Scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the world’s smallest electrical wire, measuring only three atoms wide.
“It’s the first time wires this size have been created,” said study co-author Nicholas Melosh, an associate professor at Stanford University and investigator with the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC. The scientists reported their results in Monday’s issue of the journal Nature Materials.
The conductive core of the wire is made of a tightly bound atom of sulfur and an atom of copper.
Surrounding it, acting as an insulating shell, are “diamondoids,” fragments of diamonds, discovered in petroleum from the Gulf of Mexico by the Richmond-based ChevronTexaco. Each diamondoid is so small that scientists estimate that 1 million would fit across the diameter of a pinhead.
“The process is a simple, one-pot synthesis. You dump the ingredients together and you can get results in half an hour. It’s almost as if the diamondoids know where they want to go,” said Hao Yan, a Stanford postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper. They grab these other atoms and put them together, LEGO-style, into a tiny triangle.
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