NanoComputer

Porofessor Yu Sun and his team at the Advanced Micro and Nanosystems Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada,  have developed an automated vision-based nanomanipulation technique that, when used in conjunction with existing large-scale nano-assembly methods, is capable of precisely controlling the number of nanowires incorporated into each device. Reporting their findings in the January 17, 2012 online edition of Nanotechnology ("Automated nanomanipulation for nanodevice construction"), the team developed an automated visual serving algorithm for physically removing individual nanowires from an array of multi-nanowire transistor devices.

Click on the image to see lab's videos

.The batch microfabrication process we used is wafer-scale but has an uncontrolled number of bridging nanowires that also have significantly varying diameters," explains Yanliang Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in Sun's group at the time of this work and the paper's first author. "Nanorobotic selective nanowire removal, despite being a serial process, permits precision control of the number and diameter of nanowires. Experimental results demonstrate that the nanorobotic system has a nano-FET device post-processing success rate of 95% (versus 48.3% for manual nanomanipulation) and has a speed of 1 min/device (versus 10.3 min/device)", he added.
Source: http://amnl.mie.utoronto.ca/index.php?page=videos&part=6

Raytheon Company has developed a counter measure system using quantum dots to protect space assets such as satellites from missile attacks. They have developed a decoy consisting of quantum dots of different sizes and shapes that are engineered to emit radiation having a radiation profile similar to that of the asset.

The decoy is found to be more accurate in mimicking the radiation profile of the asset from the target  diverting the anti-satellite weapons more efficiently than the existing conventional counter measure systems.
Let's remember that  In January 2007, China successfully tested an Anti-satellite (ASAT) missile system by destroying their own defunct LEO satellite, which generated huge amounts of space debris. This ASAT test raised worldwide concerns about the vulnerability of satellites and other space assets and possibility of triggering an arms race in space. In order to meet emerging challenges posed by such ASAT missile systems, military strategists and researchers are developing novel technologies to protect their space assets.

Source: http://nanolity.com/index.php/nanomaterials/nanomaterials-news/quantum-dots

Raytheon is an US company based in  Waltham, Massachusett,  a major American defense contractor.

Instead of oversized virtual reality helmets, digital images are projected onto tiny-full-color displays, that are very near the eye. These novel contact lenses allow users to focus simultaneously on objects that are close up and far away. This could improve ability to use tiny portable displays while still interacting with the surrounding environment. It is developed as part of DARPA's Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras (SCENICC) program. DARPA is the acronym for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which aims to "create and prevent strategic surprise". Researchers are located at Washington-based Innovega iOptiks branch (http://innovega-inc.com/press-2012.php).

SCENICC's objecive is to eliminate the ISR capability gap that exists at the individual Soldier level. The program seeks to develop novel computational imaging capabilities and explore joint design of hardware and software that give warfighters access to systems that greatly enhance their awareness, security and survivability. Let's remind that the companies Apple and Microsoft are competing to put on the market  their own nanocomputer lenses very soon  (http://www.nanocomputer.com/?p=1512). 

Source: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2012/01/31.aspx

Workers with existing allergic conditions could have worse reactions when exposed to nanoparticles (http://www.nanocomputer.com/?p=1452). Worse, nanomedecine portends the release of dangerous nanoparticles, nanorobots or nanoelectronic devices that will wreak havoc in the body (http://www.nanocomputer.com/?p=990). For instance, scientists from Brown University say that nanoparticules of nickel  may trigger cancer (http://www.nanocomputer.com/?p=446).
When human lung epithelial cells are exposed to equivalent doses of nano-sized (left) or micro-sized (right) metallic nickel particles, activated HIF-1 alpha pathways (stained green) appear mostly with the nanoparticles.

 In a project funded by the Danish Environemntal Protection Agency (EPA), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and National Research Centre for the Working Environment have initiated the development of a  screening tool called NanoRiskCat (NRC) for the evaluation of exposure and hazard of nanomaterials contained in products for professional and private use. Authored by Steffen Foss Hansen and Anders Braun from DTU's Department of Environmental Engineering and Keld Alstrup-Jensen from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment Environmental Project, the 268-page report on the NanRiskCat screening tool can be downloaded as a PDF file from the Danish EPA's website.The project's aim was to identify, categorize and rank the possible exposure and hazards associated with a nanomaterial in a product.

Source: http://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2011/12/978-87-92779-11-3.pdf

By tweaking the smallest of parts, a trio of  engineers is hoping to dramatically increase the amount of sunlight that solar cells convert into electricity. The researchers from the University at Buffalo, Army Research Laboratory and Air Force Office of Scientific Research have developed a new, nanomaterials-based technology that has the potential to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells up to 45 percent.

Specifically, the scientists have shown that embedding charged quantum dots into solar cells can improve electrical output by enabling the cells to harvest infrared light, and by increasing the lifetime of photoelectrons. The technology can be applied to many different photovoltaic structures.

A new company the researchers founded, OPtoElectronic Nanodevices LLC. (OPEN LLC), is commercializing this technology.

Source: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/13138

 In the super-small world of nanostructures, a team of polymer scientists and engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered how to make nano-scale repairs to a damaged surface equivalent to spot-filling a scratched car fender rather than re-surfacing the entire part. The work builds on a theoretical prediction by chemical engineer and co-author Anna Balazs at the University of Pittsburgh. Their discovery is reported this week in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

The new technique has many practical implications, especially that repairing a damaged surface with this method would require significantly smaller amounts of material, avoiding the need to coat entire surfaces when only a tiny fraction is cracked, says team leader and UMass Amherst polymer scientist Todd Emrick. "This is particularly important because even small fractures can then lead to structural failure but our technique provides a strong and effective repair. The need for rapid, efficient coating and repair mechanisms is pervasive today in everything from airplane wings to microelectronic materials to biological implant devices," he adds. 

Source: http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/144533.php

Dreamweaver International Inc, an US company based  in Greenville, South Carolina, has developed a new non woven battery separator made from a combination of nanofibers that provides 300% higher power. The technology allows  higher transmission of electricity in the battery, improving the power available in electric vehicles, power tools and other high power applications. 

The job of a battery separator is to be a perfect barrier between the electrodes, while also acting as a perfect window to the electrolyte. Because of the above attributes, the technology allows for thinner, lighter and smaller batteries.

Source: http://www.dreamweaverintl.com/

By shining infrared light on specially designed, gold-filled silicon wafers, scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute (Houston, Texas) have successfully targeted and burned breast cancer cells. If the technology is shown to work in human clinical trials, it could provide patients a non-invasive alternative to surgical ablation, and could be used in conjunction with traditional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, to make those treatments more effective.

"Hollow gold nanoparticles can generate heat if they are hit with a near-infrared laser," said Research Institute Assistant Member Haifa Shen, M.D., Ph.D., the report's lead author. "Multiple investigators have tried to use gold nanoparticles for cancer treatment, but the efficiency has not been very good — they'd need a lot of gold nanoparticles to treat a tumor. "Instead, Shen and his colleagues turned to a technology developed by the study's principal investigator, Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D., to amplify the gold particles' response to infrared light.

"We developed a system based on Dr. Ferrari's multi-stage vector technology platform to treat cancers with heat," Shen said. "We found that heat generation was much more efficient when we loaded gold nanoparticles into porous silicon, the carrier of the multistage vectors."

The research is presented in the first issue of the new Advanced Healthcare Materials, a Wiley journal.

Source: http://www.methodisthealth.com/breast-cancer-cells-targeted-then-burned-by-gold-filled-silicon-wafers

How noisy is a walking flea? What sort of sound waves are caused by motile bacteria? Phycisists at the Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM) have managed for the first time to detect sound waves at such minuscule lengh scales. Their nanoear is a single gold nanoparticle that is kept in a state of levitation by a laser beam. Upon weak acoustic excitation the particle oscillates parallel to the direction of sound propagation. The scientists led by Dr. Adurey Lutich, who is member of Prof. Jochen Feldmann's group at LMU Munich, managed to detect such tiny displacements using a dark-field microscope and an ordinary video camera. The nanoear is capable of detecting sound levels of approximatively *60dB. Thus, it is about a million times more sensitive than the hearing threshold of the human ear, which by convention is set at 0 dB.

Trapped gold nanoparticle (left) acts as nanoear

The new method realized by the Munich physicists opens a new world to scientists: for the first time, otherwise imperceptibly weak motions – minuscule sound waves – can be visualized. The researchers developed the nanoear in two stages. “First, we validated the basic principle using a relatively strong sound source” group leader Andrey Lutich explains. “In the second step we were able to detect significantly weaker acoustic excitations.” The main element in both cases is a gold nanoparticle, 60 nm in diameter, which is kept in levitation by a so-called optical trap us­ing a red laser. Each of the experiments was done in a small water drop on a cover slide. 
Source: http://www.nano-initiative-munich.de/en/news/news/article/1/a-nanoear-to-listen-into-the-s/

Scientists from IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) have built the world's smallest magnetic data storage unit. It uses just twelve atoms per bit, the basic unit of information, and squeezes a whole byte (8 bit) into as few as 96 atoms. A modern hard drive, for comparison, still needs more than half a billion atoms per byte. The team present their work in the weekly journal Science (13 January 2012). CFEL is a joint venture of the research centre Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg, the Max-Planck-Society (MPG) and the University of Hamburg.  "With CFEL the partners have established an innovative institution on the DESY campus, delivering top-level research across a broad spectrum of disciplines," says DESY research director Edgar Weckert.

 An illustration of I.B.M.'s technique for storing data on a single atom. An iron atom on a copper surface could store a single bit of binary data, with "0" or "1" indicated by the orientation of the atom's magnetic field. 

Source: http://www.desy.de/information__services/press/pressreleases/@@news-view?id=2141&lang=eng

In the images of fruit flies, clusters of neurons are all lit up, forming a brightly glowing network of highways within the brain. It's exactly what University at Buffalo researcher Shermali Gunawardena was hoping to see: It meant that ORMOSIL, a novel class of nanoparticles, had successfully penetrated the insects' brains. And even after long-term exposure, the cells and the flies themselves remained unharmed.

The particles, which are tagged with fluorescent proteins, hold promise as a potential vehicle for drug delivery. Each particle is a vessel, containing cavities that scientists could potentially fill with helpful chemical compounds or gene therapies to send to different parts of the human body. Gunawardena is particularly interested in using ORMOSIL — organically modified silica — to target problems within neurons that may be related to neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease.

Source: : http://www.buffalo.edu/news/13116

The narrowest conducting wires in silicon ever produced are shown to have the same electric current arrying capability as copper. This means electrical interconnects in silicon can be shrunk to the atomic-scale without losing their functionality - Ohm's law holds true at the atomic-scale. The University of New South Wales  (UNSW) researchers will use these wires to address individual atoms – a key step in realising a scalable nanocomputer."Interconnecting wiring of this scale will be vital for the development of future atomic-scale electronic circuits," says the lead author of the study, Bent Weber, a PhD student in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW, in Sydney, Australia, supervised by Dr Michelle Simmmons.

Driven by the semiconductor industry, computer chip components continuously shrink in size allowing ever smaller and more powerful computers,” Simmons says. “Over the past 50 years this paradigm has established the microelectronics industry as one of the key drivers for global economic growth.  A major focus of the Centre of Excellence at UNSW is to push this technology to the next level to develop a silicon-based nanocomputer, where single atoms serve as the individual units of computation,” she says. “It will come down to the wire. We are on the threshold of making transistors out of individual atoms. But to build a practical quantum computer we have recognised that the interconnecting wiring and circuitry also needs to shrink to the atomic scale.”

Source: http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/

The wires were made by precisely placing chains of phosphorus atoms within a silicon crystal, according to the study, which includes researchers from the University of Melbourne and Purdue University in the US.

 Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New-York, USA) have developed a new method for creating advanced nanomaterials that could lead to highly efficient refrigerators and cooling systems requiring no refrigerants and no moving parts.

The key ingredients for this innovation are a dash of nanoscale sulfur and a normal, everyday microwave oven.  You do not need to spend more than 40$!

Source: http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2971&setappvar=page(1)

Honing chemotherapy delivery to cancer cells is a challenge for many researchers. Getting the cancer cells to take the chemotherapy "bait" is a greater challenge. But perhaps such a challenge has not been met with greater success than by the nanotechnology research team of Omid Farokhzad, MD, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH)- Department of Anesthesiology Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Research.
In their latest study with researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Massachusetts General Hospital, the BWH team created a drug delivery system that is able to effectively deliver a tremendous amount of chemotherapeutic drugs to prostate cancer cells.

The process involved is akin to building and equipping a car with the finest features, adding a passenger (in this case the cancer drug), and sending it off to its destination (in this case the cancer cell).

Source: http://www.healthnoise.com/articles/getting-cancer-cells-to-swallow-poison
MIT; http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/61142

A new form of graphene created by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin could prevent laptops and other electronics from overheating, ultimately, overcoming one of the largest hurdles to building smaller and more powerful electronic devices. The research team, which includes colleagues at The University of Texas at Dallas, the University of California-Riverside and Xiamen University in China, published its findings online today in the Advance Online Publication of Nature Materials. The study will also appear in the print journal of Nature Materials. Led by Professor Rodney S. Ruoff in the Cockrell School's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program, the research demonstrates for the first time that a type of graphene created by the University of Texas researchers is 60 percent more effective at managing and transferring heat than normal graphene.

"This demonstration brings graphene a step closer to being used as a conductor for managing heat in a variety of devices. The potential of this material, and its promise for the electronic industry, is very exciting," said Ruoff, a physical chemist and Cockrell Regents Family Chair, who has pioneered research on graphene-based materials for more than 12 years.

Source: http://www.me.utexas.edu/directory/faculty/ruoff/rodney/

As a supramolecular chemist, Hanadi Sleiman found herself strongly drawn to manmade DNA structures. 'We think of DNA as the most programmable structure there is. 'What is really beautiful about DNA structures is the fact that you can control every single aspect of them,' she exclaims. I thought – if it is – let me try to incorporate it into regular supramolecular structures,' says the professor at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Sleiman is one of an increasing number of chemists who have turned to DNA nanotechnology. Some pin their hopes on using DNA in nanoelectronics or for drug delivery, while others are excited about its potential as an analytical tool.

Source: http://aoc.mcgill.ca/news/channels/2010/march/3/dna-nanotechnology-breakthrough-offers-promising-applications-medicine

Researchers from the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics –  MANA- have developed the world's highest performance thin-film capacitors using a new high-permittivity (high-k) dielectric sheet with molecular-level thickness (~1 nm). This technology may revolutionize the next-generation electronics. 

The announcement of this breakthrough comes from a research group led by MANA Scientist Dr. Minoru Osada and Principal Investigator Dr. Takayoshi Sasaki of the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) at the National Institute for Material Science (NIMS) in Japan. Good insulating, high-k nanofilms are expected to be key to future applications as predicted by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). 

Source: http://www.nims.go.jp/mana/

Picture a world where your jeans or coat can generate enough energy to charge the battery on your mobile phone or a future where the curtains in your living room help power your lamps. Well it could be closer than you think.” Scientists from th Center  for  nanotechnology and smart materials – CENTI -, located in Portugal,  are working on the development of photovoltaic textiles based on novel fibers and  their project DEPHOTEX has been selected  by the European Commission  among 450 projects and was one of the 50 projects on display in the exhibition "Innovation convention" held in last december. The goal of the project is to research and develop textile solar cells in order to get flexible photovoltaic textiles based on novel fibres allowing taking benefit from the solar radiation so as to turn it into energy. Photovoltaic solar energy is being widely studied as one of the sources of renewable energy with major application potential, being considered a real alternative to fossil fuels. Since the development of first photovoltaic cells, solar energy is being an object of continuous research focused on improving the energy efficiency as well as the structure of photovoltaic cells.

Source; http://www.centi.pt/

Microsoft and the University of Washington are in the final stages of development for a new augmented reality project that may change the way people see the world. Early last year, the duo announced that they were working on an augmented reality contact lens. The lens could be used to enhance human vision like normal contact lenses, but it could also augment a person’s vision with digital information. Microsoft claims that the project will show just how practical augmented reality really is. 

Augmented reality is commonly used in the marketing and gaming fields. The technology has, thus far, been considered little more than a novelty. Most mobile devices equipped with AR browsers are used to find directions to certain locations or to find deals at local retail stores. Microsoft says that their AR lens will be much more practical, as it will give wearers tools that are not found in mobile devices.
The lens is equipped with facial recognition technology, which allows users to find information on a specific person, such as name and age. The lens will also be able to interface with Windows platforms and other mobile devices, allowing users to access information stored in computers in, literally, the blink of an eye.

The project is in its final stages. The lens has been tested on rabbits and is expected to move to human testing within the next few months.

Source: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/

Let's remind that APPLE has last year produced already a first prototype of Nanocomputer iLens : http://www.nanocomputer.com/?page_id=563

“Solar photovoltaics still remains one of the fastest growing industries in the world. To enable more efficient  utilization of this free, clean energy, the efficiencies of the solar cells have to increase and their manufacturing costs decrease.  ROD-SOL’s silicon nanorod cell concept shows promising potential to this, and we at Picosun have been especially satisfied of the ALD’s central role in realizing this novel, innovative, high efficiency solar electricity converter”, states Picosun’s Managing Director Juhana Kostamo.

Source: http://www.picosun.com/pdf/Picosun_Press_Release_RODSOL_Eng_FINAL_31st_Dec_2011.pdf

Scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, have found that mesoporous silica nanoparticles are able to store and deliver biocides in a controlled manner over time. The discovery could help the timber industry control termites. Termites cause  tens of billions dollars  in damage each year around the world, and are considered to be a significant threat to the timber industry throughout the tropics and subtropics. Conventional methods of eradicating the pests use agrochemical biocides that cause environmental damage via bioaccumulation.

The new method uses the pore structure of the mesoporous silica nanoparticles to adsorb biocides, which are then released in a controlled manner. The slow release means the termites will feed on and transfer the substance to other termites, resulting in eventual colony destruction. The team, said Zhang Qiao, who is heading up the research, is investigating how to further control the release of the biocide, saying the nanoparticles need to be coated with other chemicals in order to effectively deliver their cargo. They are investigating a biodegradable polymer coating.

Source: http://nanomac.uq.edu.au/Qiao.html

 

Researchers at Harvard University, United States, have announced that they have taken a big step toward being able to sequence anybody’s genome for less than US$1,000. One of the candidate technologies for achieving this goal is “nanopore sequencing,” in which an electric field pulls ions in the water and strands of DNA through a nanopore in a solid-state membrane. Each of the four nucleic acids in DNA – G, T, C and A – can be identified by their distinct effect on the current. The current, however, is very small, and the DNA passes through the nanopore at a rapid clip, making it difficult to distinguish the signal in so short a time.

One approach has been to try to slow the speed at witch the DNA moves through the nanopore. Harvard researchers instead decided to try and boost the signal. Their device consists of a chip with a transistor that amplifies the change in current. Current nanopore systems measure signals from tens of picoamps to a few nanoamps. Now, says Ping Xie, a postdoctoral researcher, “…we can measure tens of nanoamps to hundreds of nanoamps.” 
Source; http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/01/reading-life%E2%80%99s-building-blocks/

Many of the current experimental "invisibility cloaks" are based around the same idea - light coming from behind an object is curved around it and then continues on forward to a viewer. That person is in turn only able to see what's behind the object, and not the object itself. Scientists from Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have applied that same principle to sound waves, and created what could perhaps be described as a "silence cloak." For the experiments, Dr. Nicolas Stenger, from KIT,  constructed a relatively small, millimeter-thin plate, made of both soft and hard microstructured polymers. Different rings of material within the plate resonated at different frequencies, over a range of 100 Hertz.

When viewed from above, it was observed that sound wave vibrations were guided around a central circular area in the plate, unable to either enter or leave that region. "Contrary to other known noise protection measures, the sound waves are neither absorbed nor reflected," said Stenger's colleague, Prof. Martin Wegener. "It is as if nothing was there."

Source; http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i17/e173901

A Leuven, Belgium-based R&D lab for nanoelectronics has come up with a process that might bring holographic to everyday life. Scientists at Imec believe, as do other researchers, that holographic images are the answer toward resolving the eye strain and headaches that go along with present-day 3-D viewing. Their work involves creating moving pixels. They are constructing holographic displays by shining lasers on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) platforms that can move up and down like small, reflective pistons. “Holographic visualization promises to offer a natural 3-D experience for multiple viewers, without the undesirable side-effects of current 3D stereoscopic visualization (uncomfortable glasses, strained eyes, fatiguing experience),” the company states.

Click on the image to see the video

In their nanoscale system, they work with chips made by growing a layer of silicon oxide on to silicon wafer. They etch square patches of the silicon oxide. The result is a checkerboard-like pattern where etched-away pixels are nanometers lower than their neighbors. A reflective aluminum coating tops the chip. When laser light shines on the chip, it bounces off of the boundary between adjacent pixels at an angle. Diffracted light interferes constructively and destructively to create a 3-D picture where small mirrored platforms are moving up and down, many times a second, to create a moving projection. The process can also be described as the pixels closer to the light interfering with it one way and those further off, in another. The small distances between them generate the image that the eye sees. Imec hopes to construct the first, proof-of-concept moving structures by mid-2012.” .
Source: http://www2.imec.be/be_en/research/imaging-systems/holographic-displays.html