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Gaming the Future: The Book!

While atoms and fullerenes roll, Canada frets about NT competitiveness

from the World-Watch dept.
An article in the Toronto Star ("Atoms on a roll", by Rachel Ross, 18 February 2002) describes the "[s]teady but significant strides have made molecules called ëbuckyballsí a promising new tool in science, medicine and technology", covering work at the Canadian firm C Sixty, which hopes to create medical applications of fullerenes, as well as the work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Pennsylvania with carbon nanotubes packed with fullerene spheres. (See the Nanodot post from 3 January 2002.)

A second piece from the Toronto Star ("Keeping pace in research spending", by David Crane, 17 February 2002) is an editorial by the Starís economics editor, who says, " The [Canadian] federal government has launched Canada on a national debate on how to make our country one of the most innovative in the world. This is essential if we want to do well as a country in the 21st century." One of the areas in which Crane worries whether Canada can remain competitive is nanotechnology.

Canada is not the only country worrying about keeping up in the increasing global competition for nanotech leadership. Similar concerns have also been expressed in France and Japan.

Seoul researchers report buckytube

An article on the Small Times website ("South Koreans create building blocks for tiny, tailor-made nano-tranistors", by Peg Brickley, 27 February 2002) describes work by South Korean scientists at Seoul National University who packed nanotubes with tiny spherical fullerene molecules to create regions of varying semiconducting properties within each tube. The result is a hollow structure containing the equivalent of a series of tiny transistors far smaller than any now in existence, according to their research report that appeared in the 28 February 2002 issue of Nature.

This work takes a quick step toward practical application of results reported on 3 January 2002 by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Pennsylvania who discovered that carbon nanotubes packed with fullerene spheres, like so many peas in a pod, have tunable electronic properties.

Holographic control of atom lithography

A brief article on the Physical Review focus website ("Guiding Atoms with a Hologram", by J.R. Minkel, 21 February 2002) describes research into holographic control of atom lithography:

One approach to 3D patterning envisions steering atomic beams with a maze of laser light, but creating complicated light patterns isn't easy. Now a team reports in the 25 February print issue of Physical Review Letters that a so-called holographic crystal can efficiently generate more complex stencils for atoms. With a single incoming laser, the authors generated a three-beam interference pattern and etched a periodic design onto a gold surface. The method could theoretically accommodate 1000 beams and make intricate structures, such as photonic crystals–a new technology that may lead to "circuits of light."

Cryonics under fire in France

from the cold,-cold-world dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC is carrying a story about a couple in France whose frozen bodies may be thawed by local authorities. Cyronics have been outlawed there, and the official position is that burial or cremation are the only acceptable fates for the dead. The couple in question were apparently wealthy enough to have set up the necessary equipment on their own property, but even this does not guarantee their post-mortem privacy. While there are not too many details, it would appear that the husband placed his wife in a freezer in 1984 after she died of cancer, and he himself was placed in the freezer by his son when he recently died."

More from the venture capital world

A few more recent examples of the mounting interest in the business and investment community in the potential for nanotech as "the next big thing":

An brief segment in an article in the London-based Financial Times ("Will Silicon Valley become Nanotech Valley?", by Tom Forenski, 16 February 2002) quotes Tim Harper of CMP Cientifica, who, according to the article, says that "Although there are clusters of nanotechnology companies around certain universities . . . such clumping will eventually concentrate around sources of venture capital. And since Silicon Valley is the world's greatest concentration of venture capital, it could become an important seed bed for what will, at some point, be a massive industry."
brianwang sent notice of an extensive article in HBS Working Knowledge ("Big Things Ahead for Small Technology" by senior editor Martha Lagace, 18 February 2002), a publication of the Harvard Business School, that urges cautious interest: "Nanotechnology could be the next big investment thing–maybe. Experts say smart investors would be wise to dip their toes into tiny technology, but not jump straight into the pool just yet." The article quotes venture capitalists Josh Wolfe [of Lux Captial], Jason Friedman [of JP Morgan], and others, who spoke at Venture Capital and Private Investment conference on 3 February 2002 at Harvard Business School. The article concludes with a quote from Friedman: ìYou have to pick the spots and places where you think there are good companies. Is [nanotechnology] an interesting technology? Absolutely. Could it be the next big thing? Maybe.î

More on oscillating nanotubes

An article in Technology Research News ("Nudged nested nanotubes may oscillate", by Eric Smalley, 6 February 2002) provides additional details on the work by researchers who calculate that a group of concentric nanotubes nested inside an outer set of tubes can slide back and forth a billion times every second, as noted here on Nanodot on 22 January 2002. Such a gigahertz oscillator could be a major advance in nanotechnology that would enable applications such as ultra-fast optical filters and nano-antennae.

French RMNT attempts innovation by committee

from the well,-maybe dept.
An extensive article on the Small Times website ("French system ensures good research translates into marketable products", by Genevieve Oger, 21 February 2002) describes another French effort to centralize and bureaucratize technological innovation: the French National Network on Micro and Nanotechnology (RMNT in French), a system that (purportedly) "identifies and evaluates the most promising technologies, the ones most likely to end up on the market." According to the article,

Here is how it works. A research lab and a business must team up to work on a specific project. The public/private consortium can be made up of three or four entities, as long it includes a company interested in making the product if the research succeeds. The consortium then hands in a proposal to the 17-member RMNT orientation committee, made up of businesspeople and researchers.

Two members of the committee are put in charge of examining the proposal and drawing up an internal report in tandem with two experts chosen from the specific field. The committee, which is made up of members from around the country, meets in a central location three times a year to evaluate all the proposals. . . .

The RMNT works on a tiny budget. It does not directly fund micro and nanotechnology projects. Its job is to rate them and decide whether they are worth funding. The label of quality they stick to a proposal will allow the business-lab team to seek government funding either through the Ministry of Research or the Ministry of Economics and Industry. The goal is to have funding go to projects that have been evaluated and chosen by specialists rather than ministry staff, who may not have the same degree of expertise.

See this Nanodot post from 14 January 2002 for more info on the French effort to create a centralized technology incubation center at Minatec in Grenoble.

Zyvex profiled on Nanotech Planet

An article on the Nanotech Planet website ("Zyvex: Building Nanoscale Machines with Microscopic Engines", by Allen Bernard, 14 February 2002) profiles the steady progress Zyvex is making along a "top-down" pathway toward nanotechnology by attempting to create machines designed to build yet smaller machines that, in turn, build yet smaller machines that manipulate matter at the molecular level in the manner envisioned decades ago by Richard Feynman.

"We'll build the first machine by hand," Zyvex founder and CEO Jim Von Ehr told NanotechPlanet. "And that machine will build other machines … and each of those machines can be ganged together in parallel with other similar machines to build products or another generation of machines."

The strategy is being implemented with the help of a $12.5 million National Institute of Standards and Technology matching grant in October 2001 (see Nanodot post from 25 October 2001). "What we want to end up with after this five-year NIST program is reasonably parallel sub micron scale systems handling sub micron scale parts," Von Ehr said. "I want to be careful about nanoscale. We're not really trying to build with molecules in this program."

More on functional nanowire composites

More coverage of the work to create cylinder-shaped nanoscopic nanowire bundles that interweave substances with different compositions and properties (see Nanodot post from 2 February 2002). As a result, well-defined junctions and interfaces with potentially important functionalities were incorporated within individual nanowires. The alternating bands of different semiconductor materials in the super-thin wires serve as the electron and photon manipulators.

An item on the Technology Research News website: "Tiny wires turn chips inside out", by Eric Smalley, 13 February 2002.
An article in the online version of Science News: "Circuitry in a nanowire: Novel growth method may transform chips", by Peter Weiss, 9 February 2002

Nanotech Business Updates 26 Times a Year

from the caveat-emptor dept.
Marc Rothchild writes "Whether you are a company executive, investor, senior technologist, researcher, or entrepreneur, it is becoming increasingly timely and difficult to remain knowledgeable of all things `Nanotech'. To keep those that are interested on the pulse of the accelerating developments in the exciting Nanotechnology community, San Francisco Consulting Group has launched Nanotech Business Update (NBU), a periodic electronic mailing designed to inform, educate, and discuss Nanotechnology at least twice every month by getting reliable straight talk, news and insight without any hype or exaggeration. To receive this Update, please fill out the free submit form at http://www.sfcgcorp.com/sfcg2.htm or send an email to [email protected] with you Name, Company Name, Title, and email address"

Gaming the Future: The Book!

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