
Graphene Antennas Would Enable Terabit Wireless Downloads - kumarski
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/511726/graphene-antennas-would-enable-terabit-wireless-downloads/#.UTY-IKGip50.facebook
======
jacquesm
Graphene is quickly acquiring buzz-word status.

~~~
asafira
As a physics grad student, I wanted to mention that graphene _was_ a buzz-word
a few years ago. It's popularity has since died significantly in the
community. It's still around, but nowhere near as popular as it used to be.
Maybe the same will happen in popular science?

------
AdamTReineke
Just theoretical, no prototype yet. Seems a bit early to get excited.

------
landypro
Now we need a storage medium capable of supporting those transfer speeds.

~~~
S_A_P
Im sure graphene will be involved with that too ;)

~~~
dhughes
Yes the graphene covered DVD put in a LightScribe DVD drive made a
supercapacitor I'm sure that knowledge may someone help in making better
batteries (yes I know a capacitor isn't a battery).

<https://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6074/1326.ful>

~~~
solistice
But a battery is a capacitor. Well, technically not, but they behave
similarily, with the battery storing more energy per cubic centimeter than the
capacitor, at the trade off of having a much higher internal resistance. Also
I believe he meant data storage, since we have battery technologies which
would work for this application, even though more juice is always a juicy
prospect.

------
short_circut
I find claims of such to be somewhat questionable. Even if we could enable
Terabit speeds over wireless it does not good if the hardware receiving it is
incapable of handling that much data in that short of time. I mean we get max
hard drive write speeds of 3.0 GB/s for the average user. Ram and CPU are
still on the order of Ghz. We may be able to cram that much in the air but it
does no good if the computers can't handle it.

~~~
freehunter
It's a fair point. It's the same bottlenecking issue that plagues mobile
devices. We can make multi-core and multi-ghz processors with giant, bright,
high resolution displays, but we're having a hard time getting battery
technology to keep up with this immense power draw.

The good news is, with these restraints being placed on improvements in
technology, it gives incentive to further invest in research to making better
batteries or faster storage devices.

~~~
solistice
There's a graphene for that too. Or rather graphene supercapacitors, which for
their size and thickness are remarkable. They'll likely be a tease for a
couple of years, move into specialized products like pacemakers and then
slowly flow into the consumer market, just like Li-Ion batteries did, Light
Emitting Diodes and Transistors. R&D, why do you torture me so, showing me
powerful technology I could design sexy things with, due in a couple of years?

------
hosh
I remember John Scalzi's _Old Man's War_ universe where the human electronic
tech was based on microchip modules communicating to each other wirelessly.
There are no wires. I just never expected to see people developing such
technology a few years after I read that.

~~~
nb13
Well, the article says they've only drawn up blueprints of how the technology
could work so far. I hope they start actually developing this soon though.

------
ripperdoc
This is indeed interesting, but I'd say far beyond the needs. 10Gbps wireless
transfer already exists (e.g. [http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/27/ntt-docomo-
confirms-succe...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/27/ntt-docomo-confirms-
successful-10gbps-wireless-test/) ), and that is beyond what flash based
memory can do. In any case, it would mean transferring a BluRay in something
like 30 seconds, assuming you had a faster drive.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Don't be so quick. Don't just consider single link transfers, remember that
wireless is always shared bandwidth. If you have a terabit for everyone that
means you can have hundreds of megabits for tens of thousands of folks in a
small area all connected to one access point / cell tower.

~~~
trotsky
They are talking about terahertz bands that aren't suitable for distance
communication, the ranges are practically measured in centimeters.

~~~
lutusp
> They are talking about terahertz bands that aren't suitable for distance
> communication, the ranges are practically measured in centimeters.

If this argument had merit, light would be unsuitable for long-distance
communication.

~~~
trotsky
Water vapor in these bands is a strong absorber limiting distance in earth's
atmosphere to ~10 meters or less. Subtract a good deal for omnidirectional
emissions and decent snr.

~~~
lutusp
That's very wavelength-specific, as this graph shows:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Atm...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Atmospheric_Microwave_Transmittance_at_Mauna_Kea_%28simulated%29.svg/350px-
Atmospheric_Microwave_Transmittance_at_Mauna_Kea_%28simulated%29.svg.png)

Water and water vapor has the same effect on the visual part of the spectrum
also, but this doesn't reduce people's enthusiasm for it as a potential
communications medium.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation>

------
zwieback
Make it a fractal graphene antenna and you've got next years funding locked
up!

~~~
oakwhiz
Too bad fractal antennas are patented. US Patent No. 6452553

~~~
femto
Odd, given that the log-periodic antenna is fractal and invented around 50
years ago (1957 by Duhamel and Isbell?). I personally was working with such
antennas in 1992. They're not called fractal, since their invention predates
the invention of the work "fractal" in 1975, by Mandelbrot.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-periodic_antenna>

\--- Edit:

The owners of the patent actually acknowledge the above in a FAQ on their site
[2]. It's accompanied by an unconvincing justification for why they claim to
own fractal antennas.

[2] <http://www.fractenna.com/nca_faq.html>

------
csours
I wonder how much spectrum it would stomp on? Or is it possible to increase
bandwidth without using more spectrum? Better time resolution?

~~~
InclinedPlane
None. Transmissions in the terahertz range are currently not part of any FCC
allocation (which maxes out at 300 GHz).

------
singingfish
does anyone know of any commercially available products incorporating graphene
yet?

~~~
solistice
Pencils. Well, layered graphene.

