From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 23:23:12 MDT
The Nanogirl News
June 27, 2002
Sailors often took several clocks with them on voyages to try to minimize
the error from any individual timepiece. Clocks are pretty reliable these
days, but soon we may have to worry about defective microscopic machines. In
the 8 July print issue of PRL, researchers take the first steps toward a
plan for optimizing the performance of wildly uneven nanotech components,
using statistical physics techniques. They find that defective parts can add
up to perfectly good devices, with little or no waste.
(Physical Review Focus 6/24/02) http://focus.aps.org/v9/st32.html
U.S. Nanotech Funding Heads for $1 Billion Horizon. With its request for US
$710.2 million in nanotechnology research funding for the 2003 fiscal year,
the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the umbrella program
coordinating nanotechnology research for 10 government agencies, is
accelerating its R&D efforts at an extraordinary rate. The program has grown
more than five-fold since its formal inception in 1997, and in the President
's budget, the NNI is requesting a 17 percent increase over fiscal year
2002. (IEEE 6/27/02)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/jun02/nnano.html
Nanomagnetics boosts magnetic storage density. UK start-up NanoMagnetics has
used nanoparticulate magnetic films to produce a data-recording density of
roughly 6 Gbit/square inch. The company claims that this figure is a record.
"This level of areal density will turn the heads of the disk-drive community
to the potential of this technology," said Brendan Hegarty, chief executive
officer of NanoMagnetics. "We will be having discussions with members of the
industry as to possible partnerships." (Nanotechweb 6/18/02)
http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/6/10/1
Nanotech will spur space medicine advances. New developments in
nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter at the atomic scale, will
find their way into devices and technologies important to the space program,
particularly in medicine, speakers said Tuesday at NanoSpace 2002, a
conference convened to examine common ground between the two areas of
research. As humanity moves beyond the Information Age, nanotechnology's
ability to interact with the basic structures of life will spawn the
"Biological Age," said Kenneth Cox, a researcher at the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration's Johnson Space Center. (United Press International
6/25/02)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=25062002-015948-3055r
Thinking Small Nanotech: Will Small Stuff Become Big Business? The next
technological revolution may be so small you won't be able to see it. But
that's not keeping venture capitalists and major American companies from
investing in what they think is the next big thing. The revolution in
question, according to its proponents, is nanotechnology - a broad term
covering a wide range of small-scale scientific advancements, from medicine
to computing and military defense. (ABC News 6/26/02)
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/nanotechnology020626.html
INT Media Acquires Jupiter Research. INT Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:INTM),
the parent company of this publication, has purchased the remaining research
and events businesses from Internet research firm Jupiter Media Metrix
(NASDAQ:JMXI) for $250,000, the companies said Friday. The sectors include
application service providers, online advertising & Web marketing, Internet
Service Providers, Internet technology developments, IT investment
strategies and nanotechnology advancements. The company also owns about 175
technology industry e-mail newsletters, which number about 5 million
subscribers in all. (Internet.com 6/21/02)
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/1369431
NanoMem said to exceed flash density one-hundredfold. Rolltronics Corp. said
Monday (June 24) that it is developing a nanoscale thin-film memory that
stores data in molecule-sized "cylinders" that retain data when power is
removed. The NanoMem technology has the potential to store 10 to 100 times
more data in the same space as current flash memory, and can be produced at
a much lower cost, the company said. (EETimes 6/25/02)
http://eet.com/at/news/OEG20020625S0028
Silicon Is Slow. Researchers seeking to significantly boost computer speed
are looking into other materials and technologies that operate on a much
smaller scale than silicon, and promise to avoid power-limiting factors such
as the sequential nature of silicon chip operation. One form of computing
being researched takes its cue from DNA, which encodes vast amounts of data
and can be used to generate all solutions to a problem at the same time.
Molecular electronics, in which circuits are built from carbon and other
elements, can speed up computing while still adhering to classical computing
architecture, and machines that combine both silicon and molecular circuitry
could be designed before the end of the decade. (Popular Science 06/02)
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/computers/article/0,12543,241609,00.html
July 1, 2002 at 10:00 p.m. on TLC (check local listings) will be airing
'Science at the Edge.'A new documentary series of just arriving future
technologies. Episode 1: Beating the Odds. Robert A. Freitas Jr., Research
Scientist, Zyvex Corporation; Author of "Nanomedicine." Ralph Merkle, Ph.D.,
Nanotechnology Theorist, Zyvex Corporation. Repeats TLC Tuesday, July 2,
2002 at 1:00 a.m. ET/PT
http://tlc.discovery.com/schedule/series.jsp?series=10168
Nanotech Tubes Could Form Basis of New Drug-Purification Techniques. When
manufacturing medicines, it is especially important to provide a pure
product. This task is often complicated because many drug molecules are
produced in so-called chiral pairs (nonsuperposable mirror images) of which
only one form is beneficial; the other may be useless or even harmful. A new
technique detailed today in the journal Science provides a novel approach to
this problem. Scientists describe a smart membrane containing tiny silica
nanotubes that is capable of separating two forms of a cancer-fighting drug
molecule.
(Scientific American 6/21/02)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F1DCC-5639-1D12-8B07809EC588EE
DF&pageNumber=1&catID=1
University at Buffalo Materials Researchers Develop Device for "Ultrasmall"
Data Storage. Two University at Buffalo materials researchers have developed
an extremely sensitive nanoscale device that could shrink ultra-high-density
storage devices to record sizes. The magnetic sensor, made of nickel and
measuring only a few atoms in diameter, could increase data storage capacity
by a factor of a 1,000 or more and ultimately could lead to supercomputing
devices as small as a wristwatch, according to Harsh Deep Chopra, associate
professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Susan Hua, director
of UB's Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems Facility and adjunct professor
of mechanical and aerospace engineering, in the UB School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences. (University at Buffalo 6/26/02)
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=57590
009
Nanotech Runs Behind Semiconductors, MEMS in Optical IC Market. The market
for integrated circuits (ICs) used in optical switches will be worth more
than $5 billion in 2006, according to a report by Pioneer Consulting, and
nanotechnology is one of three chip technologies vying for a piece of the
pie. The report, "Optical Chips: Enabling Technologies and Markets from
Semiconductors to MEMS, Nano-Optics and Photonic Crystals," predicts that
total worldwide optical IC sales will increase from $654.3 million in 2002
to $5.4 billion in 2006. (Internetnews.com 6/27/02)
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/1377751
Federal tech transfer turns to nanotech. National laboratories and federal
entities such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are
paying more attention to nanotechnology as they look to commercialize
ongoing research, speakers said Thursday at a conference. Sandia National
Laboratories, in Livermore, Calif., is even creating a Center for Integrated
Nanotechnology to focus its efforts, said Mark Allen, a manager in the lab's
technology commercialization office. The center would have facilities at
both Sandia and at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, he told a
session at the NanoSpace 2002 conference. (United Press International
6/27/02)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=27062002-015706-2683r
Using an ultrafast laser spectroscopy technique, scientists at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have tracked - and timed - the
flow of vibrational energy through certain molecules in their liquid state.
"To understand chemistry at the most fundamental level, we have to
understand the transfer of vibrational energy," said Dana Dlott, a professor
of chemistry at Illinois. "Lots of scientists can put energy into a molecule
and watch it drain away, but with our technique we can actually see where
the energy goes." (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 6/20/02)
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/0620laser.html
Bioforce Nanosciences Inc. Receives SBIR/NIH/NIAID Grant for Pathogen Sensor
Development. The NIAID/NIH grant, for approximately $250,000, will be used
to create sensors for targeted pathogens. In this Phase I project, BioForce
will develop a NanoArrayT that can detect simulants of biological warfare
agents. Future studies will develop a comprehensive NanoArrayT panel to
detect several known biological warfare agents, which can serve to protect
the public and military personal from future threats. (Bioforce Nanoscience
Inc. news release 6/25/02) http://www.bioforcenano.com/readmore7.html
Nanoscale detector checks out cell biology. A team of scientists from
Cornell University, US, has created a nanofabricated electrochemical
detector array to help uncover the secrets of cell biology. The researchers
used the device to look at exocytosis in single chromaffin cells."Exocytosis
is the mechanism by which cells release molecules such as neurotransmitters,
hormones and various other compounds," Manfred Lindau, an associate
professor at Cornell." (Nanotechweb.org 6/24/02)
http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/6/16/1
New 'fuzzy' polymers could improve the performance of electronic brain
implants. Electrodes implanted in the brain may one day enable the blind to
see and the paralyzed to walk. University of Michigan researchers have
developed a new polymer surface that could improve the interface between
these implants and living tissue, enhancing the longevity and performance of
the devices. (EurekAlert 6/27/02)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-06/acs-np061802.php
Researchers get big results from science of the small. It's a Dick Tracy
world: cell phones are wristwatch-size, televisions are a quarter-inch
thick, swimming pool chemicals take care of themselves, pre-made salads last
nearly forever in the fridge, diapers are silky to the touch and cancer is
treatable. Sound futuristic? Some of those products are already available,
and others are in development today. They're all possible thanks to very
different inventions by Michigan companies that have one thing in common:
nanotechnology. (Detroit Free Press 6/25/02)
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/newman25_20020625.htm
JMAR Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:JMAR), a provider of precision manufacturing
equipment for the microelectronics industry, announced today that its JMAR
Precision Systems (JPSI) microelectronics instrument division in Chatsworth,
Calif. has sold and delivered two of its new line of
sub-nanometer-resolution Nano-Zoom(TM) metrology systems to a leading
internationally-recognized manufacturer of computer hard disk drives (HDDs).
The company's Nano-Zoom(TM) systems enable hard disk drive manufacturers to
see and measure molecular-size features on the surfaces of their products
while processing disk media. The systems consist of extremely sensitive,
high-resolution, material surface scanning probe microscopes (SPMs)
integrated into JMAR's standard Disk Inspection System (DIS) products.
(Stockhouse 6/27/02)
http://www.stockhouse.com/news/news.asp?tick=JMAR&newsid=1217016
Chips' future cast Tomorrow's microprocessors could be laser printed.
Computer chips of the future could be printed, just like books or banknotes.
A new laser-stamping technique could one day produce computer chips smaller,
faster and more cheaply than today's chemical-etching technology. With a
transparent quartz die and a laser pulse, Stephen Chou and colleagues at
Princeton University in New Jersey imprint features only 10 millionths of a
millimeter (10 nanometers) wide onto a silicon wafer2. The best
photolithography can reproduce features about 130 nanometers wide. (Nature
6/20/02)
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020617/020617-7.html
See also with graphics at MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/769583.asp
Window on a Small World. Atomic force microscopy provides eyes, noses, and
fingers to explore the world from a molecule's point of view. In 1871, the
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell dreamed up an imaginary "demon" to
help him conduct thought experiments by picking up and arranging atoms one
at a time. Maxwell's Demon (as the creature came to be known) was a tiny
gatekeeper who sat at a door between two chambers and violated the second
law of thermodynamics by sending all the fast gas molecules into one chamber
and all the slow ones into another. Over the past 15 years, scientists have
come close to making their own personal Maxwell's demons to help them see
and manipulate atoms and molecules one at a time in the real world. (Chemist
at Work June 02 issue)
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/tcaw/11/i06/html/06inst.html
NIST Open House Showcases Nanotech Research. The National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) opened the doors of its Gaithersburg campus
on June 20 to share its work in nanotechnology with more than 200
researchers from industry, academia and government. The Open House was one
of four organized in the past year by the Greater Washington Nanotech Group,
with the previous events taking place at the University of Maryland, the
Naval Research Laboratory and the National Science Foundation.
(Nanotech-Planet 6/21/02)
http://www.nanotech-planet.com/briefs/article/0,4028,6551_1369831,00.html
On June 14, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham officially announced that
the Department plans to proceed with a center for nanoscale science research
at Brookhaven. Here's the site. http://www.bnl.gov/nanocenter/
Adding Up With Individual Atoms. Researchers at the University of Michigan's
Center for Optical Coherent and Ultrafast Science (FOCUS) and Department of
Physics have reported the first demonstration of laser-cooling of individual
trapped atoms of different species. This may be an important step in the
construction of a future "quantum computer," in which quantum superpositions
of inputs are processed simultaneously in a single device. Trapped atoms
offer one of the only realistic approaches to precisely controlling the
complex quantum systems underlying a quantum computer. (Spacedaily 6/19/02)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-02q.html
Nanotech Initiative Needs Major Interdisciplinary Investment. Manipulating
individual atoms and molecules to alter a material's makeup at the most
basic level seems more like science fiction than science, but scientists are
doing just that, changing everything from the composition of lipsticks and
sunblocks to the most advanced medicine and information technology. This
science and technology, known as nanotechnology, is carried out on a scale
of approximately 1/100,000 the width of a human hair. (Spacedaily 6/20/02)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-02r.html
Nanospintronics: A Single-Spin Transistor. Spintronics is a relatively new
field in which the electron's spin, not just its charge, can be exploited in
devices and circuits. The ultimate spintronics degree of control would come
from controlling a circuit at the level of a single spin. Physicists at the
Institute for Microstructural Sciences (Ottawa) are the first to create a
prototype of a single-spin transistor, which consists of a quantum dot
connected to spin-polarized leads. (Physics News Update 6/26/02)
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2002/split/595-2.html
Crystal-ball display renders images in 3D. It looks like the Wicked Witch's
crystal ball. Actuality Systems Inc.'s unusual globe-like display renders
images that are viewable from any angle, and the company is now trying to
conjure interest for its use in medical and molecular modeling applications.
It also thinks it can reduce the display's $40,000 cost enough for use in
gaming systems. The U.S. Army has also expressed an interest. (EETimes
6/26/02)
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20020626S0037
Agere debuts comms-centric 90-nanometer technology. Agere Systems Inc. is
leveraging its extensive collection of communications intellectual property
for a 90-nanometer ASIC design platform targeted at communications
applications. The AGR90 ASIC Platform, announced Wednesday (June 26), can be
used to create predesigned, semicustom or fully custom solutions that may
include such preexisting functions as standard protocols,
serial/deserializer (Serdes) circuits, encoding schemes, digital signal
processors, I/O cells, microprocessors, memory and more. By combining these
functions with millions of logic gates and memory bits in an area array
flip-chip package, design time can be reduced by approximately six months,
Agere said. (CommsDesign 6/26/02)
http://www.commsdesign.com/story/OEG20020626S0011
Tomorrow's technology points to present-day solutions. Off-key subjects were
at the heart of several emerging technology sessions at last week's Design
Automation Conference that examined the challenges of next-generation
designs while suggesting possible approaches to existing problems. At a
session titled "Life after CMOS: Imminent or Irrelevant?" Intel Corp.
discussed potential solutions to the problems of CMOS scaling when gate
lengths approach 10 nanometers. At "E-Textiles," researchers detailed their
work to mesh electronics into clothing. And at "Optics: Lighting the Way to
EDA Riches," speakers examined the EDA industry's possible role beyond the
design of electronic devices.
(EETimes 6/20/02) http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020619S0026
Don't forget to check the Nanotechnology Industries "Feature", as it will be
updated in a few days, on a nanotech conference, thanks to David Forrest.
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
E-mail: nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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