Unexpected, Star-Spangled Find May Lead to Advanced Electronics (IMAGE)
Caption
This tiny US flag -- just a few nanometers wide and invisible to the naked eye -- is arguably the world's smallest image of Old Glory, according to its creators at the University of Texas at Dallas. In an experiment, the nanoflag pattern emerged unexpectedly as sheets of the "stripe" material -- molybdenum ditelluride -- were heated to about 450 degrees Celsius, at which point its atoms began to rearrange and form new structures -- the 'stars' in this false-color image. Each star consists of six central atoms of molybdenum surrounded by six atoms of tellurium. Stacked on top of one another, the stars form nanowires that might power advanced electronics. The transformation from stripes to stars is reported in the journal Advanced Materials.
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University of Texas at Dallas
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