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An Alternative to CMOS, and Other Nanovistas

Chongwu Zhou's Hsieh Department research teams have dramatically demonstrated new possibilities that may change the digital electronics game
Eric MankIn
March 24, 2009 —

 

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New Biosensor Combines Advances in Synthetic Antibody Mimic Proteins with Advances in Nanodesign

It's a quicker, cheaper electronic detector for the deadly SARS virus. Easily customizable for other targets, it is both a potential weapon against pandemics and a useful basic research tool.

 

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An Alternative to CMOS?

Computer chips are a $270+ billion/year business — might nanowafers someday compete? Viterbi School scientists have demonstrated a process for manufacturing of carbon nanotube devices that can perform all the functions of silicon chips, potentially at a competive price.

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Flexible, Transparent Supercapacitors are Latest Devices from USC Nanotube Lab

It is a completely transparent and flexible energy conversion and storage device that you can bend and twist like a poker card.

Viterbi Researchers Print Transparent Nanotube Transistor Lattices      
Low-temperature process produces both n-type and p-type transistors; allows embedding of LEDs
 
Chongwu Zhou's team collaborates to create a brilliant, luminous active matrix display, the first ever made using transparent transistors and circuits.

Nanotubes to Go

In 2005, Chongwu Zhou's lab described a new way to "grow" orderly arrays of carbon nanotubes on sapphire. A 2006 publication describes a way to roll these arrays up off the sapphire into neat parcels of working transistors ready to insert into large-scale integrated electronic systems.