Posted: October 1, 2008

AVS 55th International Symposium Showcases Nanotechnology and Materials Research

(Nanowerk News) The AVS 55th International Symposium next month in Boston will showcase research from across the spectrum of science and engineering devoted to research on such topics as nanotechnology, alternative energy, materials research, and medicine.
Reporters are invited to attend the conference free of charge. Registration instructions and other information may be found at the end of this news release. Brief highlights of the 1,300 talks at the meeting are listed below.
LUBRICATION IN OUTER SPACE
Launch vibration, the harsh vacuum environment of space, and cycling between high and low temperatures make for complicated design of coating and lubricants used in satellites and launch vehicles. See http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=198.
THIN, FLEXIBLE MONITORS
A flexible organic LED display system made from 50-micron-thick films still operates when rolled into a cylinder with a 5-mm diameter See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=115.
CORAL FLUORESCENCE
"... Fluorescence in corals is optical alchemy, a magical transformation of ultraviolet or blue light to a rainbow of intense hues... a marvel of physics in action..." See http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=238.
WINDOWS OF THE FUTURE:
"...past, present and potential near-term future of energy efficient windows, based on vacuum insulating glass, for residential buildings..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=1390.
HIGH-POWER NANOTUBES
"...The carbon nanotube field effect transistor has the potential to deliver functional performance and efficiency that exceed silicon-based power devices by more than an order of magnitude..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=77.
DETECTING PICOMOLAR CONCENTRATIONS OF MOLECULES
"...We foresee this novel technology being used as a tool to be applied in the upcoming field of systems biology and preventive medicine to evaluate treatment response efficacy for personalized medical diagnostics..." http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=34.
IMPLANTABLE CLINICAL MICROELECTROMECHANICAL DEVICES
"...the feasibility of a variety of implantable bioMEMS devices for drug delivery, physiological monitoring, and tissue engineering, has been demonstrated within a research context. Unfortunately, their translation into the clinical environment has been largely limited due to technical, cultural, and economic challenges..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=29.
DRAWING WITH A PLASMA QUILL AND SILICON NANOCRYSTAL INK
This talk will present the properties and potential applications of silicon nanocrystal inks for making quantum dot solar cells and printed electronic chips. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=82.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE SYNCHROTRON CLEAN?
"... Over the last 30 years the cleaning and processing of vacuum components at Daresbury Laboratory has changed considerably. Although some aspects remain quite similar, others are very different..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=106.
JUMBO ELECTRON MICROSCOPE
A German company builds scanning electron microscopes that can look at objects as heavy as 20 kg. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=210.
TINY SYSTEMS FOR GROWING AND STUDYING CELLS
"...We present microfluidic systems for cell growth... [and] for quantitative microinjection of macromolecules and nanoparticles into living cells..."
See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=31.
TUNABLE MICROEDDIES TRAP CELLS
"...We demonstrate the ease of trapping for bubbles, spheres, rod-like debris, non-spherical motile phytoplankton, macrophages, and monocytes in different fluid media..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=1215.
GRAPHENE -- THE CARBON FLATLAND.
Andrei Geim, who discovered those two-dimensional carbon sheets known as graphene, will report on the latest findings in this important subject, concentrating on its exotic electronic properties and speculate about potential applications. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=186.
DIRECT THERMAL IMAGING.
"...Infrared imaging plays a critical role in many applications ranging from night vision, environmental monitoring and astronomy. The paper describes a room-temperature compensated opto-thermo-mechanical un-cooled infrared imaging system with a direct color display..." See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=292
HOW MUCH DO CELLS, PROTEINS, AND NANOPARTICLES WEIGH?
Weighing of biological molecules, individual cells, and single nanoparticles in Fluid may be possible with a new technology known as suspended microchannel resonator (SMR), which has achieved a resolution of approximately 1 femtogram, an improvement of six orders of magnitude over a high-end commercial quartz crystal microbalance. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=113.
FAILURE ON THE MICRO-SCALE
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), those tiny technological wonders with components as small as one ten-thousandth of a centimeter, may fail because of high humidity; correlations between corrosion rates and relative humidity. Why? See: (http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=1366).
BIGGEST LIGHT DOWNUNDER
The 3-GeV synchrotron in Melbourne, Australia is the largest scientific and technological user facility in the southern hemisphere See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=200.
EXCITONICS AND FUTURE ELECTRONICS
Excitons, composite entities consisting of an electron and the vacancy it left behind in a solid, may have useful in electronic applications. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=85.
PICOMETER-AFM
Atomic force microscopy with a spatial resolution of 77 picometers. See: http://www.avssymposium.org/paper.asp?abstractID=235.
Source: American Institute of Physics