Computing without standard electric power… A team of Finnish researchers from Aalto University did it. They have developed a new concept for computing that creates collisions of water droplets on a highly water-repellent (superhydrophobic) surface. Turning water droplets into digital bits, the basic unit of data transfer.
This research, appeared in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Advanced Materials, could be a basis or an alternative for tomorrow’s electricity-free computing devices.
When researchers observed two water droplets rebounding like billiard balls upon collision with each other on a highly water-repellent surface, they realized they could guide the water droplets along water-repellent tracks.
“I was surprised that such rebounding collisions between two droplets were never reported before, as it indeed is an easily accessible phenomenon: I conducted some of the early experiments on water-repellent plant leaves from my mother’s garden,” said Henrikki Mertaniemi, an applied physics researcher at Aalto University, in a statement.
The experiments showed how the water droplets could act as digital bits in memory devices or logic operations at the most basic level of computing.
Researchers demonstrated a setup with a single water-repellent track forking into two tracks. Water droplets rolling down the single track would collide with second droplet sitting at the fork, and alternatively knock the second droplet toward one fork branch or the other. This process repeated 100 times without error.
Also, if the water droplets were loaded with reactive chemical cargo, the onset of a chemical reaction could be controlled by droplet collisions.
Do you remember my DNA as a potential storage medium post a while back? While this idea probably won’t replace your PC in the near future but it could lead to devices that don’t require an electrical power source. Also, these new reseaches create a paradigm shift in computers and computing, computers of the future may be nothing like what we use today. They may even be organic.
Cool, huh?
N.
Via: Aalto.fi