The Fate of Future Electronics Lies on Carbon Nanotubes

The unique properties of Carbon Nanotubes, the tiny molecular cylinders, have enticed researchers for years because of the possibility that they could serve as the successors to silicon serving as the electronic devices that are smaller, faster and cheaper.

First, they are tiny on the atomic scale and perhaps close to the physical limit of how small you can reduce a single electronic switch. Like silicon, they may be of semi-conductive nature, which is essential for the circuit panel, and they may endure very rapid and controllable electrical switch.

Source: http://goo.gl/Uim7L4

But the major obstacle to useful electronic construction out of carbon nanotubes has always been that when they are placed in films, few parts of them act more like a metal than a semiconductor. This defect can spoil the entire film.

In effect, Professor John Rogers of University of Illinois professed that purity must exceed 99.999%, i.e. even a bad tube in 100,000 is enough to kill an entire electronic device. These kinds of materials will not work for semiconductor circuits.

Currently Rogers with the help of a team of researchers have experimented using rather easy, scalable method that does not involve costly tools to strip out the metallic carbon nanotubes from assortments.

Benefits of Carbon Nanotubes:

Carbon Nanotubes have multiple exceptional advantages, comprising of:

• High thermal and electrical conductivity

• Optical properties

• Flexibility

• Increased rigidity

•  High tensile strength (100 times stronger than steel by weight)

•   Lightweight

Applications of Carbon Nanotubes:

• At present Carbon nanotubes are applied in different products, and researchers are looking forward to discover new creative applications.

• Current applications include:

•   Bicycle components

• wind turbines

• Flat screens

• Scanning probe microscopes

• Detection devices

• Electrical circuits

•  Electronic and many more

• Future uses of carbon nano tubes are quite interesting which include:

• Stab-proof and bullet-proof Clothing

• Semiconductor materials

• Spacecraft

• Space elevators

• Solar panels

• Cancer treatment

• Touch screens

•  Energy storage

•  Optical technology

• Radar

• Biofuel 
•   LCD

·         Submicroscopic test tubes

CNTs are very new material with little continuing history. Although no human has yet fallen ill due nanotubes, nevertheless scientists urge caution while handling nano particles. The potential health risks are not cause for alarm and the future of Carbon Nanotubes is quite bright in the world of electronics. 

Top 10 Electronics Engineering Websites for Beginners

Electronics engineering training is a bold and awesome.  The one thing that makes Electronics so much fun is the application of science in everyday life. Complied below are the top websites related to engineering and electronics that kindle interest in the learner’s mind from the beginner’s level as you plough your way to be a pro pretty soon.

Apart from the traditional Wikipedia and Google, here’s my list of ten best websites to visit if you have passion for electrical/electronic engineering.       

Source: http://goo.gl/QWGoGx

1.      Instructables.com—offers a great range of cool user-generated “do-yourself” projects from 3D printing to cheese-making. Created by Eric Wilhelm and Saul Griffith, it encourages users to try out new things. Why for electronics engineers? When B-Tech books are weighing you down, it’s a great way to unleash your fun side and inspire yourself to dummy run your own projects.

2.      Openelectrical.org—throws light on practical applications along with what is being studied at school. It affords great help for students who want to become successful practitioners in the industry.   

3.      Electrodiction.com—offers video tutorials on analog, digital electronics, microprocessor and microcontroller and network theorem in clean neat chapters of designed with all videos and no texts. This attracts tech students a great deal worldwide.  

4.      Ocw.mit.edu—Eminent professors sharing news and reviews, tips and tutorials. 2,200 online courses are available along with the text material offered to its on-campus students. 
  

5.      Ieee.org—Tutorial on newest technologies and innovations. The community’s a great motivation-booster for aspiring electronics engineers.  
 

6.      societyofrobots.com—though it is aimed for students of advanced level, fascinating projects with microcontrollers are given here in a clear, understandable way.   

7.      stackoverflow.com—have a query regarding your CEng or B.Tech projects or theory applications? Derive opinions from a pool of experts.  

8.      forum.allaboutcircuits.com—diverse queries related to electronics science homework are asked and replied to. This website is very helpful to solve your doubt about a textbook material.  
 

9.      sparkyuonline.com—expert electricians offering “hands-on “training to novices. Great “how-to” instructions to boost your real-world knowledge.     
 

10.  engineergirl.org—this engineering website offers pure fun and utility side by side. An array of colours and exciting topics, it sure relives your pain of cramming textbooks to a great deal, when you realize you thrilling the world of engineers really is.
   

Students and hobbyists know how fascinating it is to have first-hand experience with ‘live’ stuff when other career trackers are stomaching theories from books. Applications are fun! So are Electronics Engineering Training online! 

Volta Turns 270—the Man who said No to Priesthood and Yes to Electricity -2015

It’s February 18, Alassandro Volta’s birthday! You probably already got an air of who he was when you saw the doodle on Google—the Italian physicist and battery-inventor.  But, for electronics science aficionados, he is a legend who bravely fought against the adversities of his time.

The man’s story goes long before “voltaic pile”—the first original battery and ‘Volts’ the unit of electric current to credit his name. Even before the discovery of methane gas and al that hullaballoo over electrostatics, pneumatics and meteorology. In 1745, Volta was born in the beautiful town of North Italy, Como. Volta had a noble family background.

 

• A Hidden Diamond

Alessandro Volta was thought to be slow-witted and dull in the primal phase of his life. But, the diamond didn’t stay hidden for long, as his father recognised later as Volta began to shine in class. His sudden improvement   left everyone amazed. However, his parents insisted that he should take up priesthood which he kept resisting. 

The man had burning interest in something else! At the age of 18, Volta had the guts to exchange letters on Electricity with two hugely popular physicists of his time: Giambatista Beccaria and Jean-Antoine Nollet.

• Controversy over Frog’s Leg Led to Invention of Battery! 

Alessandro Volta never aspired to invent battery in the beginning. It was his dispute with Galvani that compelled him to explore further on the matter. Galvani was an Anatomy professor. He noticed that contact with different metals make a frog’s leg ‘twitch’ which he referred to as “animal electricity”.  

Alessandro Volta studied Luigi Galvani’s theory and felt something was wrong with it. He ran multiple experiments on this and finally something struck him like a lightening. Two different metals are causing the twitch but similar metal causes no movement in the dead muscle at all. 

Then Alessandro Volta came to know that not only two different metals generate electrical effect, but such metals, when in contact with particular types of fluid create such effect.  Born was the first electric battery from this experiment in 1800. 

Now we understand what Galvani did was to create an electric cell unknowingly.  The frog’s leg acted like an electrolyte that fuelled the flow of electricity. Browse through free electronics video tutorial to dig fun projects as such.

JFET -- Transistor Essentials | Electronics

JEFT  is one very simple semiconductor line, which controls its voltage as required. It can have p-type or n-type channel.  P-type carrier is a positive charge hole, and N-type carrier is a negative charge electron. and In P-type, the current is reduced if the voltage applied to the source is less than the voltage you apply to the gate.  In contrast, in the N-type, if the voltage applied to the source is greater than the voltage applied to the gate, the current is cut short.  It has very small effect on the external circuits attached to the gate. Because, it has a huge input to impedance which can shoot up to 1010 ohms. But as the output impedance is very low, it is needed to build measuring instrument as a buffer.


ITS LESS NOISE FEATURE MAKES IT SO USEFUL

This electronic junction is tiny in size so it is employed in LCD computer circuits, memory circuits etc. Since its modulation distortion is small, it is also utilized in communication instruments, mixer circuits such as TV and FM receivers. It also required to build FM tuners.

In a JEFT transistor, one single type of carrier transmits the current, which makes it a unipolar junction. It has the property of high resistance of electrical input. While in Bipolar Junction Transistor, the input current that is conducted to the Base terminal is proportional to transistor’s input current, in a Unipolar transistor, the voltage can be controlled because there is no requirement for biasing current.
This transistor has an uncomplicated, simple structure.  It is just a voltage-controlled Electronic junction.     

 
Here the current flows through a semiconductor material between two terminals, respectively a Drain (D) and a Source(S). Through S the carriers enters the bar and through D they sign off.  When you put ‘Reverse Bias’ voltage on a gate, it “Pinches” the channel. And it switches off the electric current immediately.   G is the highly doped territory on both the sides.   

The fun part is, the current flowing through it can be compared with a water-hose. When water passes through a hose, you can put pressure around the hose to reduce the spurt of flow, a JEFT operation can also be controlled similar way. The current in this transistor depends on the region between S and D. When you constrict the current-transmitting region between these two, the current is squeezed to low flow.  To have clearer idea about the design and the functions you should check JFET Junction Field Effect Transistor video Tutorial online.

Binary operations and Logic gates

Electronics with its wide appeal has always interested academicians and people otherwise who want to learn the various aspects of the subject. The fascination of new gadgets and devices based on certain principles which change the way of human lives has always enticed both electronics hobbyists and professional experts.

        A new and innovative approach to learning the subject is the usage of audio visual tutorials which go through all the details of a particular subject in a serialised manner, thereby guiding the students through a detailed process. There are several of these video tutorials available online which provide students with knowledge regarding electronics. However, if one plans to take help from these online sources, a few things should be kept in mind before using their services.

           The basic building blocks of digital logic are what Basic Digital electronics deal with. Logic gates are used by almost all digital chips such as the 8 bit AVR to all quad core processors. The AND, OR, NOR, NAND are all these logic gate structures and what is important is to learn what can be derived from them.

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                         Every Logic gate is represented by its symbols and has its own truth table and each of these gates have inputs and they in turn produce outputs that are in the numerical form of either 0 or 1. Logical operations are very easy because of the binary bits. Logical operations are based on two binary bits being compared and producing a third binary bit as its result. 

        Audio Visual electronic tutorials are an immense help in understanding concepts regarding any branch of Electronics. These videos are put up by professional experts who identify the difficulties students might face while studying the subject and accordingly flesh out the chapters through videos.

         Students need to properly choose the videos they think will help them in understanding the core concepts and if they can subscribe to one of these channels and get access to all the videos, it will help them in many ways.