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I have a hard time getting excited about this sort of thing these days. I've seen hundreds of articles promising "Ultra" this and "quantum" that. Moletronics was supposed to be nearly ready for mass production:<a class="user" href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/moletronics.html&quot;&gt;http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/moletronics.html&lt;/a&gt;I haven't heard a thing about it since.Cheap fuels just over the horizon, secrets of the universe discovered, nano-tech surgery in your medicine cabinet.All of this research is wonderful, just don't get my hopes up based on false assumptions and inaccurate characterizations. Tell it like it is.

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Samsung is announcing the use of NWFET (Nanowire Field Effect Transistors) in a 30 inch flat panel television that is close to commercialization. Source: Han, I. T. et al. invited talk at XIX Winterschool/Euroconference on the Electronic Properties of Novel Materials, Kirchberg, Austria (2005).In yesterday's Nature was the following paper (<a class="user" href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7092/abs/nature04796.html)&quot;&gt;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7092/abs/nature04796.html)&lt;/a&gt; about the measured device characteristics of NWFETs:Semiconducting carbon nanotubes and nanowires are potential alternatives to planar metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) owing, for example, to their unique electronic structure and reduced carrier scattering caused by one-dimensional quantum confinement effects. Studies have demonstrated long carrier mean free paths at room temperature in both carbon nanotubes and Ge/Si core/shell nanowires. In the case of carbon nanotube FETs, devices have been fabricated that work close to the ballistic limit. Applications of high-performance carbon nanotube FETs have been hindered, however, by difficulties in producing uniform semiconducting nanotubes, a factor not limiting nanowires, which have been prepared with reproducible electronic properties in high yield as required for large-scale integrated systems. Yet whether nanowire field-effect transistors (NWFETs) can indeed outperform their planar counterparts is still unclear. Here we report studies on Ge/Si core/shell nanowire heterostructures configured as FETs using high- dielectrics in a top-gate geometry. The clean one-dimensional hole-gas in the Ge/Si nanowire heterostructures and enhanced gate coupling with high-dielectrics give high-performance FETs values of the scaled transconductance (3.3 mS m-1) and on-current (2.1 mA m-1) that are three to four times greater than state-of-the-art MOSFETs and are the highest obtained on NWFETs. Furthermore, comparison of the intrinsic switching delay, = CV/I, which represents a key metric for device applications shows that the performance of Ge/Si NWFETs is comparable to similar length carbon nanotube FETs and substantially exceeds the length-dependent scaling of planar silicon MOSFETs.The last sentence is key. Length-dependent scaling is just a fancy way of refering to Moore's law as it describes how much current a particular sized transistor can put out. As we decrease the gate length of transistors we can increase the speed of successive generations of devices. Recently we are running into issues with leakage for 90nm and below transistors. This makes power a big issue. For this and a host of manufacturability issues there is concern about how much more we can continue to shrink planar MOSFETs in the long term. Anyway, the bottom line of the IBM research and the research I cited is that Moore's law is alive and well and it will continue long into the future.

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I know that small studies have been done on the carbon offsetting properties and environmental benefits of activated carbon and activated charcoal. These products are commonly used today in water filters and even for health reasons. More funding directed at this segment could allow great results. keep this in mind as it might take 10-20 years to bear fruit but activated carbon research should be supported from companies like <a class="user" href="http://www.carbonresources.com/activated-charcoal.html&quot; rel="nofollow">http://www.carbonresources.com/activated-charcoal. ...</a> and you can read more at <a class="user" href="http://www.activatedcarbontoday.org&quot; rel="nofollow">http://www.activatedcarbontoday.org&lt;/a&gt;

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