars/colloquia/Alex_Zettl.htm
>  Tuesday, 20 April 2004
> 4:00 PM
> Broida Hall 1640
> ...
> DR. ALEX ZETTL
> UC Berkeley
>
> NANOTUBE-BASED MOLECULAR MOTORS
> ... One motor design uses a multiwall carbon nanotube as a rotational 
> bearing, allowing low-level voltages to fully control the angular 
> position of an ultra-small metal plate rotor....

Science marches on!!

Live long and prosper,
Kennita
--
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our minds.
           -- Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"

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