Atomic Pen Writes World's Smallest Possible Letters

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:15:00 EDT

Researches at Osaka University have been doing some really tiny writing later, using their newly-invented atomic pen, which can draw atom by atom. The resulting letters, the words "Si" for silicon or "Yes" in Spanish, measure only 2 x 2 nanometers, roughly 40,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. According to Masayuki Abe, one of the project scientists, they have reached a limit impossible to surpass:

It’s not possible to write any smaller than this.

They achieved the atomic pen using the tip of an atomic force microscope, which interacts with the surface of a semiconductor when it's near it by exchaging silicon atoms. According to the scientists, this is a new step towards the miniaturization of chips, which will eventually take us to impossibly-small computers. [Pink Tentacle]

Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades

Elaine Chow — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Cold fusion, the act of producing a nuclear reaction at room temperature, has long been relegated to science fiction after researchers were unable to recreate the experiment that first "discovered" the phenomenon. But a Japanese scientist was supposedly able to start a cold fusion reaction earlier this week, which—if the results are real—could revolutionize the way we gather energy.

Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, demonstrated a low-energy nuclear reaction at Osaka University on Thursday. In front of a live audience, including reporters from six major newspapers and two TV studios, Arata and a co-professor Yue-Chang Zhang, produced excess heat and helium atoms from deuterium gas.

Arata used pressure to force deuterium gas into an evacuated cell that contained a palladium and zirconium oxide mix (ZrO2-Pd). Arata said that the mix caused the deuterium's nuclei to fuse, raising the temperature in the cell and keeping the center of the cell warm for 50 hours.

Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.

But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event. If nobody calls this demonstration out as a sham, Arata might have finally found the holy grail of cheap and abundant energy—nuclear power, without its destructive heat. [Physicsworld via Slashdot]

Gizmodo: osaka university

Atomic Pen Writes World's Smallest Possible Letters

Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades