Carbon Nanotube-Based Nanomechanical Receiver for Digital Data Transfer

The evolution of carbon nanomaterials can provide tremendous advantages in sensing, computation, and functional materials. A carbon nanotube (CNT) has outstanding thermal and electrical conductivity features and is one of the most promising nanoscale carbon materials. It has a hardness of up to 1 TPa. Exploiting these features, nanomechanical systems with CNTs have been reported to achieve ultrasensitive sensors for mass, force, and electromagnetic waves owing to their outstanding elastic and electric properties. Some research groups have attempted to achieve digital data transfer in potential nanoscale wireless terminals with carbon nanomaterials. Although conceptual demonstrations have been reported, the fundamental capability of the transfer, particularly in the presence of noise, is yet to be explained. Here, we experimentally demonstrate for the first time that an ultrasmall digital receiver with a nanomechanical nanoantenna can transfer a vast amount of digital data, up to 1 Mbit, even in the presence of noise. We successfully transfer a digital image data with 393 216 bits. This demonstration proves that the data-transfer capability is close to the theoretical limit established in information theory and channel capacity. This small but robust nanomechanical receiver will contribute to the forthcoming data-oriented age of Internet of things (IoT)- and artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems.

Automated summary

The evolution of carbon nanomaterials offers significant advantages in sensing, computation, and functional materials. Carbon nanotubes, with outstanding thermal and electrical conductivity features, have been explored for ultrasensitive sensors. While some research groups have attempted digital data transfer using carbon nanomaterials, challenges remain in understanding the fundamental capabilities in the presence of noise.