Luke_A_Somers comments on How does remote Joule heating of carbon nanotubes advance singularity timelines? - Less Wrong

-2 Post author: keefe 11 April 2012 04:15PM

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Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 16 April 2012 02:56:14PM 1 point [-]

Phonons are the quanta of lattice vibration. Vibrations are one kind of imperfection in a lattice.

Electrical carriers (electrons and holes) do not scatter off of individual lattice atoms; they scatter off of lattice imperfections. These imperfections can be defects, or phonons, or other carriers.

On to the claims in the article... as before. Usefulness? I'm not really sure. If you're always using these nanotubes to carry currents, their entire environment will heat up (the heat will leak into them eventually), so it seems like it would only really help in cases where it needs to carry a current spike.

Comment author: keefe 18 April 2012 06:35:08PM 0 points [-]

If yi would have to do more reading to understand the lattice stuff, it seems reasonable though.

As far as usefulness, the idea I had was you could layer a substrate to dissipate the heat really well. My limited understanding is 85% of the heat jumps the wires somehow and is absorbed by the substrate, which could be engineered arbitrarily. This is important because cnt are very good electrical conductors so you could pair them with a good head absorbing substance and achieve separation of heat and current in ways we have not seen before, which one could speculate as a way to restart moores law progression of speed.