Nanotechnology Spotlight – Latest Articles

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Nano-welding facilitates bottom-up nanotechnology fabrication

nanoweldingCivilization as we know it would, literally, fall apart without techniques to join materials together. With its historic development tracing back to the Bronze Age, welding has been one of the key technologies that serves modern industry in broad areas such as construction, manufacturing, and engineering. As we have reported in a previous Nanotechnology Spotlight, this Bronze Age technique could prove very useful in building complex nanostructures. Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the UK have now demonstrated the ability to reliably weld individual nanowires and nanoobjects into complex geometries with controllable junctions. This represents a significant breakthrough for the current and future bottom-up localized assembly, integration, and repair of micro- and nanodevices.

Jan 12th, 2009

Self-healing protection for plastic electronics

healing_nanocrackThe performance of devices like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), flexible solar cells, or plastic electronics is sensitive to moisture because water and oxygen molecules seep past the protective plastic layer over time and degrade the organic materials which form the core of these products. To protect these sensitive devices, barrier technologies have been developed that protect them from environmental degradation. State-of-the-art barrier materials employ metal oxide thin films, commonly from aluminum or silicon oxides, which provide excellent protection from atmospheric oxygen and water, but still suffer from problems. A new study demonstrates a nanocomposite material that can initiate self-healing upon the influx of water through pores and cracks by delivering titanium dioxide nanoparticles to the defective site, which ultimately slows the rate of moisture diffusion to the reactive electronic device.

Dec 9th, 2008

Nanotechnology spiderman gloves

spidermanScientists are intensely researching how animals like spiders and geckos generate the high adhesion force that allows them to cling to walls and walk on ceilings, feet over their head. While this research so far has focused on novel materials like carbon nanotubes to replicate spider feet and gecko toes, a key challenge for materials engineers is the scaling up of such materials from small animals to, say, spiderman gloves that support a fully grown human. Complementing the ongoing gecko biomimetic materials research, Nicola M. Pugno, an Associate Professor of Structural Mechanics at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, has developed what he termed Adhesive Optimization Laws.

Dec 3rd, 2008

Artificial nano swimmers

nanoswimmerAdvances in micro- and nanoscale engineering have led to various mobile devices that either can move on solids or swim in fluids. Researchers are applying various strategies to designing nanoscale propulsion systems by either using or copying biological systems such as the flagellar motors of bacteria or by employing various chemical reactions. Many of these approaches are fairly complex and not necessarily suited for large-scale deployment in practical applications. Scientists have theorized about simpler designs for mechanical swimmers that avoid the complexities of biological mechanisms and use very few degrees of freedom. Researchers in Spain have now demonstrated the experimental realization of a simple device made by microscopic colloidal particles which can be externally controlled and propelled at low Reynolds number condition, i.e. when the viscosity of the fluid dominates over the inertia of the object. This is the same condition that governs the motion of bacteria such as E. Coli or other micro- or nanoscale objects that move in a fluid.

Dec 1st, 2008

Nanotechnology gets a grip

nanogripperNanotechnology researchers are actively working on the beginnings of various nanorobotic systems that one day could lead to automated, assembly-line type nanofabrication processes. Last year we reported on a nanogripper, a kind of a robotic 'hand' some ten thousand times smaller than a human hand. This 'pick-and-place' device used a silicon gripper which was controlled by a nanorobotic arm and was capable of picking up a carbon nanofiber and fix it onto the tip of an atomic force microscope cantilever. One of the problems that is vexing researchers is that the nanoscale miniaturization of these grippers comes at the cost of reduced strength - the smaller the gripper, the weaker it becomes. Therefore what is needed is a gripper design that is strong enough yet sufficient flexible and small to handle tough materials like carbon nanotubes.

Nov 26th, 2008

Nanotechnology scales weigh atoms with carbon nanotubes

nano_scaleShrinking device size to nanometer dimensions presents many fascinating opportunities such as manipulating nano objects with nanotools, measuring mass in attogram ranges, sensing forces at femtonewton scales, and inducing gigahertz motion, among other new possibilities waiting to be discovered. The two principal components common to most electromechanical systems irrespective of scale are a mechanical element and transducers. The mechanical element either deflects or vibrates in response to an applied force. Depending on their type, the mechanical elements can be used to sense static or time-varying forces. The transducers in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) convert mechanical energy into electrical or optical signals and vice versa. A Spanish team has now demonstrated an ultrasensitive carbon nanotube based mass sensor in which they measured chromium atoms with a mass resolution of only 1.4 zeptograms.

Nov 18th, 2008

Boron nanowires shape up to be excellent field emission nanomaterials

boron_nanowiresNanostructured boron and boron-related compounds have attracted considerable scientific attention to exploit their potential use in high temperature electronics, thermoelectrics, and photovoltaics due to their unique chemical and physical properties, such as chemical inertness, hardness, and adjustable energy bandgap. Boron's theoretical tubular structures may even have higher electrical conductivity than carbon nanotubes (CNTs). So far, carbon nanotubes have been considered the most promising material for field emitters, for instance as electron emitters for field emission displays. Field emission results from the tunneling of electrons from a metal tip into vacuum, under application of a strong electric field. The small diameter and high aspect ratio of CNTs is very favorable for field emission. Due to the still existing difficulties of synthesizing CNTs with uniform chirality, a number of technical questions - such as stability, low melting point and uniformity of field emission - remain to be overcome. So scientists still looking to find other ideal candidates. New experiments conducted by scientists in China suggest that boron nanowires might fit the bill.

Oct 29th, 2008

Moth eyes inspire self-cleaning antireflection nanotechnology coatings

moth_eye_structureAntireflection coatings have become one of the key issues for mass production of silicon solar cells. Silicon solar cells are the most common solar cells on the market today. They are constructed with layers of n-type silicon having many electrons and p-type silicon having many electron holes. When hit by sunlight, an equal number of electrons and electron holes are generated at the interface between the two silicon layers and, as the electrons migrate from the n-type silicon to the p-type silicon, an electric flow is generated. One of the problems with silicon solar cells is the high refractive index of silicon, which causes more than 30% of incident light to be reflected back from the surface of the silicon crystals. Solar cell manufacturers have therefore developed various kinds of antireflection coatings (ARCs) to reduce the unwanted reflective losses. Currently, quarter-wavelength silicon nitride thin films deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are the industrial standard for ARCs on crystalline silicon substrates. Unfortunately, current top-down lithographic techniques for creating subwavelength silicon gratings, such as electron-beam lithography, nanoimprint lithography, and interference lithography, require sophisticated equipment and are expensive to implement, thus contributing to the still high costs of this type of solar cells. Borrowing from Mother Nature's millions of years old design book, researchers have now come up with a nanotechnology antireflection coating inspired by the eyes of moths.

Oct 28th, 2008