2004-02-14

Quantum Dots and Programmable Matter
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4625


Article about quantum dots:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/01/09/quantumdots.html

The programmable atom. Control the shape of the charge in 3 dimensions.

Quantum dots are different shapes. Some atoms are 2 dimensional, or longer than
they are thick.

[I did a whole lecture course on this. Not that I can remember any of it.]

You can put high levels of electrons into an atom like this. Very strange
topologies happen.

Several 100 electrons with 3V of pressure behind them to flip a transistor --
but a quantum dot can flip with other a single electron.

What's more, quantum dots are XNOR gates implicitly.


* Programmable matter

You can produce very small crystals of semiconductor.

[drifting very badly. Quite full from good sushi lunch.]


Printing conductive ink. They want it to be clear, or black, or whatever. But it
isn't, it's grey, and it doesn't come out the ink nozzle easily. So conductive
ink is cool, but the constraints are difficult.

With quantum dots you can create atoms with the properties you want, ones that
don't occur in nature.

And the properties can change with the flick of a bit! The feel, the colour,
whether it's a metal or an insulator.

[* Applications people told me about]

if you have a PDA and it needs to show you the colour gold, it doesn't need to
just show you colour, it can show you gold.

or you can have something that goes hot and cold.

Dynamically Configurable Materials, On Demand 
http://programmablematter.org/
http://programmablematter.org/Faq.html -- FAQ