Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Lucent, Rogers Look to Nano for Innovation Even though Lucent Technologies' recent bad news could spell trouble for its famous R&D facility, Bell Labs' Nanotechnology Research Director John A. Rogers is hopeful his people and projects will escape the budget axe. . . . Also, since Bell Labs is the heart of innovation for the company and nanotechnology is enabling the creation of innovative, novel products already hitting the market, this should somewhat offset shrinking budgets. "There's real support all the way up to the very highest levels of Lucent for strong robust basic and application research in nanotechnology; that's absolutely clear," Rogers told Nanoelectronics Planet. . . . "Research frontiers are probably more in the molecular electronics area rather than plastic electronics," he said. "We're just scratching the surface of what's possible there." 10:41:44 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Monday, October 14, 2002

Nanotubes hang tough By sandwiching tiny but super-tough carbon nanotubes between layers of polymer, researchers have created a revolutionary material that is six times stronger than conventional carbon-fibre composites and as hard as some ultrahard ceramic materials used in engineering1. . . . The final composites contain 50% nanotubes. Tests indicate that they are about as strong as materials such as silicon carbide and tantalum carbide, which are used to make super-strong components for cutting-tools, jet engines and aerospace applications. Though laborious, the dipping method is cheap-so it wouldn't be hard to do on an industrial scale. But carbon nanotubes are still expensive to produce, and several teams are looking for production methods that would be viable on a commercial scale. 12:31:30 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Friday, August 23, 2002

Better carbon nanotube transistors Briefly, the first nanotube FET, reported in 1998, produced very poor performance so that it could not amplify a signal nor control a second transistor, and thus these FETs could not be integrated into circuits. A new layout for a carbon nanotube FET recently reported by Avouris's group at IBM remedies these problems by "making the resistance much more sensitive to variations in the gate voltage." Various other improvements have been reported by Avouris's group and by several other groups. The most serious remaining problems that prevent manufacture of carbon nanotube circuits are that "it is still impossible to control the electrical properties of synthesized nanotubes," and that it is not yet possible to place "the tubes in predetermined positions during device fabrication." 9:47:36 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Saturday, July 20, 2002

Second law of thermodynamics "broken" One of the most fundamental rules of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, has for the first time been shown not to hold for microscopic systems. The demonstration, by chemical physicists in Australia, could place a fundamental limit on miniaturisation, because it suggests that the micro-scale devices envisaged by nanotechnologists will not behave like simple scaled-down versions of their larger counterparts - they could sometimes run backwards. 1:23:28 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Nanotechnology may be over- hyped Nanotechnology, which is the design and manufacture of extremely small electronic circuits and mechanical devices built at the molecular level of matter, has been touted as an emerging sector for some time now, but a white paper published on Thursday has said that the technology is over- hyped and a long way from delivering on its full potential. According to the report, which was published by investment firm 3i in association with the Economist Intelligence Unit and the UK-based Institute of Nanotechnology, nanotechnology is at the heart of applications that are making money, but it has not made the impact it should have in areas such as pharmaceuticals, clothing and artificial bone. 12:16:10 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Saturday, May 25, 2002

New Material Could Form Basis for Novel Electronic Devices "Now scientists have succeeded in making a material that goes one step further and exhibits bistability involving three physical properties. The findings, published today in the journal Science, could lead to the development of new types of electronic devices. " "Robert Haddon and his colleagues at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University of California at Riverside manufactured the organic material hoping it would have novel conductivity properties. But when they began testing the compound, they uncovered its hidden talents. "When our material switches between states, it switches the conductivity, the amount of light transmitted, and the magnetism," Haddon explains. "Our material, as far as we know, is the first organic compound that combines all three." According to the report, the changes occur at around 62 degrees Celsius, which is higher than the room temperature requirement for potential applications." 10:19:09 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Tiny Triumph for Science Light and a Single Molecule Are Combined to Make a Machine "Scientists have for the first time used the power of light to create mechanical energy for a microdevice, making a single molecule of plastic drive a tiny machine." "The experiment could have important implications for the field of nanotechnology, which seeks to miniaturize machines and mechanisms to an atomic or molecular scale. 'We know [the machine] works pretty well,' said researcher Hermann E. Gaub. 'Miniaturization drives progress.'" 8:36:57 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Nanotech's Teeny Tiny Truth The Nanobiz Will Be Huge, Vcs Say. But Should They Even Be In The Game? "The drop-off was stomach-churning. In 2000, venture capitalists poured $100 billion into startups. Last year, they couldn't even reach $40 billion. So forgive them for latching onto nanotech as the uptrend. Headlines like 'NANOTECHNOLOGY WINS OVER MAINSTREAM VENTURE CAPITALISTS' and 'THE NEXT BIG THING IS VERY SMALL' are getting hard to avoid. Nano conferences are weekly events, crowded with VCs amped up about self-assembling machines and nanobots in your bloodstream." "But what's really going on? While venture capitalists are happy to hype nanotech, they aren't exactly rushing in where angel investors fear to tread. Of the $5.6 billion put up by private capital sources in the first three months of this year, only $42 million went to very small tech, according to Steve Glapa, president of In Realis, a market consulting firm in Milpitas, California. Even putting all of these investments under the 'nanotech' umbrella is a stretch. Advanced chemistry and materials science are more like it." 8:19:35 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

IBM Carries On With Its Nanotechnology Legacy "Whether they are in the East or West, government, researchers and corporations seem mesmerized with the promises nanotechnology hold for almost every industry; "from life sciences, consumer goods, telecom, defense, transportation, environmental science and topping the list is IT," said Tom Theis, director of Physical Science at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center." 9:52:23 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Friday, May 03, 2002

What’s the purpose of life? Nanotechnology might provide the answer. "The first two decades of the 21st century will be the golden age of biotechnology, featuring tissue engineering, the immortalization of cells and organs using telomeres, rational drug design, simulations replacing animal testing, and the repair of genetic defects." "The third and fourth decades will be the golden age of bionanotechnology, in which biology and nanotechnology will meld. 'Nanotech is behind biotech, but consider the law of accelerating returns. We will make progress equivalent to that of the whole 20th century in the next 15 years,' Kurzweil predicts." "'Progress in the 21st century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of progress." "Because it is the nature of the nonbiological intelligence to grow exponentially, it will eventually dominate." 2005/01/01 2:48:11 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Nanotech's boosters are getting ahead of themselves "If indeed $1 billion is poured into nanotech and the majority of it is dispersed as first-round investments of, say, $5 million, that would mean 200 new businesses would get funded this year--nearly 4 per week. VCs typically fund 1 out of 100 business plans they read. But let's say VCs are falling over themselves to fund nanotech to the tune of 1 out of 20. Does anybody really believe that there will be 4,000 nanotech business plans forthcoming this year?" " . . . nanotech boosters are getting ahead of themselves. 'There appears to be a slight disconnect right now between the projections and the reality of nanotech . . . You can only define market research when you can define the market. We're not there yet with nanotech. It's a joke to predict market size until then; you can't just aggregate, or you get these wildly inflated estimates that in the end will not help the field.'" 3:06:47 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Saturday, April 20, 2002

On Certain Aspects of Utility Fog "Using nanotechnology, we can design fully intelligent polymorphic materialthat consists, like your body, of trillions of microscopic machines. Likeyour cells, each machine will have a substantial local program and informationstorage, but will act in accordance with patterns of global information.Unlike your cells, they will be more quickly and more widely reprogrammable,adopt a wider array of functions, and look like spiders rather than jellyfish." The Utility Fog "The particular scheme for intelligent material I'm describinghere is called Utility Fog. . . . Utility Fog consists of a massof tiny robots." 2:31:15 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Sunday, April 14, 2002

Microscopy turning Nanoscopy " . . . the scanning tunneling microscope as well as the atomic force microscope. Today, these microscopes have an extremely high performance and a high enough resolution to display features on a molecular level. Such microscopes tend have one crucial drawback however, insofar as they are usually limited to viewing the surface of a specimen or to viewing a very thin layer. It is due to this fact that light microscopes have remained indispensable in biological and medical research. Not only do they provide three-dimensional images of live cells, they can also map out biochemical processes inside the cell." "Fluorescence microscopy permits us to target as well as to mark specific sub-cellular components with dyes. After exposing them to light, they fluoresce, thereby disclosing their exact location to us." "This advance for the first time allowed resolutions well below 50 nm- something almost inconceivable for a light microscope using conventional objectives and focused light. . . . Dyba and Hell's pioneering experiment shows for the first time that it is indeed possible to increase the focus into the double-digit nanometer range." ... [more] 12:43:26 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Drexler declares nanotechnology victory "Defining his discussion of 'mega-nanotechnology,' Drexler said the ability to rearrange matter within the bounds of natural physics promised the ability to create a number of profoundly disruptive technologies in the future." " . . . he characterized the 'revolution' of Web services as not being about so much the reality of tools and services, but one of conceptual thinking that Web services will happen. 'And that revolution in thinking is happening right now,' he said." ... [more] 12:35:32 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Thursday, March 21, 2002

A New World Is Born 03.14.02, 7:00 AM ET " . . . the technology revolution is just getting started. Looming just ahead is what may well be its most exciting phase--nanotechnology. This will be bigger than the Internet and more far-reaching. It will create vast new wealth. It will destroy a lot of old wealth. And it will shake up just about every business on the planet."  ... [more] 9:23:15 AM  Google It!  comment  []

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

NANOTECHNOLOGY'S POTENTIAL NEEDS DECADES OF WORK BEFORE IT'S REALIZED, EXPERT PANEL SAYS "What should you expect from nanotechnology? Not much in the short run, a panel of nanotechnology leaders said Monday. Nanotechnology probably has decades to go before promise becomes product; but if and when it does, the impact could be staggering, they said."  ... [more] 3:38:41 PM  Google It!  comment  []

Thursday, March 07, 2002

Jan. 22, 2001 Atomic Force Microscopy Researchers map the topography of biological macromolecules "Researchers use atomic force microscopy (AFM) to literally map the surface of inert and biological samples to obtain three-dimensional images." "AFM is just one of a number of novel microscopy technologies collectively known as scanning probe microscopy (SPM). In principle, all SPM technologies are based on the interaction between a submicroscopic probe and the surface of some material. What differentiates SPM technologies is the nature of the interaction and the means by which the interaction is monitored.[:] electrostatic force microscopy magnetic force microscopy lateral force microscopy scanning tunneling microscopy atomic force microscopy (AFM) ... AFM can be carried out in ambient air or in a liquid environment, a critical feature for biological research. "Nanolithography, a technique in which the probe exerts sufficient force on the sample to move individual atoms ... " "The basic atomic force microscope is composed of a stylus-cantilever probe attached to the probe stage, a laser focused on the cantilever, a photodiode sensor (recording light reflected from the cantilever), a digital translator-recorder, and a data processor and monitor." " ... AFM, also known as scanning force microscopy ... gained acceptance in biological research, where it has been used to study a broad range of biological questions ... " "AFM is unlike other SPM technologies in that the probe makes physical, albeit gentle, contact with the sample. ... As the probe is dragged across the sample, the stylus moves up and down in response to surface features. This vertical movement is reflected in the bending of the cantilever, which is measured as changes in the light intensity from a laser beam bouncing off the cantilever and recorded by a photodiode sensor. The data from the photodiode is translated into digital form and processed by specialized software on a computer, then visualized as a three-dimensional topological image." " ... a new intermittent-contact ("tapping mode") scanning method was developed. In this mode, the probe is made to vibrate and literally taps along the surface of sample, minimizing or eliminating any damage to the specimen. Another improvement in AFM technology is the introduction of the noncontact scanning mode ... " "The magnification power achieved by atomic force microscopes rivals that of transmission and scanning electron microscopes (TEM and SEM, respectively). Atomic force microscopes also are capable of a wide field of view (similar to SEM) and extreme vertical resolution (like TEM). ... AFM has a Z-height resolution of 0.5 nm ... the typical globular protein diameter is approximately 3 nm or greater, AFM has the ability to rapidly detect protein-protein interactions without labeling." ... [more] 1:55:04 PM    comment  []

Tuesday, March 05, 2002

PROFILE Nanotech Dreams "Increased federal spending, new technologies, and savvy researchers combine to harness the power of thinking small" "'It's a field that focuses on a scale rather than on a material. So it affects everything.'" "'I look at the things that can't be done for 20 years as a vision ... we have to do all the things that are necessary to get up to that point'" "atomic force microscope (AFM)" ... [more re AFM] " ... nanoparticles could potentially advance applications, such as filtration, that depend on surface chemistry" ... [more] 10:38:21 AM    comment  []

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Glowing nanobots map microscopic surfaces. "Unleashing hordes of molecular robots to explore a surface's terrain can produce maps of microscopic structures and devices with higher resolutions than those produced by conventional microscopes ... " ... [more] 11:06:15 AM    comment  []

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

And now for the nanobubble? " ... the related field of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). MEMS is an incremental change, taking what works today and making it much smaller. ... MEMS devices can be much more efficient and reliable ... and far cheaper ... " "Nanotechnology approaches the problem from the bottom up, and its potential is vast even though it's still much more of a dream than a reality. Nanotech is about radical change." ... [more] 4:09:17 PM    comment  []

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Is small the next big thing? "Nanotech, biotech and infotech will converge ... " " ... the government, tech titans and venture capitalists are pouring money into the field" " ... the nanotech race is not a sprint; it's a marathon" " ... Is small the next big thing?" "In the next two to three years ... to start creating commercial products" " According to Merrill Lynch, start-ups to watch include Coatue, Molecular Electronics, Nanosphere, ZettaCore and Zyvex." "The downside is that bandwagons tip over"  ... [more] 2004.02.12 1:31:44 PM    comment  []

Monday, February 11, 2002

Is small the next big thing? [c|net] 1:53:08 PM    comment  []

Thursday, February 07, 2002

NANOTECH HEADED FOR HISTORY'S DUSTBIN UNLESS IT CUTS THE HYPE, PANELISTS WARN 11:32:02 AM    comment  []

Right now the lead horse in the RF MEMS race appears to be MEMSCAP, a public company of about 200 people based in Grenoble, France, and San Jose, Calif. Didier Lacroix, general manager of MEMSCAP's RF MEMS unit, says the company is developing MEMS components for wireless devices. ... [more] 9:13:11 AM    comment  []

Monday, February 04, 2002

Bush Administration has requested a total of $679 million for the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a 17 percent increase over FY2002. "The budget provides $679 million for the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative, a 17 percent increase over 2002. The initiative focuses on long-term research on the manipulation of matter down to the atomic and molecular levels, giving us unprecedented building blocks for new classes of devices as small as molecules and machines as small as human cells. This research could lead to continued improvement in electronics for information technology; higher-performance, lower-maintenance materials for defense, transportation, space, and environmental applications; and accelerated biotechnical applications in medicine, healthcare, and agriculture. In 2003, the initiative will focus on fundamental nanoscale research through investments in investigator-led activities, centers and networks of excellence, as well as the supporting infrastructure. Priority areas include: research to enable efficient nanoscale manufacturing; innovative nanotechnology solutions for detection of and protection from biological-chemical-radiological-explosive agents; the education and training of a new generation or workers for future industries; and partnerships and other policies to enhance industrial participation in the nanotechnology revolution. The convergence of nanotechnology with information technology, modern biology and social sciences will reinvigorate discoveries and innovation in many areas of the economy." 2:35:18 PM    comment  []

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Nanotube cylinders make computer circuits. "The grids practically build themselves." "This proof of principle raises hopes that a nanotube lattice could form a computer memory, storing one bit of information at each junction. Being so small, such a circuit could potentially furnish a random- access memory with a storage density around 100,000 times greater than that of a Pentium chip." 12:48:04 PM    comment  []

Venture capitalist Josh Wolfe is profiled in Red Herring Magazine. 12:27:37 PM    comment  []

Monday, January 28, 2002

Nanotechnology industry's real economic petential is likely to be clearly defined in the next three to five years. (quote from article) 2004.01.01 2005.01.01 4:21:51 PM    comment  []

Nanotech and venture capitalists. Discussion suggesting nanotech as the next big economic growth area, but cautions regarding creating a bubble. Says "most industry reveunues are now generated by ... microscopy - the fundamental tool of the nanotech industry. Cautions that "nano mania may just take the place of the now-receding dot-com craze. What VC's bet on: funding hard-core technologies protected by patents and that address vast markets. Waiting for more mature companies with their intellectual property patented and with good management teams. 3:56:09 PM    comment  []

Key tool in nanotechnology (as of 1.28.02) is the scanning tunnelling microscope. 3:45:42 PM    comment  []

Overview of the nanotechnology field from the National Post (Toronto, Canada). Suggests avoiding "nanomania." 3:42:03 PM    comment  []