Vanishing Act Creates a Stir in the Nanotech World

Dr. Ali Aliev, a research scientist at UT Dallas, and his colleagues recently demonstrated that transparent carbon nanotube sheets, which can have the density of air and the specific strength of steel, can be used to make objects invisible.

This invisibility for light oblique to the nanotube sheets is caused by the mirage effect, in which a thermally generated refractive index gradient bends light array from a hidden object. The paper was published in a recent issue of the journal Nanotechnology.

Nanotech Speakers Hold Promise for Sonar Uses

UT Dallas researchers have found that carbon nanotube sheets excel as underwater sound generators and noise-canceling speakers, two highly desirable traits for submarine sonar and stealth capabilities.

Researchers had previously shown that sheets of carbon nanotubes can produce a wall of sound in air, without moving back and forth like traditional speakers.  The latest study from the UT Dallas Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute, reveals that nanoscience speakers perform as well underwater as they do on land, and that one day they could replace traditional submarine sonar arrays.