DART of PHYSICS Blog

Dec 06 2013

Revolutionary technology has resulted from visionaries and entrepreneurs who have “thought big.” However, in the case of antimicrobial and self-cleaning technologies, reducing materials size to the nanoscale can reduce the cost and maintenance of our transportation system.

Nanomaterials are any materials that are 1-100 nm in one dimension, which means they have properties that depend on their size. These materials can have special properties, which are different from their bulk counterparts. For example, cadmium selenide quantum dots can absorb different wavelengths of light between... Continue reading

Dec 04 2013

You've probably heard of a plasma display, and may even know that a plasma is a phase of matter, like a solid, liquid, or gas. But what does that mean? What's a plasma and how is it used in displays?

Plasmas are usually considered a state of matter. But whereas order and density distinguish the other states of matter from each other—solids are dense and ordered, liquid are dense and disordered, and gases are less dense and disordered—for plasma there is another factor that is important. Plasmas are disperse and disordered like gases, but they are also ionized. Whereas a non-ionized... Continue reading