Nanotech-Enabled Evolution of the Cell Phone

I used to tell my wife that I would be the last person in America to own a cell phone. I don’t like talking on the phone at all and don’t feel the need to be connected 24/7 to all the people that might want to talk to me. But I’m obviously in the minority.

Of course cell phones are not just phones anymore. Cell phones are evolving into complicated devices that may include the functions of a phone, a watch, a digital assistant, an MP3 player, a game player, a calculator, an internet access device, camera, an audio recorder and a credit card. Kids seem to have them implanted in their ear during their teen years as the first step toward their eventual transformation into full-time cyborgs.

The key to stuffing ever more functionality into something that must be pocket-sized is miniaturization of the individual components. And that’s one reason cell phone companies are interested in nanotechnology.

Jim O’Conner is a Motorola vice-president in charge of that company’s Early Stage Accelerator (ESA), a kind of in-company incubator for new technologies. Developing high tech in big companies is a cumbersome project involving a lot more bureaucracy than you would get in your average five person start-up. Since Motorola jettisoned its semiconductor division, the company is all about phones, so any new technology that the ESA considers must relate in some way to that all-important product.

How can nanotech improve the cell phone? O’Conner lists the following aspects of a cell phone where nanotech may play a role in its evolution:

Antennas
Acoustics
Coatings
Displays
Coatings
Paints
Batteries
Sensors/Actuators

That doesn’t seem to leave much out, does it? Nanomaterials and coatings will make cell phones cases stronger and more durable. Prototypes of carbon nanotube-based emissive displays have already been constructed. Nanotubes are also being used by Motorola to create a micro-fuel cell to replace batteries. MPhase Electronics is working with Bell Labs on a battery that uses silicon nanotubes. Nanotube transistors have also been used experimentally to make very sensitive antennas.

To O’Conner’s list one could also add polymer LEDS made with thin-film technology, which have already found their way into displays in consumer electronic devices. Adding functionality to the cell phone will also require the development of denser nonvolatile memories, which could be spintronic MRAM, nanotube-based NRAM or nanocrystalline silicon memories.