Tiny Tech, Major Benefits: Quantum Dots
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The United States Army applies its research to a wide variety of technologies, vehicles, and weapons. From the largest tanks and aircraft to the smallest nanotubes and cells, the United States Army Research Office is working hard to advance American troops, electronics, and firepower.
Another field of research the United States Army is looking into is the study of quantum dots, tiny semiconductor crystals, no more than a nanometer wide.
Extremely tiny crystals allow for extremely fine precision. An energized quantum dot will always emit a specific wavelength, the wavelength itself depends on the size of the quantum dot. Quantum dots emit these precise frequencies more powerfully and for a longer time, relative to common semiconductors.
Unfortunately it is much more difficult to design electronics using quantum dots. Common physics becomes much less clear when utilizing quantum mechanics, energy and charges become much less predictable. Common traditional electronics use electric charges to represent binary code, ones and zeros, whereas quantum based electronics use electric charges to represent something that could be either one or zero. A quantum charge has some probability of being zero and some probability of being one, according to Breakingdefense.com.
Predicting those probabilities is a slow and difficult process. Researchers largely know the equations, however solving them requires using unknown factors, such as the age of the universe.
The Army scientists have eventually managed to figure out, more or less, how to work with quantum dots using an old Air Force supercomputer. The Army’s technique to utilize quantum dots is 750 times faster than other approaches, however it is still off 20 percent of the time.
Quantum dots have a wide range of military and civilian applications. They can help develop more efficient solar panels, sensors, and general electronics. Similarly, the technology can also help improve the quality of CT scans. There are even television sets already for sale that utilize quantum dots for a finer image.
