ScienceNOW: A new study has found that nanoscale materials, used in everything from medical imaging to cancer treatment, can damage genetic material in our bodies, feeding public fears.
But this particular study has little relevance to human exposure risks, experts say, and it is deeply flawed in other ways.
Nature: Two experiments that produce laser light by exploiting the collective wave-like motion of free electrons on a metal surface bring the science and technology of lasers into the realm of the nano-scale.
Daily Telegraph: The world's 'quietest' room opened its doors for the study of nanotechnology in Bristol.
The ''ultra-low vibration suite'', which cost £11m, allows scientists to manipulate atoms and molecules without the interference of environmental vibrations interrupting their work.There is virtually no air movement inside the cutting edge laboratory, which is anchored to the rock foundation in the basement of the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre in Bristol.
The building's architecture prevents the penetration of echo and sound waves inside the building, despite its location in the Bristol city centre.
Meanwhile, its exterior panels are made from 'self-cleaning' glass, that uses nano-particles to break down dirt.
The Centre will be used for a range of experiments, from looking for solutions to greener power production to better ways to battle cancer.
NPR: Researchers in several laboratories are vying for the claim that they have produced the world's smallest lasers. The lasers are a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Scientists hope they can be used to create even smaller and faster electronics, to study diseases, or possibly even to treat cancer from inside human cells.
2009 AIP Industrial Physics Forum: Thermal therapy is being used to kill cancer cells in tumors that other methods fail to eliminate, but there is the risk of overheating healthy cells, or not heating the tumor cells enough.
A new idea for improving thermal therapy was recently published in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences and presented at the AAPM session "Frontiers in Medical Physics," by Leo Xuanfeng Ding from Wake Forest University. Using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCN's) Ding and his collaborators hope to make guided laser cancer removal safer and more effective.
The treatment injects cancer tumors with MWCN's, and uses a guided near infrared laser to heat them up and deliver a fatal temperature rise to the cancer cells. The laser pulse is low energy (3 W/cm2) and fast (30 seconds per dose). The team uses Magnetic Resonance Temperature Imaging, MRTI, to identify the tumor and then to monitor the tumor's temperature as well as the temperature of the surrounding tissue. Trials with mice showed a significant rise in the temperature of the cancer cells injected with the MWCN's, compared to without. And, the tumors were far less likely to come back.
Nature News: A set of little lenses is stoking a big debate amongst physicists. At issue is whether the tiny spheres are capable of beating the so-called diffraction limit, beyond which no lens can, in theory, work.
CNET News: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a fabric made of a mesh of light-sensitive fibers that collectively act like a rudimentary camera. The fibers, which each can detect two frequencies of light, produced signals that when amplified and processed by a computer reproduced an image of a smiley face near the mesh.
"This is the first time that anybody has demonstrated that a single plane of fibers, or 'fabric,' can collect images just like a camera but without a lens," said Yoel Fink, an associate professor of materials science, who along with colleagues described the approach in a the journal Nano Letters.
Related Link
Exploiting Collective Effects of Multiple Optoelectronic Devices Integrated in a Single Fiber
Science News: Concrete creeps. And now scientists think they know why.
New measurements suggest that the rearrangement of nano-sized concrete particles is responsible for the way buildings, bridges, and other load-bearing concrete structures deform over time, a process technically known as “creep.” The new insight could allow engineers to make stronger and longer-lasting concrete, researchers report in a study to be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Related Link
Nanogranular origin of concrete creep
Exploration magazine: Vanderbilt University physicists have found a way to make nanoparticle films strong enough so they don't disintegrate at the slightest touch.
Nanoparticles—ultrafine particles with diameters less than 100 nanometers—typically consist of an inorganic core coated with a thin layer of organic molecules.
These particles are not very sticky so they don't form coherent thin films unless they are encapsulated in a polymer coating or mixed with molecules called chemical "cross-linkers" that act like glue to stick the nanoparticles together. This makes the film expensive.
The Vanderbilt University physicists added a spun-cast layer of polymer to the electrodes that serves as a pattern that organizes the nanoparticles as they are deposited in a technique called electrophoretic deposition. Then, after the deposition process is completed, they dissolve (sacrifice) the polymer layer to free the nanoparticle film.
Related Link
Sacrificial layer electrophoretic deposition of freestanding multilayered nanoparticle films
Nature News: Nanocrystals called quantum dots have promised to revolutionize display technologies, solar power and biological imaging for more than a decade. Yet the quantum-dot market has remained small, with a handful of companies selling dots directly to researchers, using the particles to develop their own products or licensing their technologies to partners.
"Quantum dots have been around for quite a while, but they're taking a really long time to mature," says David Hwang of the market-analysis company Lux Research in New York. A key barrier is price: quantum dots can cost anywhere from US$3,000 to $10,000 per gram, restricting their use to highly specialized applications.
But industry analysts are now predicting extremely rapid growth for the market over the next few years, driven by demand for energy-efficient displays and lighting, and enabled by cheaper, more efficient manufacturing processes. In September 2008, market-research company BCC Research of Wellesley, Massachusetts, predicted that the market for products relying on quantum dots would grow from $28.6 million in 2008 to $721 million by 2013, with particularly rapid growth in the optoelectronics sector from 2010.
CNET News: IBM already had technology that could measure extremely subtle forces among atoms, but a nanotechnology development at the company's Zurich Research Laboratory shows a new level of sensitivity: the ability to distinguish positively charged atoms from those that are neutral or negatively charged.
The atomic force microscope maps what's below by detecting subtle changes in forces of attraction.
Researchers at the Zurich lab, along with colleagues at the University of Regensburg and Utrecht University, used an atomic force microscope (AFM) with a tuning-fork detector arrangement on the tip of its probe to distinguish among gold atoms that were positively charged, neutral, or negatively charged. The researchers describe their approach in the June 12 issue of Science.
Related Press Release
IBM scientists directly measure charge states of atoms using an atomic force microscope
Related article
Novel Probes for Molecular Electronics
Science: The ability to observe individual chemical reactions in real time is reshaping our understanding of molecular processes, revealing subtleties previously hidden in ensemble averages. For example, single-molecule fluorescence detection methods have revolutionized optical microscopy and in situ studies of chemical and biological systems. Liquid cell in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is poised to write a new chapter in the solution synthesis and processing of materials. Haimei Zheng and colleagues use a TEM liquid cell that allows liquids to be examined within the vacuum environment of a TEM in an elegant experiment that uncovers dynamic processes in the growth of platinum (Pt) nanocrystals.
Related Link
Observation of Single Colloidal Platinum Nanocrystal Growth Trajectories
The New York Times: Nanotechnology's image is sleek, modern, and clean. But that's not its reality.
Turns out that designing and manufacturing materials so small that 100,000 of them can fit comfortably on the width of a hair strand absorbs tremendous amounts of energy and is anything but neat.
Nature: Electricity flexes strong, bendy aerogel.
The developers of 'photonic ink' (P-Ink) say that the material could be used in electronic books or advertising displays.
CNET: A variety of off-grid devices use the wind, the sun, or fuel cells to power up small electronics. But what if you could charge your cell phone just by talking into it, eliminating the need for batteries or cords?
Environmental News Network: The Europeans are serious about nanotechnology to wean countries off using fossil fuels in the next century. There´s considerable interest in setting up a solar grid that is global because the sun consistently shines on some part of the planet.
Investor's Business Daily: A report released yesterday from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars contends that the White House should direct federal agencies to apply existing laws more effectively and strengthen nanotech oversight.
The study's lead author, J. Clarence "Terry" Davies, is a scientific adviser to the Washington, D.C., group who served as an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President Bush.
He says clearer oversight would not only help to protect health and the environment, but also drive more nanotech investment.
AFP: Scientists across Russia are setting their minds to new inventions to net some of the billions of state dollars being poured into the field of nanotechnology. But they remain sceptical after years of neglect by the government.
Nature: Different material options for high-temperature superconductivity— conduction of electricity with little or no resistance at 'practical' temperatures — have arrived. Iron compounds are the latest thing.
National Geographic: Nanotech fabric that can harvest energy from motion could one day lead to clothing that can power portable electronics, researchers say.
Nature: The future of the video display is both flexible and transparent. Finding a material for the attendant electronics that is small-scale, bendy and see-through is a tall order — but a promising candidate is emerging.
AZoNano.com: For the first time ever, an exclusive, comprehensive platform of the entire Israeli Nanotech eco-system has been launched. It is an all inclusive portal, mapping the entire Nanotech ecosystem, including over 300 researchers, 80 companies and 40 governmental and nonprofit organizations.
EETimes: India's national nanotechnology program is rolling out as the first of three Institutes for Nano Science and Technology is inaugurated under the federal government's $250 million national initiative in support of nanotechnological research. The regional government of Karnataka partner with the government in the establishment of the first institute, eager to promote Bengaluru a global hub for nanotechnology as in the past it has promoted it as a software hub.
The researchers have used these electrodes to create a flexible light-emitting device. Both the anode and cathode are transparent which, even when repeatedly bent, twisted, rolled or folded completely over, continue to conduct electricity without losing any notable properties.
Nature: Radio waves turn injected carbon into heat bombs against tumours.
CNET: University of California at Berkeley's nanoradio might be a 100 billion times smaller than the first commercial radios, but it plays the hits that never die.
Wired: Back in the mid-1980s, a joke made the rounds that the Kremlin was preparing a major announcement: After a decade-long top-secret crash program, socialist science had succeeded in building the world's largest microprocessor.
Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding questions like why the ozone layer is thinning.
Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells work, how catalytic converters clean up car exhaust and even why even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Ertl, who won the prize on his 71st birthday, told reporters that it ''is the best birthday present that you can give to somebody.''
''I am speechless,'' Ertl told The Associated Press from his office in Berlin. ''I was not counting on this.''
Related Web sites
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2007
German Wins Nobel Chemistry Prize, Associated Press
Nobel Prize in Chemistry Won by Gerhard Ertl, NPR
Telephone interview with Gerhard, Nobel Foundation.
Gerhard Ertl's web site
Albert Fert of the Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France and Peter Grünberg of the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany have won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance, or GMR for short. GMR is the process whereby a weak magnetic field, such as that of an oriented domain on the surface of a computer hard drive can, when the proper read head is brought nearby, trigger a large change in electrical resistance, thus “reading” the data vested in the magnetic orientation. This is the heart of modern hard drive technology and makes possible the immense hard-drive data storage industry. Earlier this year the two physicists won the Wolf Prize for the same research.
Fert and Gruenberg helped pioneer the making of semiconductor stacks consisting of alternating thin layers of magnetic and non-magnetic atoms needed to produce the GMR effect. GMR is a prominent example of how quantum effects (a large electrical response to a tiny magnetic input) come about through confinement (the atomic layers being so thin.); that is, atoms interact differently with each other when they are confined to a tiny volume or a thin plane.
All these magnetic interactions involve the spin of an electron. Spin is a quantum attribute that shouldn’t be associated too closely in the mind with the electron literally spinning (in the way that a top spins). Still more innovative technology can be expected through quantum effects depending on electrons’ spin. Most of the electronics industry is based on manipulating the charges of electrons moving through circuits. But the electrons’ spins might also be exploited to gain new control over data storage and manipulation. Spintronics is the general name for this branch of electronics.
Related Physics Today articles
Layered Magnetic Structures: History, Highlights, Applications, May 2001, page 31
Basic Research in the Information Technology Industry, Jul 2003
Magnetic Semiconductors Enable Efficient Electrical Spin Injection, April 2000, page 21
Physics Today, April 1995 (available November 1)
Related web sites
2007 Nobel Prize site
Wolf Prize announcement
Peter Gruenberg
Recent papers by Fert and Gruenberg
Related news stories
Magnetic Effect Nets a Nobel, Science
Physics of Hard Drives Wins Nobel, New York Times
Magnetic Effect Nets a Nobel, Science
Reuters
Physics Nobel Goes to German, Frenchman, Wired News
Disk technology takes Nobel Prize, BBC
Europeans Win Nobel Prize for Physics, NPR
A little magnetism wins physics Nobel, The Australian
Consider the career of Mukhles Sowwan, who founded the Nanotechnology Research Laboratory at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. The lab is the first nanotech center in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, according to Dr. Sowwan, a Palestinian who has a doctorate in solid-state nanophysics. He also believes that it is the first such lab at an Arab institution in the Middle East.
The lab pursues ground-breaking research under conditions that would bewilder most American and European technologists. But although Dr. Sowwan is its guiding spirit, it would not exist except for the generosity of European donors, the stubborn internationalism of a United Nations organization and the help of Dr. Sowwan’s mentor, who happens to be an Israeli physicist at Hebrew University in West Jerusalem.
Nature: Parliament approves nanotechnology initiative.
San Francisco Chronicle: The future is now: Nanotechnology is already in hundreds of everyday products, but questions remain about long-term environmental effects
The New York Times: DuPont and Environmental Defense, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups, plan to release jointly developed guidelines today for evaluating the safety and environmental risks of nanotechnology products.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Scientists try to harness architecture of microscopic diatoms for commercial ventures
Science: A group of chemists reports finding a way to assemble tiny metal particles into a substance that can be shaped and fired--at little more than room temperature
BBC: The UK government has failed to fund adequate research into potential risks posed by developing nanotechnology, a report by leading advisors has warned.
Nanotechwire.com: The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a team of nine scholars from six universities a grant of $6 million over five years to exploit precise biological assembly techniques for the study of quantum physics in nanoparticle arrays. This research will produce a fundamental understanding of quantum electronic systems that could impact future electronics.
AZoNano.com: The boom in Finnish nanotechnology is uncovered by the 'Nanotechnology in Finnish Industry' survey. The biannual survey studied the evolution of the Finnish nanotechnology scene in the period 2004-2006. The 2006 survey identified 129 Finnish companies that either had commercial products or research activities focused on nanotechnology, or who had participated in the Tekes FinNano technology programme. The previous 2004 survey had found 61 companies that had activities related to nanotechnology.
BBC: Prototypes of microscopic engines that could power molecular machines have been brewed up in a Scottish laboratory.
European Design Engineer: Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, led by Shuji Nakamura--who invented the blue laser--have achieved lasing operation in nonpolar gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors and demonstrated the world's first nonpolar blue-violet laser diodes.
The Future of Things (TFOT): A new, safer type of Li-Ion nanobattery that might help prevent future fires and explosions related to conventional Li-Ion battery use has been developed by researchers at Tel Aviv University. These nanobatteries should also prove useful for various micro devices used for medical, military and a range of other applications.
The New York Times: Scientists who are trying to develop molecular machines have spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel — literally making wheels and gears from just a few atoms. The eventual goal is to use such components in nanoscale devices that can do useful work inside living tissue, perhaps, or as part of a tiny nonelectronic computer.
MSNBC: The use of subatomic materials as microscopic building blocks for thousands of consumer products has turned into a big business so quickly that few are monitoring the so-called nanotechnology's effects on health and the environment.
Technology Review: Artificial muscles made from carbon nanotubes are 100 times stronger than human muscles.
AZoNano.com: Silicon nanowires can help to further reduce the size of microchips. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle have for the first time developed single crystal silicon nanowires that fulfil the key criteria to this end. The researchers used aluminium as a catalyst to grow the nanowires. To date, scientists have usually deployed gold for this purpose. However, even traces of the precious metal have a drastically detrimental effect on the function of semiconductor components. This is not the case with other metals, which catalyse the process, but only at temperatures that would not enable economically viable processes. On the other hand, aluminium is an effective catalyst even at relatively low temperatures and does not impair the quality of electronic components
Nature: The pursuit of responsible nanotechnologies can be tackled through a series of grand challenges, argue Andrew D. Maynard and his co-authors.
Nature: One US nanotechnology start-up has hit the jackpot — but for others the prospect of such overnight success seems remote. Colin Macilwain reports.
Azonano.com: Current techniques for creating carbon nanotubes result in a mass of nanotubes with different electronic and structural properties. Researchers from Northwestern University have developed a method for sifting and automatically grading the nanotubes by exploiting the buoyant densities of nanotubes. These densities are a function of their size and electronic behavior. The nanotubes are dropped into water coated by soap-like molecules called surfactants. A centrifuge spins the liquid to high speed. By carefully choosing the surfactants utilized during ultracentrifugation, the researchers found that carbon nanotubes could be sorted by diameter and electronic structure. The technique can be easily scaled up to industrial production. The results were published in Nature Nanotechnology.
Science: Nanotechnology observers are split over the best way to ensure that the up-and-coming industry remains safe for both people and the environment.
Technology Review: HP researchers have developed a cheap way to make nanoparticle arrays that could lead to precise chemical sensors.
Nature: The use of X-rays to construct three-dimensional tomographic images is well established in medicine. The same principle is being extended to the nanoscale, bringing us startlingly accurate pictures of tiny objects.
ZDNet: Scientists have discovered a new method for detecting deadly pathogens like Anthrax or smallpox almost immediately after they've been released into the air.
BBC: Robotic hands that have the same senstivity as the human hand to touch have been unveiled in a paper in Science magazine says the BBC. The resolution of the sense of touch on the human fingertip is about 40 microns, and previously the best robotic hand had a resolution of millimetres. The new device should aid minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Guardian Unlimited: Scientists have been working on minuscule nanotechnology test tubes for a long time - tiny little packets of chemicals that can be injected into the body, before pouring out to react with other substances like cancers.
AZoNano.com: The University of Massachusetts Amherst will host one of the nation’s elite nanotechnology centers, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today, awarding $16 million to establish the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing. Combined with state matching funds, the investment will accelerate research and production of ultra-tiny devices, creating new manufacturing opportunities and stimulating economic development. The announcement was made at a State House news conference.
