New Generation of Nano-Devices Working Towards Producing Data with Eenormous Consequences
It seems extraordinary that a device on the nanoscale, smaller than a human hair, could hold clues to the fundamental driving force shaping the entire universe.
But a series of experiments at the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN), led by Dr Paul Warburton and Dr Jon Fenton, centred around a new generation of devices only nanometres in size, are working towards producing data with enormous consequence
This strange coupling of the massive with the minuscule is a consequence of speculation that the vacuum of space is not quite as empty as we would believe.
Instead it is bristling with zero-point fluctuations, a phenomenon predicted
by quantum mechanics, the area of physics modified to account for the unusual
behaviour of matter on the small scale. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle,
well known for the assertion that it is impossible to know both a particle’s
position and momentum at the same instant,. It also demands that even the vacuum
of space must possess some form of residual energy. Due to the assertion of
equality between energy and mass, this vacuum energy is believed to take the
form of ‘virtual particles’ continually popping in and out of existence.
Suggestions that this vacuum energy is in fact the enigmatic substance referred
to perplexingly as 'dark energy' have caused quite a stir. Dark energy, one
of the unsolved mysteries of modern cosmology, is believed to make up over 75%
of the universe and be responsible for the acceleration of the universe’s
expansion. It is proving difficult to define; there have been many theories
put forward to describe dark energy – quintessence, phantom fields, chaotic
scalar fields to name a few – all rather unfamiliar concepts and all as
of yet unsubstantiated. As an explanation zero-point energy is appealing in
its reassigning new meaning to a concept that has already been around for decades
and is well grounded in other theory...
More: http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=11388
