World's smallest radio: One carbon nanotube

A team from the department of physics at UC Berkeley published a paper about their invention in the the October 31, 2007 online edition of the journal Nano Letters.

The abstract follows.

Nanotube Radio

We have constructed a fully functional, fully integrated radio receiver from a single carbon nanotube. The nanotube serves simultaneously as all essential components of a radio: antenna, tunable band-pass filter, amplifier, and demodulator. A direct current voltage source, as supplied by a battery, powers the radio. Using carrier waves in the commercially relevant 40-400 MHz range and both frequency and amplitude modulation techniques, we demonstrate successful music and voice reception.

....................

I doubt even the hackers over at Make are up to fabricating one of these out back in their skunk works.

You never know, though....

iPod zepto — catchy, what?