From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 11:06:55 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: update.341 (fwd) [edited]
Message-ID: <199710160311.WAA08752@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> From physnews@aip.org Wed Oct 15 14:00:06 1997
> Date: Wed, 15 Oct 97 10:28:48 EDT
> From: physnews@aip.org (AIP listserver)
> Message-Id: <9710151428.AA08697@aip.org>
> To: physnews-mailing@aip.org
> Subject: update.341
> 
> PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE                         
> The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
> Number 341  October 15, 1997  by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben
> Stein
> 
> THE 1997 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS has been won by

[text deleted]

> THE FIRST SOLID MATERIAL THAT CAN REVERSIBLY
> SWITCH BETWEEN METAL AND INSULATOR at room
> temperature and pressure, and without changing its chemical
> makeup, has been created by researchers at UCLA (James Heath,
> heath@chem.ucla.edu).  The researchers prepare a Langmuir film,
> an ultrathin layer of material on a water surface. The film consists
> of a 2-D hexagonal pattern of silver nanocrystals (only nm size)
> with each nanocrystal's surface capped by compressible organic
> molecules.  Applying pressure to the film can decrease the distance
> between adjacent nanocrystals from 12 to 5 angstroms.  When
> compressed, the film becomes shiny and its optical properties match
> those of a thin metal film.  Prior to compression, the film has the
> optical properties of an insulator: in this state, the
> nanocrystalsbehave as semi-isolated particles and they do not share
> electrons.  As the separation between nanocrystals decreases, the
> researchers observe a transition from "classical coupling" (adjacent
> nanocrystals induce the movement of charge in each other and
> thereby transfer energy) to "quantum coupling" (nanocrystals begin
> to share electrons simultaneously and electrons delocalize, or cease
> to occupy a specific position in the material). (C. P. Collier et al,
> Science, 26 September 1997)
>