from the 108-kg-would-pay-off-US-national-debt dept.
A company is starting to sell customized buckyballs (endohedral fullerenes) on the order of micrograms:
Designer Carbon Materials, an Oxford-based scientific startup, has recently sold its first 200 micrograms of nitrogen atom-based endohedral fullerenes for £22,000 ($33,400)—or about £110 million ($167 million) per gram. This valuation likely makes the material the second most valuable on Earth, preceded only by antimatter, which is estimated by NASA to cost some £41 trillion per gram.
The material, which essentially is a cage of carbon atoms with a nitrogen atom inside, could be used for very small and very accurate atomic clocks, which are currently of the size of a room. "Imagine a minaturised atomic clock that you could carry around in your smartphone," the company's founder Dr. Kyriakos Porfyrakis told The Telegraph. "This is the next revolution for mobile."
[...] These caged molecules have greatly enhanced physical and electronic properties compared to "normal" ones. In case of N@C60 (i.e. nitrogen atom-based endofullerenes), the "super power" is a long electron spin lifetime.
The research of one of the most expensive materials on Earth hasn't been cheap, either. In 2013, Oxford University together with two partners received a £1.5 million research grant to develop manufacturing methods "for increasing the production of endohedral fullerenes to the gram scale."
[...] At the moment, Designer Carbon Materials can produce "up to half a gram a day" of cheaper and lower-purity material, which means that there will be more empty carbon cages than those with a nitrogen atom inside. "As for the higher-purity material, we can make 50 milligrams of it, and that would take us weeks to purify," said Porfyrakis.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:08AM
"Imagine a minaturised atomic clock that you could carry around in your smartphone,"
why bother when we have GPS? if you didn't know, that's how you phone always knows the right time regardless of your location.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aighearach on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:41AM
No. They could do that, but usually they get the time off the network instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:44AM
GPS might not be on or available, and despite the fact that GPS is powered by atomic clocks, it's not actually all that good at keeping time. It doesn't know about time zones, leap seconds, and so on, whereas the phone company's time servers do.
That said, while "an atomic clock in your smartphone" seems like a great feat of miniaturization, who, besides scientists, really needs their own atomic clock? No doubt there will turn out to be industrial applications I haven't thought of, but on the consumer level, what good is it? I can imagine electronics built with ultra-accurate oscillators based on something like this. Is there a common application that can benefit from this? Can we use it to increase the performance of high-speed serial links, for example (enabling faster data rates, higher resolution displays, etc.)?
(Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Sunday December 13 2015, @10:17AM
That is a very good University Entrance interview question for physicists.
...who, besides scientists, really needs their own atomic clock?
...on the consumer level, what good is it?
Is there a common application that can benefit from this?
If you have two of them, you can determine the local relative curvature of space-time between them. So what? Well, clocks run more slowly the closer they are to large bodies due to gravitational effects ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation [wikipedia.org] ), so if you have a pair of very accurate clocks, you can determine your altitude (mostly) independent of atmospheric pressure.
If you have a fixed radio transmitter that broadcasts at a very stable fixed frequency (which is aided by having an accurate clock), you can determine your speed relative to the transmitter to a very high degree of accuracy.
Now clock-makers will also be quick to point out that you can have clocks that are short term accurate, but long-term unstable, and vice-versa, and I would imagine that these would be short term accurate clocks. But still useful.
See also this, from http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/chipscale-atomic-clock [ieee.org] which refers to a different chip-scale atomic clock.
"Another potentially important application is in undersea oil and gas exploration. When prospecting beneath the ocean, gas companies lay out a grid of sound and motion sensors on the ocean floor. A boat on the surface blasts pulses of sound through the water into the earth below. The pulse reflects off the different layers of sediment and rock, and the sensors time-stamp the echoes using a hyperaccurate built-in clock. The processed data allows engineers to construct a picture of the composition of the layers beneath the ocean floor. The quality of that picture depends on how accurate the time-stamping is. Symmetricom’s chip-scale atomic clock would improve that accuracy by 10 to 30 times and consume only 20 percent of the power drawn by the oven-controlled crystal oscillators typically used in this application, says Fossi."
Or here: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/miniclock.cfm [nist.gov]
"Chip-scale atomic clocks have many potential uses. In wireless communications devices, these clocks could improve network synchronization and channel selection to enhance security and anti-jamming capabilities. In Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, small clocks could improve the precision of satellite-based navigation systems such as those used in commercial and military vehicles and emergency response networks. In addition, as atomic clocks get smaller and cheaper and use less power, they could replace quartz crystal oscillators in many common products such as computers, offering several orders of magnitude better time keeping."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday December 13 2015, @02:35PM
Can we use it to increase the performance of high-speed serial links, for example
Well, obviously, yeah.
The article was getting all EE.
Imagine never transmitting a sync signal because both the transmitter and receiver already have GPS accurate clocks to maintain bit synchronization. Ever. Like async RS232 but it never, ever, sends a start or stop bit (kinda like synch rs232) You never have to devote hardware or power or SNR to clock recovery, ever again, for any communication scheme... interesting. Too expensive now, but given "atomic grade clocks" on both sides it would be no big deal.
Another fun time is ridiculous accuracy frequency standards allowing narrower filter bandwidths and such. Lets say you want to transmit a legacy 3 KHz wide single sideband signal into a Ku band satellite. A 50 ppm crystal oscilator will set you back a buck. A 1 ppm TXCO will set you back $10. A 1 ppm TXCO at 15 GHZ means you'll be about 15 KHz off, which pretty well Fs up a 3 KHz wide signal. So you need to spend WAY more than $10 to determine frequency accuracy at Ku satellite band. Of course not so much SSB voice gets pushed thru satellite transponders, but whatever, its the general idea that there's plenty of interesting theoretical systems that could be built today but require better frequency accuracy than anything cheap and COTS today.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:49AM
I keep my GPS turned off for months at a time, yet my phone still knows the time.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday December 13 2015, @03:50PM
I keep my GPS turned off for months at a time
no, you keep it turned to "off" for months at a time. there is a difference.
(Score: 2, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday December 13 2015, @06:17PM
No there isn't, because I also put a little tinfoil hat on my phone.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Gravis on Monday December 14 2015, @12:14AM
if you have blocked all modes of wireless communication, it's not really a cell phone anymore. if you didn't know, they share the antenna.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:28PM
(Score: 5, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:41AM
What's this? as she opens the apparently-empty box.
It's a Buckyball, dear. Customized just for you!
Oh Honey You Shouldn't Have!
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday December 14 2015, @01:33AM
Is this supposed to be a stealth "dick in a box" joke?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday December 13 2015, @10:42AM
I used to work where the GPS system was designed. Each satellite has an atomic clock in it. Something similar to this:
Rubidium frequency standard [ebay.com], used units similar to ones we used now available on Ebay for about $200.
Google Efratom Rubidium Frequency standard for a lot more data if you are so inclined....
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @01:47PM
The vet got two of my cat Bucky's balls for $100. And I thought that was expensive!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday December 14 2015, @04:57AM
It's more expensive still if your cat swallows two buckyballs.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @11:27PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @12:28AM
I'm to lazy to do the math or read TFA.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @01:47AM
A mole of these things would have a mass of around 60 times 12 grams plus 14 grams, or 734 grams (because you've got 60 carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom). At $167 million per gram, that much would cost $122.6 billion. Then for just one molecule, divide by Avogadro's number [wikipedia.org], 6.022 X 1023 and it would be much less than a penny. Then with the shipping and handling it comes to $19.99, please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @05:20PM
I'll wait until it's free shipping with Amazon Prime then.