Master Theses and Student Projects

Low Complexity Communication for Nanoscale Devices

The ongoing technological advancement in nanoengineering has led to the proposal of many future applications of systems at the nanoscale. These systems inherently have limited complexity as well as a very small operating range in which they interact with their environment. To make the execution of sophisticated tasks possible, cooperative behavior between many individual nanodevices may be necessary. The key to achieve this is enabling the communication among the devices.

For the study of communication mechanisms for nanosystems, we need to take into account the severe limitations in terms of complexity as well as available power. A possible relaxation to these challenges lies in the exploitation of novel materials and phenomena encountered at the submicrometer range. For instance, it has been demonstrated that the reception and demodulation of an electromagnetic signal is possible using the electromechanic resonance of a single carbon nanotube [1].

Single carbon nanotube radio [1].

In devising advanced communication mechanisms for nanodevices, several aspects such as medium access, modulation schemes, power supply, frequency range or the computational complexity of the node have a substantial impact on possible implementations of the communication system and therefore need to be considered jointly.

For further information please contact Eric Slottke.

[1] Jensen, K., Weldon, J., Garcia, & H. Zettl, A., Nanotube radio. Nano Lett. 7, 3508–3511 (2007).

[2] I. F. Akyildiz and J. M. Jornet, Electromagnetic Wireless Nanosensor Networks. Nano Communication Networks (Elsevier) J., vol. 1, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 3–19.