technologyreview.com: By Robert F. Service

Alex Zettl’s tiny radios, built from nanotubes, could improve everything from cell phones to medical diagnostics.

If you own a sleek iPod Nano, you’ve got nothing on Alex Zettl. The physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have come up with a nanoscale radio, in which the key circuitry consists of a single carbon nanotube.

Any wireless device, from cell phones to environmental sensors, could benefit from nanoradios. Smaller electronic component­s, such as tuners, would reduce power consumption and extend battery life. Nanoradios could also steer wireless communications into entirely new realms, including tiny devices that navigate the bloodstream to release drugs on command. [ read more ]