Engineers were able to create world's smallest FM radio transmitter using Graphene - the strongest material known to humans. Graphene is a special material which has taken the entire science community by storm. It's a crystalline form of carbon like diamond and graphite and is made up of a single atomic layer of carbon. The properties of the material and the characteristics it exhibits have led to several interesting applications. The material has electrical properties superior to Silicon - one of the most common material used on modern electronics.


Research engineers at the Columbia University led by professor of Mechanical Engineering, James Hone and professor of Electrical Engineering, Kenneth Shepard have used Graphene's mechanical properties and electrical conduction to create a tiny system that can emit FM radio waves. The researchers created Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) using Graphene. It's very easy to generate FM signals using VCO with a frequency of 100 Hz, which lies in the FM radio band - 87.7 - 100 MHz. The team tested their FM transmitter by transmitting audio from an iPhone and then receiving it with a regular FM transmitter.

The team however believes that it's still a long wait before these nano FM radio transmitters will replace the mainstream FM transmitters. But one of the big problems - of shrinking the FM signal generators of tiny size has been solved. The team's now working on shrinking the size of the transmitter even further.

There are no limits to human imagination & creativity. We wish all the best to the team.