Spinning carbon nanotubes spawns new wireless ap...( The University of Cincinnati has lon...)

The University of Cincinnati has long been known for its world-record-breaking carbon nanotubes. Now researchers at the University of Cincinnati have discovered new uses by spinning carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into longer fibers with additional useful properties.

Breakthroughs Without Broken Threads

Taking technology that has already been proven to grow carbon nanotubes of world-record breaking lengths, researchers Vesselin Shanov and Mark Schulz in the UC College of Engineering NanoWorld Lab have now found new applications by spinning these fibers into strong threads.

David Mast, from UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, saw possibilities in the threads. Mast, an associate professor of physics, took a 25-micron carbon nanotube thread and created a dipole antenna using double-sided transparent tape and silver paste. He was immediately successful in transmitting radio signals.

"It transmitted almost as well as the copper did, but at about one ten-thousandth of the weight," says Mast.

"Then I decided to dismantle my cell phone," says Mast. He created a cell phone antenna, using CNT thread and tape. Ripping the back off his own cell phone, he tore out the phone's original antenna and replaced it with his home-made one. With the "nano-antenna" or "nantenna," he was able to get four to five "bars" of service, compared to none when he removed it.

"That was a very pleasant surprise, how easy it was to do," Mast says. "The hardest thing is to manipulate them. They float on ambient air."

From there it was an easy leap to video, in which he was again successful. "I want to now set up a wireless webcam for the lab using these thread antennas so

Mast says that the key to the new applications is the quality of the material that Schulz and Shanov came up with using multi-wall carbon nanotubes.

"They spin thread that is of such high quality, it opens the door to incredible possi
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