When energized, a quantum dot will always emit a very specific wavelength (which wavelength depends on the dot’s exact size). Myers is funding research on quantum dots, miniscule crystals of semiconductor whose longest dimension is no more than six nanometers, meaning they could conceivably fit inside a nanotube.Įxtremely small size allows extremely fine precision. Their lengths vary widely, but their thickness is typically six nanometers or less. Qiu’s carbon nanotubes are a fraction of the size of a single human hair. While the Chinese-born, US-trained Qiu is a physicist-turned-engineer-turned-program manager, Myers is a mathematician and head of the mathematical sciences division at ARO – a field, he jokes, notoriously disconnected from mundane reality. ARO is just one piece of the Army Research Laboratory, which is in turn part of Combat Capabilities Development Command (formerly RDECOM), which is in turn one of the three major components of Army Futures Command, created in 2018 to coordinate all aspects of modernization from brainstorming futuristic concepts to fielding new equipment.Īt ARO, said one of Qiu’s colleagues, Joseph Myers, “we’re a bunch of program managers here who support basic research likely to lead to advances in a variety of different technologies.” “The Army Research Office, our core mission actually is investing in basic science,” Qiu emphasized. That would be a job for other parts of the Army. Then, Qiu said, you can talk about integrating many circuits together to build actual equipment. The next big step is to integrate many transistors together into an actual circuit. developed working carbon nanotube transistors. Last year, under a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from ARO, the University of South California and venture-backed startup Carbonics Inc. But actually producing enough nanotubes of consistent size and quality and getting them to line up right took years of further work, much of it Army funded. (The technical term is quantum ballistic transport). While silicon semiconductors form a lattice that lets electrons scatter in all directions – imagine downtown traffic moving through a grid of streets – carbon nanotubes essentially act like a highway that funnels all the electrons in the desired direction. It was mathematically proven a decade ago that nanotubes could channel electricity much more efficiently, Qiu told me.

Army of two masks carbon fiber