LUBBOCK,
April 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- Think your wristwatch
is compact? Try beating this: Dr. Tim Dallas and
his team of Texas Tech University nanotechnology
students have created a clock so small that it can
keep time on the head of a pin.
Granted,
people shouldn't flock
to replace their Seikos
just yet - the heavy dose
of electricity required
to turn the tiny hands
forces the clock to run
fast. Plus, Dallas warns,
the smallest bit of dust
could clog its gears for,
well, eternity.
Still,
this proof-of-concept design
was enough to grab the
attention of Sandia National
Laboratories during its
2005 microelectromechanical
systems, or MEMS, design competition. The winning
designs were built in Sandia's laboratories and returned
to the universities for testing. Dallas, so far,
has tested five of the 50 clocks built by the labs.
Texas Tech's
team of students from the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, led by Phillip Beverly
and advised by associate professor Dallas, didn't
allow the small scale to hamper style: the clock
included Texas Tech's iconic Double "T" and a gloved
hand giving the university's "guns up" sign.
In
addition to the two-millimeter-square
clock, the entry included
a miniature bicycle chain, a dynamic two-axis scanner
and two types of mirrors. All five devices were built
on a three-by-six-millimeter chip. A penny, with
a 19-millimeter diameter, seems whopping by comparison.
MEMS
devices allow development
of smaller, higher performance
systems with improved applications. They are used
in devices such as pressure sensors, air bag sensors,
projection televisions and biomedical devices.
CONTACT:
Tim Dallas, associate professor in the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas Tech
University, 806-742-4753, or tim.dallas@ttu.edu.
Cory
Chandler, Texas Tech media relations, cory.chandler@ttu.edu,
806-742-2136
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