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Molecules with memories - developing the future of the electronics industry

Apart from buying a new computer every year it seems you need to upgrade your old machine on a regular basis to keep pace with ever bigger software packages and image files. Apart from the hassle of having to perform major surgery on your computer, these upgrades cost money. But, what if these upgrades were no longer necessary? What if your desktop computer came standard with the ability to store more data than you could ever possibly need and was able to function at unbelievable speeds? This would be too good to be true, right? Besides, who has the space for such a megacomputer. Well, imagine that this megacomputer could be packaged as a smaller device than current laptops, and cost only a fraction of today�??s prices? This sounds like hard core science fiction, but like so many radical science fiction ideas - the real thing might happen sooner than you think. As chip designers are nearing the physical limits of Moore's law (some say that the exponential increase in the cost of semiconductor production will most likely stop the current miniaturization trend before its physical limits are reached), scientists around the globe are working hard on developing the field of molecular electronics. An interdisciplinary science that includes physics, chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science and even biology, molecular electronics involves using molecular building blocks in the manufacture of electronic components. Driven by a growing interest in alternative concepts, like the integration of molecules as carriers of an electronic function, the electronics industry is poised to take the crucial step of integrating molecular devices into electronic circuits.

Sep 17th, 2007

Can nanotechnology save LCD TVs?

Many of us don't like to admit it, but televisions are an important part of our lives. Technology has improved the quality and convenience of TVs and has given us a whole new set of choices - high definition, plasma, and liquid crystal displays. With an estimated 66 million sets to be sold this year, flat-screen LCD televisions are the most popular choice. Much of the reason behind the popularity of these high-tech wonders is the decrease in price that happens with most cool technology - a few years after they have been on the market. But, for the popular LCD TV, a shortage of a key compound used to produce LCDs may force manufacturers to raise prices. Electronics suppliers are facing a shortage of the rare metal indium, a co-product of zinc mining. Indium is a rare, malleable and easily fused metal, similar to aluminum, which is used to make indium tin oxide (ITO), the standard transparent electrode used in nearly all flat panel displays and microdisplays. Indium is expensive and scarce and demand is increasing. According to Displaybank, the demand for indium was 861 tons in 2006 and may reach nearly 2000 tons by 2011. Five years ago, indium was about $100/ kg; now it costs $800/kg. Displaybank expects the total sales of indium in 2007 to be $533 million. But, geologists say the cost of indium may not matter soon, because the earth's supply of it could be gone in four years. This could put a serious damper on that 52" LCD screen you've been dreaming about. Fortunately, with the help of nanotechnology, a team of scientists in Japan have developed a new material that may replace the need for indium in LCD production.

Sep 14th, 2007

Nanotechnology risks - where are we today?

New technology, whether it is a novel cancer treatment or an innovative approach to making a new material, almost always comes with risk. Nanotechnologies are no different. Certain nano-fabrication techniques employ toxic chemicals, the production of carbon nanotubes results in dangerous byproducts, and the big question as to what degree certain engineered nanoparticles could be harmful to humans and the environment has not been answered yet. The potentially adverse health effects of fine and ultrafine particles have been studied for decades. However, at the core of the nanotoxicological debate is the fact that nanoparticles are not just a smaller version of certain particles, but they are very different from their everyday counterparts with regard to their physical properties and catalytic activities. Thus their adverse effects cannot simply be derived from the known toxicity of the macro-sized material. One useful contribution to moving the nanotoxicology discussion further along came from the 1st Nobel Forum Mini-Symposium on Nanotoxicology that was held in Stockholm, Sweden. The event's program was devoted to the topic of definitions and standardization in nanotoxicological research, as well as nano-specific risk assessment and regulatory/legislative issues. A group of international experts presented examples of recent and ongoing studies of carbon-based nanomaterials, including single-walled carbon nanotubes, using a wide range of in vitro and in vivo model systems. This Spotlight will provide you with some highlights and conclusions from this exciting meeting.

Sep 13th, 2007

Superlattices are key to advanced nanocrystal applications

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) has long been used in its powdered form as pigments in paints, coatings for papers, in the commercial manufacture of rubber goods as well as UVA and UVB blocker and mild antimicrobial in cosmetics. ZnO is also one of the most important semiconductor compounds and numerous reports have been documented in the literature about the preparation and characterization of ZnO nanocrystals. While polycrystalline forms of ZnO have been used for technical uses such as piezoelectric transducers, light emitting diodes, and transparent conducting films, the progress in developing single crystal bulk ZnO have brought its promise as a wide band gap semiconductor to the fore. Superstructures formed from ZnO nanocrystal quantum dots may find applications in various areas such as optics, electronics and magnetism. For these 2D and 3D superstructures to be useful they need to be well-ordered. Usually, nanocrystals without any surface modification are less stable and they usually undergo aggregation or crystal growth, and consequently it is rather hard for bare nanocrystals to self-assemble into 2D, and especially into 3D, ordered structures. So far, most well-ordered assemblies of nanocrystals have been prepared through a surface modification approach. Efforts have been made to prepare superstructures composed of ZnO nanocrystals but it is rather challenging to obtain well-ordered 3D ZnO superlattices. Researchers in China have now found that ZnO nanocrystals capped with ionic liquids spontaneously assemble into a three-dimensional lattice. Apparently, simply drying a solution of the modified ZnO nanocrystals is all that is needed for the superlattice to form. The presence of the ionic liquid prevents the nanocrystals from aggregating.

Sep 12th, 2007

Hands-on nanotechnology: towards a nanorobotic assembly line

Hands-on nanotechnology: towards a nanorobotic assembly line (Nanowerk Spotlight) Until the twentieth century, a single craftsman or team of craftsmen would normally create each part of an industrial product individually and assemble them together into a single item, making changes in the parts so that they would fit together and work together; the so-called English System of manufacture. Then Henry Ford came along and in 1907-08 developed the assembly line for his Model T automobile. This innovation revolutionized not only industry but also our society because it allowed mass production of industrial goods at much lower cost than before. At its core, an assembly line is a manufacturing process in which interchangeable parts are added to a product in a sequential manner to create a finished product. Nanotechnology techniques today are pretty much where the industrial world was before Ford's assembly line - a domain of craftsmen and not of mass production. It has long been a dream for nanotechnologists that robots could one day be used in a similar way to produce nanodevices. A group of researchers from Denmark and Germany have now developed the rudimentary beginnings of the nanotechnology equivalent of an assembly line. They have shown 'pick-and-place' assembly of a working device using a silicon gripper - a robotic 'hand' some 10000 times smaller than a human hand. This nanogripper, controlled by a nanorobotic arm, is capable of picking up a carbon nanofiber (CN) and fix it onto the tip of an atomic force microscope cantilever.

Sep 11th, 2007

Nanotechnology in cement mixers

For the builders and engineers among you, our subject today is cement. Not necessarily a material one would associate with high-tech, not to mention nanotechnology. However, it's probably fair to say that our modern society is built on cement. Look around you and you'll find it everywhere - in buildings, roads, bridges, dams. Early construction cement (the word goes back to the Romans who used the term opus caementitium to describe masonry which resembled concrete and was made from crushed rock with burnt lime as binder) probably is as old as construction itself. So what is it? Cement, as it is commonly known, is a mixture of compounds made by burning limestone and clay together at very high temperatures. Cement is then used, together with water, as binder in a synthetic composite material known as concrete. For concrete to obtain its optimal properties it needs to harden. And that takes time. For builders, time is money and particularly in industrial settings time is a major cost issue. Time is also a safety and convenience factor, think about infrastructure repair work on roads and dams for instance. Cement manufacturers have already known that reducing the particle size of cements results in faster-binding formulations. By taking the ultimate reduction down to the nanoscale, researchers in Switzerland have shown that a one-step preparation of nanoparticulate cement with a conventional Portland cement composition results in a drastically increased early reactivity of the cement.

Sep 10th, 2007

Toxicity of nanoparticles in aquatic environments

The much heralded nanotechnology revolution is not happening with a big bang that completely turns our lives upside down, but rather in a creeping stealth mode where many ordinary everyday products, from cosmetics and textiles to electronic devices, sporting goods and car paint increasingly contain engineered nanoparticles. Sometimes, these nanoparticles are just a smaller version of the material already used in a product, for instance zinc oxide in sunscreen lotions, sometimes these particles are a new addition to a product, as for example fullerenes added to oil lubricants to improve their performance. This trend of increasing use of engineered nanoparticles in commercial products raises the question of what happens at the end-of-life stage of these products, when they get disposed or recycled. Is there is a risk of these nanoparticles being released into the environment? And if yes, is there a risk of these nanoparticles causing harm? This is an area of nanotechnology risk research that remains largely unexplored. In a groundbreaking study to determine the effects of nanoparticles on aquatic organisms, scientists at the University of Wisconsin's Great Lakes Water Institute in Milwaukee have demonstrated that all nanoparticles are not created equal - at least when it comes to their effects on aquatic organisms. They have also discovered that existing attitudes toward the safety of titanium dioxide may be dangerous.

Sep 7th, 2007

Playing Rubik's cube with nanoparticles

In order to exploit the unique properties of nanoscale materials for advanced applications it is often necessary to assemble nanoparticles into arrays with specific architectures. The interaction among the nanoparticles, or effects arising from their assembled larger structure, could result in interesting optical, magnetic or catalytic properties that researchers and engineers then could exploit for new materials and applications. In recent years, there has been much interest in colloidal crystals - which are examples of periodic nanoparticle arrays - as photonic crystals, templates for photonic crystals, sensors, optical and electrooptical devices, and as model systems to study crystallization processes. The success of many of these potential applications is currently limited by scientists' ability to control the structure of colloidal crystals. Normally, crystallization of uniform colloids produces face-centered cubic or hexagonal close-packing. A few other colloidal crystal structures have recently been reported, but they either require careful balance of electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles, or they rely on directing nanoparticles on a lithographic pattern that then dictates the geometry of a few layers in a thin film. New research now has resulted in a completely different and novel approach of colloidal crystallization that results in simple cubic colloidal crystals extending over many unit cells in three dimensions. Simple cubic packing is quite rare, even in atomic structures. Here, it results from combined disassembly and self-reassembly of a template- directed structure in a single reaction step.

Sep 6th, 2007