Nanodot: the original nanotechnology weblog

Dutch scientists have demonstrated controlling the motion of an atomic scale mechanical device, although whether more complex nanotech devices could be controlled by the mechanism at work here remains to be seen. Upon exposure to electrons from an STM tip, pairs of platinum atoms on a germanium surface can be made to pivot on one atom, swinging back and forth like a flipper on a pinball machine. From a Nanowerk Spotlight written by Michael Berger “Playing nanotechnology pinball in the atomic café“:

Functional nanomachinery will need to take into account the quantum effects that dominate the behavior of matter at the nanoscale, affecting the optical, electrical and magnetic behavior of materials.

Scientists in The Netherlands are now reporting how an atomic scale mechanical device consisting of two moving parts, each composed of only two atoms can be controlled by an external electrical signal, while being stable and providing a variety of functional modes. They jokingly refer to it as playing atomic pinball, since the two moving parts resemble the flippers in a pinball machine — unfortunately they haven’t got a ball yet to play with. Read the rest of this entry »

Nanotech methods for making very small electronic devices may benefit from a new ability to make block copolymers self-assemble into square arrays. From nanotechweb.org, written by Belle Dumé (requires free registration), “Self-assembly goes square-shaped“:

Researchers in the US are the first to use self-assembly to make highly-ordered square arrays from block copolymers. Each square measures about 20 nm and the team believes that the technique could someday be used to make extremely small electronic devices. Until now, block-copolymer self-assembly methods could only produce hexagonal-shaped arrays, which are not compatible with the industrial processes used to make integrated circuits.

Self-assembled square arrays are a major goal for researchers because the semiconductor industry’s circuit design, software and fabrication processes are all based on a rectilinear coordinate system. Although hexagonal patterns can now routinely be produced using conventional self-assembly techniques, adopting these shapes would mean rethinking semiconductor industry protocols, which would be very expensive and time-consuming. To this end, the Semiconductor Industry Association has set up a challenge to scientists working in the field of “block copolymer” lithography to develop square arrays of etchable block copolymer domain patterns.

…The new technique developed by a multidisciplinary team at the University of California, Santa Barbara … involves using an mixture or “alloy” of two different block copolymers that have an attractive hydrogen-bonding interaction with each other.

The research was published in Science [abstract].
—Jim

Nanotech applications using nanoparticles to deliver drugs in the body may have to add another dimension to their design considerations—different chemical surfaces covering a nanoparticle can attract different types of blood proteins to coat the nanoparticle, which might affect how the nanoparticle moves through the body and where it ends up. KurzweilAI.net points to this post by Bob Grant on The Scientist news blog (free registration required) “A new twist on nanoparticle behavior“:

Researchers hoping to develop nanoparticles as medicines or carriers of therapeutic molecules have much more to worry about than the type of material they plan on miniaturizing, according to a study in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science [abstract].

Researchers in Ireland found that the corona, or cloud of proteins and other biomolecules that adheres to a nanoparticle immersed in biological media (in this study human blood plasma), changes depending on the size of the nanoparticle and the charge on its surface. That, in turn, can affect the particles’ therapeutic action in the body. Read the rest of this entry »

DARPA and a Texas fund have awarded $9.7M to investigate one nanotech path toward atomically precise manufacturing. Christine Peterson passes along this Zyvex press release from PRnewswire “Zyvex-led Atomically Precise Manufacturing Consortium Receives Award From DARPA and the State of Texas Emerging Technology Fund“:

Zyvex Labs today announced the award of a $9.7M program funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Texas’ ETF (Emerging Technology Fund). The goal of this effort is to develop a new manufacturing technique that enables “Tip-Based Nanofabrication” to accelerate the transition of nanotechnology from the laboratory to commercial products. Starting with the construction of ‘one-at-a-time’ atomically precise silicon structures, the Consortium initially plans to develop atomically precise, ‘quantum dot’ nanotech-based products in volume at practical production rates and costs. Harnessing this capability will position the United States and Texas with the fundamental technology to develop next-generation quantum dot applications for military and commercial applications such as advanced communications, metrology, and quantum computers. The spin-off nanomanufacturing capabilities from that early application will result in revolutionary nanotech products in follow-on development. Read the rest of this entry »

Christine Peterson passes along this news from the quarterly update of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) as something worth considering: “Foresight members and Nanodot readers may wish to join this collaborative forecasting effort.” The IFTF announced their First Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Platform (MMFG):

MMFGs are collaborative, open-source simulations of imagined future scenarios. Designed to address real world problems by harnessing the wisdom of crowds, IFTF’s new MMFG platform launches with multiple games this fall that invite diverse global groups of people to contribute to futures research through games. Unlike predictions markets where answers fall within a finite range of outcomes, the Institute has created MMFGs to gain insight into situations where the outcome is unknown.

The first game in this series launched on October 6. Superstruct focuses on life in the year 2019.

Superstruct invites players to imagine life in 2019 and to document and record how they, their families, local communities, or extended social networks might respond to a catastrophic population collapse. Beginning today players can register at www.superstructgame.org. Six-weeks of global gameplay will begin on Monday, October 6, 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

A recently released poll shows that the American public is largely uniformed about both nanotechnology and synthetic biology, and furthermore that the level of public awareness about nanotechnology has not changed since 2004. Perhaps there is a need for an imaginative public education effort. From the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, via AAAS EurekAlert “Nanotech and synbio: Americans don’t know what’s coming“:

A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about the emerging field of synthetic biology, according to a new report released by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) and Peter D. Hart Research. Both technologies involve manipulating matter at an incredibly small scale to achieve something new.

This new insight into limited public awareness of emerging technologies comes as a major leadership change is about to take hold in the nation’s capital. Public policy experts are concerned, regardless of party, that the federal government is behind the curve in engaging citizens on the potential benefits and risks posed by technologies that could have a significant impact on society.

…the poll found that about half of adults say they have heard nothing at all about nanotechnology. About 50 percent of adults are too unsure about nanotechnology to make an initial judgment on the possible tradeoffs between benefits and risks. Of those people who are willing to make an initial judgment, they think benefits will outweigh risks by a three to one margin when compared to those who believe risks will outweigh benefits.

—Jim

The recent demonstration of the ability to “fully engineer the electronic band gap of graphene” is a major advance in the top-down approach to nanotech applications that take advantage of the many marvelous properties of graphene. From “STM cuts graphene to size,” nanotechweb.org, written by Belle Dumé (requires free registration):

Researchers in Hungary and Belgium have developed the most precise nanolithography technique ever. Levente Tapasztó of the Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science in Budapest and colleagues have already used the method, which employs the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope, to pattern tiny nanostructures (ribbons) into a graphene sheet. The technique makes it possible to build entire working circuits and avoids the disadvantages of “bottom up” methods that rely on assembling individual building blocks, such as carbon nanotubes.

We have realized truly nanometre precision lithography,” Tapasztó told nanotechweb.org. “This allows us to fabricate nanostructures with the desired atomic structure and therefore good electronic properties.”

The technique allows materials to be “cut” to the required shape and dimensions at the nanoscale. This is a huge step forward, says Tapasztó, because until now researchers had to rely on finding suitable blocks, like carbon nanotubes with the correct structure, to fabricate nanoscale electronic devices. Read the rest of this entry »

Objections have been raised against proposed nanotech systems composed of rigid mechanical parts because of the potential for friction to arise from van der Waals or Casimir forces between moving parts separated by only fractions of a nanometer. Now Swedish scientists have developed a computer program to calculate Casimir forces between various types of nanostructured materials, which may help to determine whether significant friction problems exist in specific designs. From “Calculating the Casimir force between nanoparticles” on nanotechweb.org, written by Belle Dumé (requires free registration):

A computer programme that measures the Casimir force between nanostructured particles has been invented by scientists in Sweden. The model might allow the Casimir force between such objects to be controlled, which will be useful for nanomechanical devices where the force is a source of friction.

The mysterious attraction between two neutral, conducting surfaces in a vacuum was first predicted in 1948 by Henrik Casimir and cannot be explained by classical physics. He said that two uncharged parallel metal plates would attract each other because there is a net pressure acting on the plates that pushes them together. This pressure comes from the vacuum itself, which is full of “virtual particles” that dart in and out of existence. The pressure between the plates is lower than that outside because the space here is confined and smaller than that outside. Read the rest of this entry »

The Japan Space Elevator Association will hold a conference on Nov.15-16, 2008 at Miraikan (Kotoh ward,Tokyo) to draw up a proposal and timeline for a space elevator to be made possible through nanotechnology. From the TimesOnline (via KurzweilAI.net), written by Leo Lewis, “Japan hopes to turn sci-fi into reality with elevator to the stars“:

…Now the finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. Man has so far conquered space by painfully and inefficiently blasting himself out of the atmosphere but the 21st century should bring a more leisurely ride to the final frontier.

For chemists, physicists, material scientists, astronauts and dreamers across the globe, the space elevator represents the most tantalising of concepts: cables stronger and lighter than any fibre yet woven, tethered to the ground and disappearing beyond the atmosphere to a satellite docking station in geosynchronous orbit above Earth.

Up and down the 22,000 mile-long (36,000km) cables — or flat ribbons — will run the elevator carriages, themselves requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention. Read the rest of this entry »

Christine Peterson passes along this press release from NANOART FESTIVAL-STUTTGART:

The 2nd International Festival for NanoArt organized by NanoArt21 (www.nanoart21.org) will be hosted in Stuttgart, Germany by NAHVISION Institute for International Culture Exchange, between November 1st and November 30th, 2008. The show is curated by artist/scientist Cris Orfescu (USA) and art professor Dorothea Fleiss (Germany).

…NanoArt is a new art discipline at the art-science-technology intersections. It features nanolandscapes (molecular and atomic landscapes which are natural structures of matter at molecular and atomic scales) and nanosculptures (structures created by scientists and artists by manipulating matter at molecular and atomic scales using chemical and physical processes). These structures are visualized with powerful research tools like scanning electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes and their scientific images are captured and further processed by using different artistic techniques to convert them into artworks showcased for large audiences. Read the rest of this entry »

Christine Peterson passes along this item from a recent (September 25, 2008) NanoBusiness Alliance Newsletter:

Insurer Excludes Nanotechnology from Policies

Beginning November 15, the Continental Western Insurance Group will no longer insure against bodily injury, property damage, or personal and advertising injury related to the actual, alleged, or threatened presence of or exposure to nanotubes or nanotechnology in any form.

We believe the decision to exclude “nanotubes and nanotechnology” was not well thought out. Treating nanotechnology as if it is monolithic makes no sense. A technology itself does not have risks and benefits — only the embodiments of the technology in the form of products do. Furthermore, the definitions were sufficiently broad that almost any business to be subject to the exclusion. This is the first exclusion. We hope that it will be reconsidered or pulled back altogether once the insurer understands the implications of the general purpose exclusion they created. But, we must also educate insurers so that they do not make ill informed policy like this in the future.

The insurance group cited the “as of yet, unknown and unknowable risks” created by nanotubes and nanotechnology in general, and pointed to recent reports of health risks raising concerns about similarities between certain types of multiwalled carbon nanotubes and asbestos fibers. Continental Western is believed to be the first insurer to exclude nanotubes and nanotechnology from its insurance policies.

—Jim

An announcement of an open position from the Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility:

Successful candidates will have a Ph.D. in communication, science and technology studies, or closely aligned social scientific field. Research experience and knowledge of social and ethical issues of science, preferably nanotechnology, is preferred.

For the complete announcement: Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most subtle yet important ways of regulating the expression of genes is the addition or removal of methyl groups at specific positions on a DNA sequence. A nanotech method using quantum dots provides greatly increased sensitivity in the detection of methylated DNA, and may therefore aid in cancer diagnosis and in monitoring the effect of cancer therapies. From the American Association for Cancer Research, via AAAS EurekAlert “Scientists develop new, more sensitive nanotechnology test for chemical DNA modifications“:

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have developed a novel test to screen for chemical modifications to DNA known as methylation. The technology potentially could be used both for early cancer diagnoses and for assessing patients’ response to cancer therapies.

During methylation, healthy genes can be switched on or off potentially causing cancer without any changes in the underlying DNA sequence. The current methods for methylation screening, have significant drawbacks, explains lead study author Vasudev Bailey, a biomedical engineering Ph.D. candidate at Hopkins.

Methylation specific PCR, which copies specific DNA sequences millions of times within a few hours, may not be sensitive enough to detect small amounts of methylation, and real time PCR, which allows scientists to view increases in the amount of DNA as it is copied, needs to be run several times and can be expensive, he says. Read the rest of this entry »

The Convergence08 conference (www.convergence08.org) on Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno (NBIC) technologies and their interactions will be held November 15-16, 2008 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The event will use an innovative “unconference” format to enable participants to customize the event in a highly interactive way.

Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster with over two decades experience exploring long-term technological change and its practical impact on business and society, will keynote the event. About Convergence08 he observed, “A host of technologies that seemed like daring science fiction just a few years ago are racing toward practical application with breathtaking speed. Convergence08 is a unique opportunity to look into the coming NBIC future, examine its implications and prepare for the vast surprises in store for us all.”

Both days feature debates on controversial NBIC topics including Synthetic Biology, Longevity, and Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Barney Pell, founder of Powerset and search strategist & evangelist at Microsoft, stated, “At this event we aim to use the power of collective intelligence to see farther along the convergence trajectories — each of the NBIC technologies is transformative on its own, and there’s a strong interplay among them.” Read the rest of this entry »

Chemically modified graphene has found in manganese oxide nanoflower/carbon nanotube array a rival nanotech material to improve energy storage using ultracapacitors. From “Nanoflowers Improve Ultracapacitors: A novel design could boost energy storage“, and article in Technology Review written by Prachi Patel-Predd and found via KurzweilAI.net:

Imagine a cell-phone battery that recharges in a few seconds and that you would never have to replace. That’s the promise of energy-storage devices known as ultracapacitors, but at present, they can store only about 5 percent as much energy as lithium-ion batteries. An advance by researchers at the Research Institute of Chemical Defense, in China, could boost ultracapacitors’ ability to store energy.

A capacitor consists of two electrodes with opposite charges, often separated by an insulator that keeps electrons from jumping directly between them. The researchers have developed an electrode that can store twice as much charge as the activated-carbon electrodes used in current ultracapacitors. The new electrode contains flower-shaped manganese oxide nanoparticles deposited on vertically grown carbon nanotubes. Read the rest of this entry »

Can Open source methodology, with its promise of spreading benefits through new varieties of intellectual property, and which has played a major role in software development, also play a role in nanotech development? At least one MIT researcher, Stephen Steiner, thinks so. He is working on a web site for “open source nanotech”. Among other content, software he wrote for controlling nanotube furnaces would be available for download. The following article includes a link to a video from a BBC documentary that shows Steiner showing Michio Kaku how to grow carbon nanotubes. From “Making Nanomaterials Better, Faster And More Accessible” on Wired Science, from Wired.com, written by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides”

Stephen Steiner wants to make nanotechnology more accessible to speed up the innovation process.

The inclination to think big goes back to Steiner’s teenage years when he vowed to never drive a car as motivation to solve the world’s energy problem. Now 26, he is a graduate student at MIT working to bring the world next-generation nanomaterials, like nanotubes that can make airplane wires lighter than copper, carbon aerogels that use electrolysis to pull hydrogen from water, and as announced yesterday, nanoparticles that can make super high density batteries. Read the rest of this entry »

A new nanotechnology journal titled Nano Research published by Tsinghua/Springer is now available at http://www.thenanoresearch.com/. The journal is published monthly, and will be open-access in 2008 and 2009. The Editors-in-Chief are Hongjie Dai, Stanford University, USA, and Qikun Xue, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. A glance at the Editorial Board reveals many researchers frequently cited in Nanodot posts. Three issues are available so far and each includes one review article and nine research reports. In a quick glance, I found all three review articles worth looking at, and the research articles look quite good too. The review articles spanned topics often mentioned here on Nanodot and can be downloaded as PDF files:
Energy harvesting for self-powered nanosystems
Bioconjugated silica nanoparticles: development and applications
A DNA-based approach to the carbon nanotube sorting problem

—Jim

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers is offering a free webinar on “Today’s Pioneering Nanotechnology Companies: The Race for a Trillion Dollar Market“, presented by Foresight Senior Associate Tihamer “Tee” Toth-Fejel.

Today’s Pioneering Nanotechnology Companies:
The Race for a Trillion Dollar Market
A popular feature of SME’s annual NanoManufacturing Conference, now brought to you as a webinar!

October 8, 2008
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT

We can now buy over 800 products that incorporate nanotechnology, and that number will undoubtedly grow by the time this presentation is given. The U.S. government’s National Science Foundation estimates that within a decade, the total market impacts of nanotechnology will reach a trillion dollars. This market includes nanostructured materials ($340 billion), semiconductors and integrated circuits ($300 billion), pharmaceuticals ($180 billion), nanostructured catalysts ($100 billion) and nanotechnology-enabled aerospace products ($70 billion). But NSF did not even consider the cosmetics, agriculture, textiles, non-aerospace defense, and non-pharma medical. So their projections may be much to low–by a factor of two and a half (according to Lux Research). Read the rest of this entry »

Planning to attend the National Nano Engineering Conference 2008, America’s premier nano engineering conference, November 12-13, 2008, at The Colonnade Hotel, Boston, MA? Nanodot readers can save $100 using discount code: VIP (Discount not applicable to one-day passes) when registering at http://nasatech.com/nano/register.html.

The National Nano Engineering Conference 2008 (NNEC) is the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology.

Presentations on new technologies and their commercial applications in the following disciplines:

• Advanced Materials
• Bio/Medicine
• Electronics
• Energy & Environmental
• Aerospace & Defense

—Jim

On the Editor’s Page at Medical DeviceLinkCom, Shana Leonard writes about the crucial need for design and modeling techniques to guide nanosystems development toward fabrication, and cites the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems. From “A Different Kind of Intelligent Design”

Drawing from numerous workshops held from 2005 to 2007, Battelle (Columbus, OH) and the Foresight Nanotech Institute (Menlo Park, CA) jointly released “Productive Nanosystems: A Technology Roadmap” in January. Intended to provide a common vocabulary and vision for atomically precise (AP) manufacturing technologies and productive nanosystems, the extensive document underscores the importance of creating modeling and design software for AP nanosystem development.

Identifying design software as a potential bottleneck for AP nanosystem development, the roadmap suggests the support of multiscale modeling and research targeted at the requirements needed to support CAD software for AP nanosystems. “Nanoscience and nanotechnology are on the verge of tremendous advances in modeling and design that originate in macroscale engineering, chemistry, and computer science. The modeling and design infrastructure that has developed around macroscale engineering, including computer-aided design–based mechanical and electrical engineering, provides a solid foundation of protocols and design interfaces that are now being extended to software for molecular modeling and design,” the roadmap states. Read the rest of this entry »