. Nano Technology News .




NANO TECH
King's College London finds rainbows on nanoscale
by Staff Writers
London, UK (SPX) Nov 23, 2012


Researchers at King's College London discovered how to separate colors and create "rainbows" using nanoscale structures on a metal surface. This may lead to improved solar cells, TV screens and photo detectors.Credit: Dr. Jean-Sebastien Bouillard, Dr. Ryan McCarron.

New research at King's College London may lead to improved solar cells and LED-displays. Researchers from the Biophysics and Nanotechnology Group at King's, led by Professor Anatoly Zayats in the department of Physics have demonstrated in detail how to separate colours and create 'rainbows' using nanoscale structures on a metal surface. The research is published in Nature's Scientific Reports.

More than 150 years ago, the discovery at King's of how to separate and project different colours, paved the way for modern colour televisions and displays. The major challenge for scientists in this discipline nowadays is the manipulation of colour at the nanoscale.

This capability will have important implications for imaging and spectroscopy, sensing of chemical and biological agents and may lead to improved solar cells, flat-screen tv's and displays.

Researchers at King's were able to trap light of different colours at different positions of a nanostructured area, using especially designed nanostructures.

Depending on the geometry of the nanostructure, a trapped rainbow could be created on a gold film that has the dimension on the order of a few micrometers - about 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Professor Zayats explained: 'Nanostructures of various kinds are being considered for solar cell applications to boost light absorption efficiency.

"Our results mean that we do not need to keep solar cells illuminated at a fixed angle without compromising the efficiency of light coupling in a wide range of wavelengths. When used in reverse for screens and displays, this will lead to wider viewing angles for all possible colours.'

The big difference to natural rainbows - where red always appears on the outer side and blue on the inner side - is that in the created nanostructures the researchers were able to control where the rainbow colours would appear by controlling the nanostructures' parameters.

On top of this, they discovered that it is possible to separate colours on different sides of the nanostructures.

Co-author Dr Jean-Sebastien Bouillard from King's said: 'The effects demonstrated here will be important to provide 'colour' sensitivity in infrared imaging systems for security and product control. It will also enable the construction of microscale spectrometers for sensing applications.'

The ability to couple light to nanostructures with multicolour characteristics will be of major importance for light capturing devices in a huge range of applications, from light sources, displays, photo detectors and solar cells to sensing and light manipulation in optical circuits for tele- and data communications.

Paper title: 'Broadband and broadangle SPP antennas based on plasmonic crystals with linear chirp'.

.


Related Links
King's College London
Nano Technology News From SpaceMart.com
Computer Chip Architecture, Technology and Manufacture






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle




Memory Foam Mattress Review

Newsletters :: SpaceDaily Express :: SpaceWar Express :: TerraDaily Express :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News

Get Our Free Newsletters
Space - Defense - Environment - Energy - Solar - Nuclear

...





NANO TECH
Controlling heat flow through a nanostructure
Cambridge, MA (SPX) Nov 23, 2012
Thermoelectric devices, which can harness temperature differences to produce electricity, might be made more efficient thanks to new research on heat propagation through structures called superlattices. The new findings show, unexpectedly, that heat can travel like waves, rather than particles, through these nanostructures: materials made up of layers only a few billionths of a meter in thicknes ... read more


NANO TECH
French police fire tear gas anew on airport protest

Owls' ability to fly in acoustic stealth provides clues to mitigating conventional aircraft noise

China Eastern Airlines to buy 60 A320 aircraft

Mosquitos fail at flight in heavy fog

NANO TECH
Mr Xi in Space

China plans manned space launch in 2013: state media

China to launch manned spacecraft

Tiangong 1 Parked And Waiting As Shenzhou 10 Mission Prep Continues

NANO TECH
Israel facing 'millions' of cyber-attacks over Gaza

White House mulls move as cybersecurity bill fails

Tech star turned adventurer now in murder plot

McAfee stays one step ahead of Belize police

NANO TECH
Official "Green Tuesday" Launch November 27, 2012

A low-carbon Finland is a great challenge, but an achievable one

Poland to invest 24 billion euros in energy by 2020

Analyzing the cost of federal and other renewable energy subsidies in Texas

NANO TECH
Turks hike energy stake in Iraqi Kurdistan

Turn to gas to fight climate change, Qatar says at UN talks

New energy technologies promise brighter future

Philippine minister tells cadets 'protect what is ours'

NANO TECH
Britain defends shooting pigs for army medic training

Stone-tipped weapons older than thought

Australia rolls out Thales desktop system

Northrop Grumman Begins Full-Rate Production of LITENING SE Targeting Pods for USAF

NANO TECH
King's College London finds rainbows on nanoscale

Optical microscopes lend a hand to graphene research

ORNL pushes the boundaries of electron microscopy to unlock the potential of graphene

Controlling heat flow through a nanostructure

NANO TECH
Robotic Fish Research Swims into New Ethorobotics Waters

Toshiba unveils dog-like robot for Fukushima plant

Ban 'killer robots,' rights group urges

Britain says no calculators for math tests




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2012 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement