HackingTheUniverse

World’s First Nanoradio Could Lead to Subcellular Remote-Control Interfaces

The breakthrough nanoradio consists of a single carbon-nanotube molecule that serves simultaneously as all the essential components of a radio — antenna, tunable band-pass filter, amplifier and demodulator. Physicist Alex Zettl led the development team, and graduate student Kenneth Jensen built the radio.

The nanoradio is less than one micron long and only 10 nanometers wide — or one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair — making it the smallest radio ever created.

Because of its small size, the nanoradio could be inserted into a living human cell, opening up the possibility of exciting medical applications for the technology, says Jillian M. Buriak, an expert in nanotechnology at the University of Alberta’s chemistry department.