Switching on nanodevices

University of Arkansas researchers have found a way to create switching in nanoscale materials, which could be used in nanoscale memory devices, motors, switches or sensors.

“The properties of nanoscale objects are often different from the properties of objects at the macroscopic scale,” researcher Sergey Prosandeev said. “We try to study the new properties of objects at the nanoscale to understand how to apply them to technology.”

Prosandeev and his colleagues study piezoelectric compounds, materials that change shape in an electric field, or create an electric field when they change shape. Such materials, currently used in medical ultrasound and naval sonar, appear to lose these properties at the nanoscale because they lose their polarisation.

However, this “loss” is governed by a vortex within the nanodot, where the charges, which swirl in an almost circular motion, cancel one another.

The researchers decided to calculate the possibility of switching the direction of the vortex, which would open up the possibility of using these nanoscale materials in switches, sensors and other devices.