[Kzin]

Cool stuff ....

Nanogenerator Provides Continuous Electrical Power



Device harvests energy from the environment to provide direct current

Atlanta (April 5, 2007) — Researchers have demonstrated a prototype nanometer-scale generator that produces continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow.

Based on arrays of vertically-aligned zinc oxide nanowires that move inside a novel “zig-zag” plate electrode, the nanogenerators could provide a new way to power nanoscale devices without batteries or other external power sources.

“This is a major step toward a portable, adaptable and cost-effective technology for powering nanoscale devices,” said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “There has been a lot of interest in making nanodevices, but we have tended not to think about how to power them. Our nanogenerator allows us to harvest or recycle energy from many sources to power these devices.”

Details of the nanogenerator are reported in the April 6 issue of the journal Science. The research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Emory-Georgia Tech Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.

The nanogenerators take advantage of the unique coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which produce small electrical charges when they are flexed.

Fabrication begins with growing an array of vertically-aligned nanowires approximately a half-micron apart on gallium arsenide, sapphire or a flexible polymer substrate. A layer of zinc oxide is grown on top of substrate to collect the current. The researchers also fabricate silicon “zig-zag” electrodes, which contain thousands of nanometer-scale tips made conductive by a platinum coating ....

* * *

Providing power for nanometer-scale devices has long been a challenge. Batteries and other traditional sources are too large, and tend to negate the size advantages of nanodevices. And since batteries contain toxic materials such as lithium and cadmium, they cannot be implanted into the body as part of biomedical applications.

Because zinc oxide is non-toxic and compatible with the body, the new nanogenerators could be integrated into implantable biomedical devices to wirelessly measure blood flow and blood pressure within the body. And they could also find more ordinary applications.

“If you had a device like this in your shoes when you walked, you would be able to generate your own small current to power small electronics,” Wang noted. “Anything that makes the nanowires move within the generator can be used for generating power. Very little force is required to move them.”

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1326

Pfft, power small electronics? Give me some big boots with this stuff so I can be Electro and lightning-bolt people!

[soft cries]

Get that implanted in you and you could have a vibrating penis.


Or do it the easy way and get Parkinsons disease.

[Kzin]

"I've already got one in my penis ... they don't call me 'Doctor Wang' for nothing."

[soft cries]

Thats wangtastic!


*Cheesey thumbs up*

[Pandaemonium]

I love Dr. Wang!

*jizzy wang up*

[Kzin]

The guy's name is really Zhong Wang ... A little change to Schlong Wang and he's instant porn star.

[Niklut]

Oh no, self winding watches will become obsolete!

[bad1]

i for one welcome our new vibrating overlords

[Bighead]

Originally Posted by Bibleman

i for one welcome our new vibrating overlords

dude you could power your electric massaging chair just by wanking off while sitting in it.

[soft cries]

Women could get them in their boobies and fire LASERS

[Kzin]

Originally Posted by Geebs

Women could get them in their boobies and fire LASERS

Oh man ..... plastic surgery for glowing nipples in custom colors with LEDs below the skin, powered by these nanogenerators .....

*runs to patent office*