Category: Nanodot

Roland Piquepaille writes "In order to build ever smaller electronic circuits, the semiconductor industry will have some day to move from current lithography technologies to something different, such as molecular electronics. This new process is pioneered by a group of engineers at Northwestern University. They are using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to precisely align multiple types of molecules on a silicon surface at room temperature. Their nanofabrication process will soon lead to molecular transistors or light-emitting diodes. As this new process works at room temperature, this means it is possible to integrate it with current technologies. Putting it in another way, in some future, we'll still be able to look at the screens of our computers, but we'll not see the chips inside, even with a home microscope. Read more for more details and great pictures."

Ed. Note. I'm not sure they are going to be able to build "molecular transistors" out of the molecules they are using (styrene and TEMPO). I believe TEMPO is a spin trap so it might have some interesting electrical properties. But viable electronics applications are probably some distance into the future. On top of that there is no parallelism in STMs. One isn't going to get 50 million transistor chips anytime soon with a single tip STM.

BuffYoda writes "BERKELEY, CA — "Another important step towards realizing the promise of lightning fast photonic technology has been taken by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley. Researchers have demonstrated that semiconductor nanoribbons, single crystals measuring tens of hundreds of microns in length, but only a few hundred or less nanometers in width and thickness (about one ten-millionth of an inch), can serve as 'waveguides' for channeling and directing the movement of light through circuitry." An interesting (though by no means unexpected or revolutionary) development in photonics, a field I consider to be of great importance to the development of extremely fast computers (this route seems to be a lot closer than the alternatives)."

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David Bradley Science Writer writes "Chemists at Oxford University are on the verge of commercialising carbon nanotube technology according to the Reactive Reports chemistry news source. They have developed patented techniques for sorting and purifying nanotubes and are working with Oxford U's technology transfer wing, Isis Innovation, to bring the materials to market."

Anonymous Coward writes "The Southern California Linux Expo has announced plans to host a panel discussion on the future of open source and voice over IP technologies at SCALE 3x. SCALE 3x, the Third Annual Southern California Linux Expo is the premier grass roots Linux and Open Source conference." More…

molecool writes "Daily Science News reports that researchers at the NanoTech Institute at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) have been awarded a $750,000, 20-month grant to develop artificial muscles that convert chemical energy to mechanical energy. The award was made by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), whose charter is to develop new technologies for military applications. Well, DARPA was instrumental in creating the early Internet over 30 years ago, which evolved into what we all have come to take for granted for the last decade or so. Maybe we will take artifical muscles for granted 30 years from now?"

Ed. Note: I wonder if these are a first step towards Asimov's I Robot?

As pointed out by BetterHumans.com, the group led by Geoffrey Ozin have produced "Synthetic-Self-Propelled Nanorotors" (Abstract). They also have a number of other interesting nanoscale projects.

While this is still seems to be manufactured with "bulk" scale chemistry perhaps combined with other methods it seems to be approaching the stage (as is the case with the other several examples of human engineered molecular motors) of having a certian amount of "technology" at nanoscales (< 100 nm).

If someone has access to Chemical Communications perhaps they could comment on the exact dimensions of the nanorotors (in nm) and the methods by which they are assembled.

HLovy writes "
HoweStreet.com declares that "Robert A. Freitas Jr. is one of the best-known nano-scientists …" Well, not to take anything away from Freitas, but the fact that he has a better-recognized name among the general public than any other nanoscientist out there speaks volumes about how far nanotech researchers need to go before they're recognized outside their own circles… More…

gotjosh writes "The EU nanoforum reports that Japanese scientists have used nanowires to create atomic switches and demonstrate basic logic cuircuts! Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of the National Institute for Materials Science claims that their atomic scale switches will improve performance over today's mechanical semiconductor devices (possibly by several orders of magnitude depending on wire capacitance) . More information (such as the elecrolytes they used and that the researchers reported their work in /Nature/) is available here without a login."

As was pointed out in this article brought to our attention by Christine Peterson, Europe seems to be picking up the nanotech pace in a serious way.

We can divide the world up in terms of expertise. Perhaps the U.S. has the crown with inventiveness. But Europe has the Ariane (which still happens to be flying), Mercedes, Bentleys and Rolls (all of which are very good examples of fine engineering). The Asian collective has a unique ability to turn ideas into mass appeal products and make them affordable enough that they can sell millions.

[*Yes*, I am grossly generalizing here but please take it within the context of the conversation.]

So the question becomes — *who* will be the developers of and subsequently who will dominate the nanotech markets?