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At the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, held in Los Angeles this week, talk ranged from the mysteries of the universe to the secrets of the very small. In this hour of Science Friday, we'll give you a sampling of science from the meeting. The semiconductor industry is very interested in making their silicon wafers smooth - a smoother wafer means a wafer that can be etched, treated, and doped more accurately. But even a mirror-smooth surface can have deep pits on a microscopic scale. We'll talk to a researcher who is studying chemical techniques for etching silicon surfaces. Other researchers are looking at ways to create ultra-small machines made of semiconducting materials. Such devices, called MEMS (for microelectromechanical systems) are literally machines on a chip. They've existed for several years - a chip-based accelerometer controls the air bag in your car and tells your clothes dryer when your clothes are done. But now, as they become smaller, approaching the nanometer level, they're going on to bigger and better things -- providing microscopic gyroscopes, mini-seismometers, and other devices on board new smaller, faster, cheaper space probes. We'll find out more. Even humble water has secrets to tell. Physicists announced last week that at low temperature, liquid water exists in two phases - a low-density phase and a high-density phase - a fact not known before. A whirlwind tour of the physical world - on this hour of Science Friday.
Guests: Michael Roukes Eugene Stanley Books/Articles Discussed: Related Links: Roukes group, Caltech |
