Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have successfully developed a nano-antenna which transmits both AM and FM radio signals. Carbon nanotubes have already proven their special “abilities” and now the Cincinnati researchers have discovered new applications for this revolutionary material. Vesselin Shanov and Mark Schulz at the UC College of Engineering NanoWorld Lab noticed that by spinning CNTs into strong fibers, they can transmit radio signals.

The nano-antenna was created from a 25-micron CNT fiber, transparent tape, and silver paste, then the researchers replaced a cellphone’s antenna with the “nantenna”. According to Professor David Mast, from UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, the cellphone got four to five bars of signal using the nantenna that his fellow researchers created.

“It transmitted almost as well as the copper did, but at about one ten-thousandth of the weight. That was a very pleasant surprise, how easy it was to do. The hardest thing is to manipulate them. They float on ambient air” said Mast.

In order to test the “waves” of the signal, Mast decided to “set up a wireless webcam for the lab using these thread antennas.” His test was a success and “others” have seen “how well they work” and the results are so promising that they open the door for a series of new applications.

“They spin thread that is of such high quality, it opens the door to incredible possibilities. This is just one of many potential applications,” said Mast.

According to Schulz, the reason behind nano-antenna’s success was the so called “skin effect” as “the electrons transfer well because they want to go to the surface” and “instead of traveling through a bulk mass, they are traveling across a skin.”

Schulz was completed by Shanov who said that “copper wire is a bulk material” and “with carbon nanotubes, all the atoms are on the surface of these carbon structures and the tubes themselves are hollow, so the CNT thread is small and light.”

So why are these CNT threads so important and revolutionary in the same time? Well, according to Mast, “carbon thread that is a fraction of the weight of current copper conductors and antennas could directly apply and would be significant to aerospace activities – commercial, military and space. On any aircraft, there are about several hundred pounds of copper as cables and wiring.”

Although this study is only at the beginning, the promising results have drawn the attention of many companies and now the scientists are looking for one which is capable of providing funds to improve and commercialize CNT threads, and who knows, maybe in a few years copper wires will be replaced with carbon nanotube fibers because of their “immensely high tensile strength — perhaps five times that of steel and yet they are less dense than steel.” All we have to say is that we are really looking forward to it.