Technology Trends

NASA is testing a shape-shifting robot called “TETwalker” for tetrahedral walker, because it looks like a flexible pyramid. It has been tested in the lab and at the McMurdo station in Antarctica to test it under conditions more like those on Mars. Now, it is on the way to be — really — miniaturized by using micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems. These robots will eventually join together to form “autonomous nanotechnology swarms” (ANTS). When it’s done, in about thirty years, these nanotech swarms will “alter their shape to flow over rocky terrain or to create useful structures like communications antennae and solar sails.” So in 2034, nanotechnology will land on Mars. Read more…

But in 2005, this is only the beginning of tests for this shape-shifting robot pyramid at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Like new and protective parents, engineers watched as the TETWalker robot successfully traveled across the floor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Robots of this type will eventually be miniaturized and joined together to form “autonomous nanotechnology swarms” (ANTS) that alter their shape to flow over rocky terrain or to create useful structures like communications antennae and solar sails.

Here are more details about the TETwalker.

The robot is called “TETwalker” for tetrahedral walker, because it resembles a tetrahedron (a pyramid with 3 sides and a base). In the prototype, electric motors are located at the corners of the pyramid called nodes.

The nodes are connected to struts which form the sides of the pyramid. The struts telescope like the legs of a camera tripod, and the motors expand and retract the struts. This allows the pyramid to move: changing the length of its sides alters the pyramid’s center of gravity, causing it to topple over. The nodes also pivot, giving the robot great flexibility.

But where is nanotechnology involved in this project?

The team anticipates TETwalkers can be made much smaller by replacing their motors with Micro- and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems. Replacement of the struts with metal tape or carbon nanotubes will not only reduce the size of the robots, it will also greatly increase the number that can be packed into a rocket because tape and nanotube struts are fully retractable, allowing the pyramid to shrink to the point where all its nodes touch.

These miniature TETwalkers, when joined together in “swarms,” will have great advantages over current systems. The swarm has abundant flexibility so it can change its shape to accomplish highly diverse goals. For example, while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere, the swarm might flatten itself to form an aerodynamic shield.

Upon landing, it can shift its shape to form a snake-like swarm and slither away over difficult terrain. If it finds something interesting, it can grow an antenna and transmit data to Earth. Highly-collapsible material can also be strung between nodes for temperature control or to create a deployable solar sail.

Of course, there are many technological challenges to solve for this project to be successful. For more information about the project, please visit the Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm website. Practically all pages have a graphical version (which look as poorly scanned images) and a cleaner text one.

In particular, take a look at the technologies needed. Those of you interested by robotics will jump to the Tetrahedral Walker page while other will be more interested by Carbon Nanotube Technology.

Finally, you can look at the Timeline for Technological Development… and dream about 2034.

Sources: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center news release, March 29, 2005; and various websites

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Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) have developed fluorescent and stable nano-probes which can stay inside a cell’s nucleus for hours or even days. According to this LBL news release, this will help biologists to better understand nuclear processes that evolve slowly, such as DNA replication, genomic alterations, and cell cycle control. This research was partially based on previous investigations about quantum dots. Now, the researchers want to tailor their quantum dots, which emit different colors depending on their sizes, to check specific chemical reactions inside nuclei, such as how proteins help repair DNA after irradiation. Read more…

Here is a short description of what the researchers achieved.

“Our work represents the first time a biologist can image long-term phenomena within the nuclei of living cells,” says Fanqing Chen of Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, who developed the technique with Daniele Gerion of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Their success lies in specially prepared crystalline semiconductors composed of a few hundred or thousand atoms that emit different colors of light when illuminated by a laser. Because these fluorescent probes are stable and nontoxic, they have the ability to remain in a cell’s nucleus — without harming the cell or fading out — much longer than conventional fluorescent labels.

This could give biologists a ringside seat to nuclear processes that span several hours or days, such as DNA replication, genomic alterations, and cell cycle control. The long-lived probes may also allow researchers to track the effectiveness of disease-fighting drugs that target these processes.

The two researchers closely collaborated with Paul Alivisatos, director of the Materials Sciences Division at LBNL, who’s working on quantum dots for several years now. Here are two links to previous entries about Alivisatos research, “Nano Tetrapods With Tunable ‘Legs’,” and “Nanotech solar cells: Portable Plastic Power.”

So, Chen and Gerion thought it was possible to introduce these quantum dots inside a cell’s nucleus. And they did it.

First, they had to breach the nuclear membrane, which has pores that are only about 20 nanometers wide. To fit through these tiny slits, Chen and Gerion used an especially compact cadmium selenide/zinc sulfide quantum dot coated with silica. Next, they stole a trick from a virus’s playbook to smuggle this nanocrystal past the highly selective membrane that guards the entrance into the nucleus.

Chen and Gerion obtained a portion of this protein and attached it to the quantum dot. The result is a hybrid quantum dot, part biological molecule and part nano-sized semiconductor, that is small enough to slide through the nuclear membrane’s pores and believable enough to slip past the membrane’s barriers.

And what are they working on now?

In the future, they hope to tailor quantum dots to track specific chemical reactions inside nuclei, such as how proteins help repair DNA after irradiation.

They also hope to target other cellular organelles besides the nucleus, such as mitochondria and Golgi bodies. And because quantum dots emit different colors of light based on their size, they can be used to observe the transfer of material between cells.

However, with their current nano-probes, they’re already able to know if “a drug has arrived where it is supposed to, and if it is having the desired impact.”

The research work has been published by Nano Letters on September 9, 2004 (Volume 4, Issue 10, Pages 1827 -1832). Here is a link to the abstract of this paper named “Fluorescent CdSe/ZnS Nanocrystal-Peptide Conjugates for Long-term, Nontoxic Imaging and Nuclear Targeting in Living Cells.”

Sources: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory news release, March 18, 2005; and various websites

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Today, we’ll look at nanotechnology under an unusual angle: the impact on the jewelry industry. In this long article, “The Weird World of Precious Metal Nanotechnology,” published by AJM Magazine (The Authority on Jewelry Manufacturing), Michael Cortie, professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, explains why gold is often used by nanotechnologists. Not only gold exhibits very interesting properties at the nanoscale level, but it’s also a bargain when compared to current prices of carbon nanotubes. And gold — and silver — nanoparticles can offer a range of unusual colors, suitable for fine jewelry or luxurious coatings. Finally, Cortie envisions smart jewelry made possible through the use of nanotechnology, such as a pendant that could include cell phone capabilities.

Please read the whole article for many more details about the birth of nanotechnology and let’s jump to the section explaining why gold is so often used by nanotechnologists. Here are two important paragraphs.

Thousands of technologists have independently arrived at this conclusion. As a result, gold particles, wires, and surfaces are at the heart of much of nanotechnology. At this scale, the inherent softness of pure gold is not an issue, nor is its high intrinsic value. In addition to resistance to corrosion, gold’s electrical conductivity and special affinity for sulfur-containing organic molecules are also particularly attractive features. These properties allow chemists to design molecules that can stick onto the gold in a controlled fashion, and then be probed by electrical currents. This permits the bottom-up assembly of quite interesting and promising structures, such as ultra-sensitive biosensors.

It is important to note that the relatively high value of gold is not expected to impede its penetration into the high tech markets. The value of the tiny amounts of gold used in existing or anticipated nanotech products is completely swamped by the overall added value of the product. Manufacturers will use gold when it provides the best technological performance, and they will not be overly concerned by its price. A $20 medical test kit or sensor might contain gold worth only 50 cents, yet it may be this critical ingredient that makes the whole device possible. In any case, gold is far cheaper than the highly touted carbon nanotube, the other material frequently associated with nanotechnology. Single-wall carbon nanotubes cost $400 per gram when in reasonable purity. The cost increases to $1,500 per gram or $46,000 per troy ounce for highly processed carbon nanotubes. Gold is a bargain compared to this.

Now, it’s time to look at the unusual colors exhibited by gold nanoparticles.

After the images, here is an explanation.

One of the features of gold and silver nanoparticles is that they possess a range of quite unusual colors. Bulk gold has a familiar yellow color, which is caused by a reduction in the reflectivity of light at the blue end of the spectrum. However, if we subdivide the gold into smaller and smaller particles, there comes a point at which the particle size becomes smaller than the wavelength of incident light. New modes of interaction between the radiation and the gold become prominent, in particular interactions involving electronic oscillations called surface plasmons. When the particles of gold are small enough, they are ruby red in color. This coloration is due to the gold particles’ strong absorption of green light, corresponding to the frequency at which a resonance occurs with the gold.

Will these unusual colors be used for real jewels one day?

The jury is still out on this question. Certainly, to be of value in fine jewelry, the karatage of the colored gold should be high. This probably excludes many of the commonly prepared colored glasses as possible materials from which to produce a piece of jewelry. But it is worth noting that, in theory, interesting colors are possible up to about 23 karats. This is because of the high density of gold relative to the various candidate transparent matrix materials. The trick will be to find a matrix to hold the precious metal nanoparticles. However, the availability of gold gilding pastes and paints of very high metal content shows that there is no theoretical limitation that prevents this possibility.

Finally, Cortie looks at a future where we could carry ’smart’ jewels.

Will there be a general trend toward integrating some technological devices into items of jewelry? It is certainly becoming possible. Candidate functionalities include bracelets that could record their owner’s blood pressure and heartbeat, or a pendant that could include cell phone capabilities. There are problems of hallmarking, of course, and no doubt many would see such items as tawdry. However, a small market already exists for color-change and other novelty jewelry, so it is possible, for example, that an integration of electronic “smarts” with a gold nanoparticle color change functionality might appeal to some markets.

For more information, an extended — and more technical — version of Cortie’s work has been published in June 2004 by Gold Bulletin under the title “The Weird World of Nanoscale Gold” (PDF format, 8 pages with diagrams, 120 KB).

Source: Michael Cortie, for AJM Magazine (The Authority on Jewelry Manufacturing), March 2005

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In this short article, eWEEK writes that the next generation of biosensors will consist of small holograms costing only fractions of a cent. Prototypes developed by a U.K. company, aptly named Smart Holograms, include contact lenses that monitor glucose levels or thin badges that detect alcohol levels. Not only these holograms used as sensors will be cheap to produce, they’ll also require less training for nurses or police officers. This is because these holograms can be designed to show results graphically, such as morphing into an image of a green car if someone subjected to breath analysis is sober and can drive. Read more…

Here are selected quotes from the eWEEK article.

Prototypes have already been made for contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, thin badges that detect alcohol levels, and sticks that can tell, instantly, if milk has spoiled or become contaminated. The technology promises to be quicker and cheaper than tests used today. It will also require less training, because the hologram itself can be designed to show results graphically.

A test showing that fuel has been contaminated with trace amounts of water reads “dry” or “wet.” In a breath alcohol test intended for police offices, suspects breathe onto tiny cards that either show a green automobile or a red X, establishing whether a person is sober enough to drive.

This technology looks cheap and promising, according to Chris Lowe, a professor at Cambridge University, and co-founder of Smart Holograms.

One advantage of the technology is that each hologram costs only a fraction of a cent to produce. Another is the wide applicability. The holograms can detect pH to four decimal places and chemical concentrations of hormones and other biologically important substances. The samples tested do not need to be pure: The holograms can work in milk or even in stool samples from newborns, said Lowe.

Now, let’s turn to the company itself to see how holograms can be turned into biosensors. Here are some explanations provided on this page whose title is “Creating a Sensor Hologram.”

Sensors that rely on the ability of “smart” polymers to swell or contract when in contact with specific biological reagents, chemicals or physical forces, sometimes called volume holograms, are of significant interest. For example, bright wavelength changes produced by holograms fabricated in hydrophilic polymers offer immediate advantages as a facile and reliable means of measuring volume changes. Hologram gratings capable of exhibiting spectral effects from volume changes need to be of the so-called “Denisyuk” type.

For more information about Yuri Denisyuk, you can read this brief history of the holography.

[The figure above] illustrates the experimental set-up used to create Denisyuk-type holograms. Laser light returning from a plane mirror creates a classical standing wave pattern of nodes and antinodes or interference fringes spaced half a wavelength apart. The standing wave pattern is recorded in the polymer matrix that has been coated on a plastic substrate or glass microscope slide. After a conventional photographic development step, the fringe pattern is represented as a distribution of ultrafine (<20 nm diameter) grains of silver.

Is this technology as accurate as told by its promoters? We’ll see. However, it really seems it has a serious cost advantage over current technologies, so it has the potential to become widely used in a few years.

Sources: M.L. Baker, eWEEK, February 19, 2005; Smart Holograms website

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It’s an antenna, it’s a nanomachine, and it’s a macroscopic quantum system. This antenna, made of 50 billion atoms, is so far the largest structure to display quantum mechanical movements. It’s also the fastest device of its kind in the world, oscillating about 1.5 billion times per second. Such technology might soon be used in our cell phones. But more importantly, this nanomechanical device bridges classic and quantum physics. Such ”mechanical/quantum mechanical hybrids could be used for quantum computing” in the future. Read more…

Here is the introduction from this Boston University news release.

A team of Boston University physicists led by Assistant Professor Pritiraj Mohanty developed the nanomechanical oscillator. Operating at gigahertz speeds, the technology could help further miniaturize wireless communication devices like cell phones, which exchange information at gigahertz frequencies. But, more important to the researchers, the oscillator lies at the cusp of classic physics, what people experience everyday, and quantum physics, the behavior of the molecular world.

Please note that this is the second appearance of Mohanty’s team in this space. I already mentioned their works back in October 2004 in “Nanomechanical Memory Outstrips Chip Technology.”

Now, let’s look at some — impressive — numbers.

Comprised of 50 billion atoms, the antenna built by Mohanty’s team is so far the largest structure to display quantum mechanical movements.

“It’s a truly macroscopic quantum system,” says Alexei Gaidarzhy, a graduate student in the BU College of Engineering’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. The device is also the fastest of its kind, oscillating at 1.49 gigahertz, or 1.49 billion times a second, breaking the previous record of 1.02 gigahertz achieved by a nanomachine produced by another group.

The above image shows different views of this nanomechanical structure. The center, (a), is a scanning electron micrograph of the suspended antenna oscillator. The nanomechanical antenna consists of a central silicon beam, 10.7 microns long and 400 nm wide, that bears a “paddle” array 500 nm long and 200 nm wide along each side. In (b), you can see a modal simulation of the antenna structure, showing the low frequency fundamental resonance mode. And in the high order collective mode (c), the paddles vibrate at their own natural frequency. (Credit: Pritiraj Mohanty, Boston University)

The research work has been published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters on January 25, 2005 under the name “Evidence for Quantized Displacement in Macroscopic Nanomechanical Oscillators.” Here is a link to the abstract.

We report the observation of discrete displacement of nanomechanical oscillators with gigahertz-range resonance frequencies at millikelvin temperatures. The oscillators are nanomachined single-crystal structures of silicon, designed to provide two distinct sets of coupled elements with very low and very high frequencies. With this novel design, femtometer-level displacement of the frequency-determining element is amplified into collective motion of the entire micron-sized structure. The observed discrete response possibly results from energy quantization at the onset of the quantum regime in these macroscopic nanomechanical oscillators.

And here is a link to the full article (PDF format, 4 pages, 955 KB). The above illustration comes from this article.

Finally, for explanations written in — almost — plain English, you might read the news release quoted above.

Sources: Boston University, via EurekAlert!, February 9, 2005; and various websites

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Many teams of nanoscientists around the world want to be the first one to build quantum computers. To achieve this goal, they’re using artificial atoms — also known as ‘quantum dots.’ But even if they’re able to use them, not a single team has been able to consistently control their quantum mechanical states — or their properties — at the nanoscale. Now, a team from Ohio University claims it found a flaw in quantum dot construction and proposes a solution. And guess what? As it happens often in research, this new finding is based on a very simple fact: an interference between two physical phenomena. Read more…

[For example,] experimental scientists in Germany had blasted the quantum dots with light to create the quantum mechanical state needed to run a quantum computer. But they couldn’t consistently control that state, explained Sergio Ulloa, an Ohio University professor of physics and astronomy. Jose Villas-Boas, a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio University, Ulloa and Associate Professor Alexander Govorov developed theoretical models to learn what went wrong.

The problem, they argued, happens during the creation of the type of quantum dots under study. Using a molecular beam epitaxy chamber, scientists spray paint a surface with atoms under high temperatures, creating an atomic coating. As more layers are added, the quantum dots bead up on the surface like droplets of water, Ulloa said.

But a fine residue left behind on the surface that Ulloa calls the “wetting layer” can cause problems during experiments. When experimental scientists blasted the quantum dots with a beam of light in previous studies, the wetting layer caused interference, instead of allowing the light to enter the dot and trigger the quantum state, he explained.

The illustration above “shows a quantum dot (blue central bulge) bombarded from the top with laser light. The laser produces excitations (called excitons) inside the dot, and the electric fields generated by the top and bottom gold contacts pull the electrons (yellow) and holes (red) away. Other electrons/holes are undesirably produced instead on the wetting layer, causing interference. The semiconductor compounds used in these experiments are Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) and Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs).” (Credit for image and legend: Jose Villas-Boas) Here is a link to a larger version.

The study suggests that scientists could tweak the process by re-focusing the beam of light or changing the duration of the light pulses to negate the effects of the wetting layer, Villas-Boas said. One experimental physicist already has used the theoretical finding to successfully manipulate a quantum dot in the lab, he added. “Now that they know the problem, they realize there are a few ways to avoid it,” Villas-Boas said.

The research work from these scientists at the Ohio University’s Nanoscale & Quantum Phenomena Institute has been published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters on February 8, 2005 under the name “Decoherence of Rabi Oscillations in a Single Quantum Dot.” Here is a link to the abstract.

We develop a realistic model of Rabi oscillations in a quantum-dot photodiode. Based in a multiexciton density matrix formulation we show that for short pulses the two-level model fails and higher levels should be taken into account. This affects some of the experimental conclusions, such as the inferred efficiency of the state rotation (population inversion) and the deduced value of the dipole interaction. We also show that the damping observed cannot be explained using constant rates with fixed pulse duration. We demonstrate that the damping observed is in fact induced by an off-resonant excitation to or from the continuum of wetting layer states. Our model describes the nonlinear decoherence behavior observed in recent experiments.

And if you want to know more, but don’t want to buy the article, here is a link to the full article (PDF format, 5 pages, 221 KB), thanks to the invaluable arXiv.org website.

Finally, just in case you wouldn’t know anything about Rabi oscillations, please read Isidor Isaac Rabi’s biography. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944.

Sources: Andrea Gibson, Ohio University, via EurekAlert!, February 10, 2005; and various websites

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Nano-sized particles embedded with bright, light-emitting molecules have enabled researchers to visualize a tumor more than one centimeter below the skin surface using only infrared light. An interdisciplinary team from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Minnesota have imaged tumors within living rats by embedding fluorescent materials into cell-like vesicles called polymersomes, which are composed of two layers of self-assembling copolymers. According to the researchers, this imaging process has the potential to go even deeper. And “it should also be possible to use an emissive polymersome vesicle to transport therapeutics directly to a tumor, enabling us to actually see if chemotherapy is really going to its intended target.” Read more…

“We have shown that the dispersion of thousands of brightly emissive multi-porphyrin fluorophores within the polymersome membrane can be used to optically image tissue structures deep below the skin — with the potential to go even deeper,” said Michael J. Therien, a professor of chemistry at Penn. “It should also be possible to use an emissive polymersome vesicle to transport therapeutics directly to a tumor, enabling us to actually see if chemotherapy is really going to its intended target.”

“These polymers are also larger than phospholipids, so that there is enough space for the fluorophores, which are larger than the average molecule that is found inside cell membranes,” said Daniel Hammer, professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “Another feature that makes emissive polymersomes so useful is that they self-assemble. Simply mixing together all component parts gives rise to these functional nanometer-sized, cell-like vesicles.”

Now, what’s next?

According to Therien, there is keen interest in developing new technology that will enable optical imaging of cancer tissue, as such technology will be less costly and more accessible than MRI-based methods and free of the harmful side effects associated with radioactivity. In this imaging system, the fluorophores can also be tuned to respond to different wavelengths of near-infrared light. This sets the stage for using emissive polymersomes to target multiple cancer cell-surface markers in the body simultaneously.

The research work will be published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in its online Early Edition. As I’m typing this, the article is not yet online. Be sure to visit the site in a couple of days.

A patent application was filed in February 2004 for this invention named “Polymersomes incorporating highly emissive probes.” You can find technical details on this patent by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office and search for it. As the patent is not yet approved, click on the left side of the screen on the “Status & IFW” link. On the next window, enter 10/777,552 as the application number. And in the next window, click on the “Published documents” tab.

Here is a direct link to the patent, but I can’t guarantee it always will work. So use the above method if this direct link leads you to an error. In the mean time, here is the abstract.

The instant invention concerns compositions comprising polymersomes, visible or near infrared emissive agents, and optionally a targeting moiety associated with a surface of the polymersome. The invention also relates to use of these compositions in the treatment of disease and in imaging methodology.

The “Images” section of the patent description contains 16 pages of drawings and pictures, including a black and white version of the photograph shown above.

Sources: University of Pennsylvania news release, via EurekAlert!, and various websites

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Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley Lab are using nanotechnology to learn how to clean up environmental contaminants like nuclear waste. They are also using supercomputers and state-of-the-art imaging to predict how quickly pollutants react with minerals in soils and aquifers. This article from the Daily Californian says they are studying kinetics, or rates, of reactions which occur at the earth’s surface using a nanoscale approach. They started to look at the reactions that take place at the pore scale and plan to expand their scope from nanometers to meters in the months to come. This research has implications for transport of contaminants, especially of radioactive materials, but also for oil or ore recovery. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the Daily Californian article.

Nanotechnology, normally used for work with the crystal structures of silicone chips and pure oxides, is being used for something a little more dirty at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, like learning how to clean up environmental contaminants like nuclear waste.

Researchers Glenn Waychunas and Carl Steefel are using techniques that allow them to study the environment at the nanoscale as part of the new Center for Environmental Kinetics Analysis (CEKA) program, based at Pennsylvania State University.

The goal of the program is to gain insight into the kinetics, or rates, of reactions that occur at the earth’s surface using a nanoscale approach that better models what happens in the real world as opposed to in the lab.

The CEKA program uses a multidisciplinary approach and includes chemists, geochemists, biochemists, soil scientists and engineers.

[For their part,] Waychunas and Steefel are working on the reactions that take place on the pore scale, like the flow of water through the minerals in an aquifer.

“What has been left out is determining rates at the pore scale, we’re measuring rates at different scales to see how biogeochemical and microbial reactions scale up,” Steefel said.

What will be the impact of this program, which has received $6.7 million from the NSF?

This can have implications for transport of contaminants, especially of radioactive materials. Researchers seek to determine reaction rates to determine how long it would take for a plume of pollutant to spread through different mineral substrates.

The next scale is supercomputer modeling, according to Waychunas. “This will model chemical reactions and integrate fluid flow through pore structures, using more complicated fluids and soils. Then we’ll apply them to real systems, like the Yucca Mountains, natural aquifers, oil recovery, ore recovery, and natural gas,” Waychunas said.

For more information, you can read “Taking a Peek At Our Environmental Future,” published by Berkeley Lab View, and from which I extracted the above photograph. Here are more details about Steefel’s work.

Steefel, also a geochemist in the Earth Sciences Division, will also start small and then try to go big. First, he wants to gain a mechanistic understanding of the processes that control biogeochemical reaction rates in porous material by focusing on a single pore. In a common scenario, there may be a reactive mineral on one side of a pore and biofilm on the other side. How do they communicate? To answer this question, Steefel and several other scientists will conduct reactive flow experiments using single-pore microfluidic devices. They’ll also monitor how fluid reacts with porous samples using imaging technology with a spatial resolution of about 30 nanometers, such as the Advanced Light Source’s scanning transmission x-ray microscope (STXM). They will probably begin with a calcium carbonate mineral that has been studied extensively — but never at the pore scale — and observe the rate at which a slightly acidic solution reacts with the mineral as it flows through.

Next, this pore-by-pore data will be used to develop supercomputer-derived models that depict the rates of these reactions in a much larger sample of porous material.

Here is his conclusion.

“The idea of scaling kinetics is a frontier issue, but that’s what this project is about,” says Steefel. “If we develop a mechanistic understanding of reactive transport at several scales, then we can devise predictive models for bioremediation, chemical weathering, and carbon sequestration. And only through the convergence of modeling, supercomputers, synchrotron techniques, and advanced microfluidic reactors is this possible.”

Sources: Francesca Hopkins, The Daily Californian, January 19, 2005; Dan Krotz, Berkeley Lab View, November 12, 2004; and various websites

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Researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T) have designed an infrared-sensitive material made of nanocrystals so small they were able to tune them to catch the Sun’s invisible rays. In “Nanotechnologists’ new plastic can see in the dark,” you’ll discover that it’s the first time that a light-sensitive material works in the invisible light spectrum. This opens the way to a broad range of applications, from clothing to digital cameras that work in the dark. But the real breakthrough is that it will permit to catch five more times energy from the Sun, up to 30 percent from the 6 percent achieved today by the best plastic solar cells. Hats off to these researchers…

Here is the somewhat lyrical opening paragraph of the U of T news release.

Imagine a home with “smart” walls responsive to the environment in the room, a digital camera sensitive enough to work in the dark, or clothing with the capacity to turn the sun’s power into electrical energy. Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that could shortly turn these possibilities into realities.

Professor Ted Sargent, from Nortel Networks and U of T, explains the process.

“We made particles from semiconductor crystals which were exactly two, three or four nanometres in size. The nanoparticles were so small they remained dispersed in everyday solvents just like the particles in paint,” explains Sargent. Then, they tuned the tiny nanocrystals to catch light at very short wavelengths. The result — a sprayable infrared detector.

Existing technology has given us solution-processible, light-sensitive materials that have made large, low-cost solar cells, displays, and sensors possible, but these materials have so far only worked in the visible light spectrum, says Sargent. “These same functions are needed in the infrared for many imaging applications in the medical field and for fibre optic communications,” he says.

Happy 2035! Thirty years from now, we’ll use bionic eyes giving us ‘zoom vision’ for faster reactions. Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system. Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster. So you think it’s science fiction? Not at all. Here is my last reading suggestion for 2004, an article from EE Times. You’ll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events ‘will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.’ And they will be safer than today’s drugs. Read more and happy 2005!

Here are the opening paragraphs of the EE Times article.

Thirty years from now, the uproar surrounding Barry Bonds’ alleged steroid use might seem quaint by comparison to the human enhancement technologies that could be available then.

In the next few decades, futurists say, athletes and soldiers will call on artificial muscles to lift heavier loads and run faster. Bionic eyes will let them see distant targets, while “nanobots” enhance their cognitive abilities and genetic-engineering techniques boost their performance under pressure.

“The use of anabolic steroids, in retrospect, will seem almost prehistoric — as well as stupid,” said Jerome C. Glenn, executive director of the American Council for the United Nations University (Washington) and co-author of the book 2004 State of the Future. “In the future, we’ll be able to enhance ourselves in other ways that won’t be so dangerous.”

Right now, in 2004, many of these enhancement techniques are already actively being investigated, like artificial muscles or body implants for example.

And of course, the military forces are looking at these new technologies, such as molecular-sized ‘bots,’ put in soldiers’ bloodstream.

Soldiers could use the “bots,” which are molecularly assembled structures that behave much like red blood cells, to combat biological warfare by accelerating the actions of the human immune system, said Glenn. Bots could also be programmed to move to the frontal part of the brain to dispense certain chemicals and hence speed an individual’s anticipation and response time.

At the same time, scientists are said to be examining DNA strings in search of certain behavioral characteristics desirable for elite soldiers. “We’ve heard that researchers have identified a genetic DNA string that makes Navy Seals and other elite soldiers more effective,” said John L. Petersen, founder of the Arlington Institute (Washington). “They’re trying to find a way to take that to the military and make it generally available.”

I guess you can approve such enhancements for a soldier in danger during a war, but what about more ‘pacific’ events, such as the Olympic Games or the World Series?

Because he considers some level of augmentation inevitable, Glenn believes that sporting events will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.

“It’s not fair for someone with enhanced vision to compete with someone who doesn’t have that capability,” Glenn said. “You’ll probably need three Olympics — one for those who are enhanced, another for those who are natural and a third for those who are handicapped.”

I might not see 2035 — or even 2005, who knows? — but I would like to know if some of these human enhancements look plausible or desirable for you.

Please post your ideas below and happy new year!

Source: Charles Murray, EE Times, December 17, 2004

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• Biotechnology
  
  
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In this must-read article, MIS, from Australia, asserts than in 10 to 15 years, we’ll be unable to use today’s technologies to build electronic devices always smaller and more powerful. Instead, three disruptive technologies will converge and deeply change our lives: nanotechnology, sensors and wireless technology. The author explains how this will influence molecular computing or quantum information processing. She also describes future advances in robotics, including nanobots. And the transportation industry will welcome the arrival of skycars, which are under development today. But will we travel anymore when holographic videoconferencing tools will be available? Please take a moment to check this fascinating article or read more below…

If nanobots and skycars sound more like sci-fi than a sane view of the future, then you may need to reprogram your mindset. Helene Zampetakis reports on the technology that will shape our lives in the decades to come.

A trio of disruptive technologies will converge over the next five to 15 years to overtake our incumbent systems and create new competencies that will profoundly change the way we organise our lives and the way we do business.

The driving principles behind modern technology are running out of steam: it is becoming prohibitively costly to continue to shrink technology, while Moore’s Law, which postulates the doubling of computer power every 18 months, is reaching its physical limits under current processes.

Luckily, help is coming with the convergence of three technologies.

But research that is underway today is expected to usher in a new technological era. Dubbed ‘embedded connectivity’ by Bob Hayward, vice-president and research fellow at Gartner, it will draw strength from nanotechnology, sensors and wireless technology.

The embedded world of the future will harness the power of billions of microprocessors on a single device, wirelessly connected to others, that can read the environment and react accordingly. Scientists portray a future in which we attach these devices to our bodies to communicate, set them loose on our streets to do menial tasks, and embed them in the commonplace objects of our lives to address our daily requirements.

The underlying foundation for this new era of embedded connectivity is nanotechnology, which is based on the manipulation of molecules less than 100 nanometres in size. “Nanotechnology means that rather than taking a chunk of silicon and carving it down to size, we build from the bottom up by assembling single molecules and atoms,” says Dr Terry Turney, director of CSIRO’s nanotechnology centre.

Zampetakis then looks at electronic circuitry and how it will be transformed by molecular self-assembly technology. She also describes future quantum information processing and wireless networks of sensors.

Now, let’s look at what she says about robotics.

It will be at least 20 years before we see microscopic ‘nanobots’, the much-hyped molecular manufacturing systems that have generated sci-fi like fears of mutating swarms running amok. But miniature robots are in fact under serious investigation.

In 2000, for example, MIT’s Bioinstrumentation Laboratory unveiled the Nanowalker, a sugar-cube sized prototype of the first autonomous nanorobot. The Nanowalker is able to move with great precision at a speed of about 4,000 steps a second and communicate wirelessly to a central computer.

Nanorobots will eventually construct materials atom by atom to create products that do anything from surveillance to in vitro navigation.

Larger robots will also be present and will become more independent.

Currently robots operate in controlled environments designed around them, such as car assembly plants, but the next generation of machines will be designed to function in a less structured world and to cope with unexpected changes to their environment.

Robotics research today centres around embedding these devices with fuzzy logic skills using sensors that will allow them to perceive and respond. Dr Peter Corke, autonomous systems team leader at CSIRO, says we could expect to see this class of machine delivering mail or medication or stacking store shelves at low cost to replace human labour in five to 10 years from now. Larger versions could be used down mines; and indeed this research is principally funded by the mining industry, along with organisations interested in flying robots that can inspect assets such as power lines.

And after decades of science-fiction stories, skycars will finally be there.

These will let us travel “when and where but especially how we wish”, according to Mark Moore, personal air vehicle sector manager for NASA’s Vehicle Systems Program.

NASA’s area of focus is a skycar (or personal air vehicle — PAV) designed not for getting about the city, but for travelling at high speeds for distances of between 160kms to 800kms. That would allow people to live in regional areas and commute into urban airfields for work.

Over the next decade Moore expects to see flying cars priced at less than US$100,000 using automated functionality based on NASA’s EquiPT (Easy-to-use, quiet Personal Transportation) technology set.

Moore says an obstacle to PAVs has been the intensity of training required to fly them, so automation is critical. The goal is to have the vehicle controlled by a computerised brain that senses and responds to weather conditions or other crafts in the vicinity, and compensates for technical failures.

And did you know you could order a skycar today? Moller International, based in California, is developing the M400 Skycar and hopes it will be certified by 2006. And you can purchase a 4-passenger Skycar today for a cool $995,000!

But will we travel with the arrival of the next generation of videoconferencing tools?

The synergy of vastly increased bandwidth, three-dimensional video projection and interactive holography systems is expected to change the way we collectively communicate, according to James Anderson, country manager of Polycom.

Videophones as a standard business tool are a decade away but it will be more like 20 years before research from bodies such as MIT’s Spatial Imaging Group or 3D visualisation company, Actuality Systems, yields practicable holographic videoconferencing. By then, however, “we’ll be looking at life-size holograms in 3D that can move around the room in full motion”, says Anderson.

Finally, Zampetakis looks at changes in information technology likely to happen in the next five to ten years.

Now, I have a question for you. Is this message from the future a one you like? Personally, I do.

Source: Helene Zampetakis, Managing Information Strategies, Australia, December 17, 2004; Moller International

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• Chips
  


• Future
  


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• Quantum World
  


• Robotics
  


• Self-Assembling Structures
  


• Sensors
  


• Technology
  


• Wireless
  

This is almost certain, according to Ian Pearson, a futurologist working for British Telecom. In fifteen years, local area networks will be replaced by body area networks. As writes BBC News Online, “when technology gets personal,” you can expect a “pervasive ambient world” where “chips are everywhere.” Not only we’ll be surrounded by intelligent objects in the streets, but we’ll wear clothes made of nano-engineered smart fabrics or we’ll carry implants. Pearson thinks that we’ll use wearable technology that runs on body heat such as intelligent electronic contact lenses functioning as TV screens when we are in the subway for instance. Of course, this raises interesting questions about our privacy. Pearson adds that security should be integrated into the design of these future devices. He’s obviously right, but as usually, making money will always have a higher priority than protecting privacy. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the BBC News Online article.

In 2020, whipping out your mobile phone to make a call will be quaintly passé. By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT’s resident futurologist. It’s all part of what’s known as a “pervasive ambient world”, where “chips are everywhere”

Inanimate objects will start to interact with us: we will be surrounded — on streets, in homes, in appliances, on our bodies and possibly in our heads — by things that “think”. Forget local area networks - these will be body area networks.

I’ve already covered MP3 jackets here, but there’s more to expect from “smart fabrics.”

These “smart fabrics” have come about through advances in nano- and micro-engineering — the ability to manipulate and exploit materials at micro or molecular scale.

At the nanoscale, materials can be “tuned” to display unusual properties that can be exploited to build faster, lighter, stronger and more efficient devices and systems.

The textile and clothing industry has been one of the first to exploit nanotechnology in quite straightforward ways. Many developments are appearing in real products in the fields of medicine, defence, healthcare, sports, and communications.

Of course, wearable technology raises important questions regarding our privacy.

If our clothing, skin, and “personal body networks” do the talking and the monitoring, everywhere we go, we have to think about what that means for our concept of privacy. Mr Pearson picks up the theme, pointing out there are a lot of issues humans have to iron out before we become “cyborgian”. His main concern is “privacy”.

“We are looking at electronics which are really in deep contact with your body and a lot of that information you really don’t want every passer-by to know. “So we have to make sure we build security in this. If you are wearing smart make-up, where electronics are controlling the appearance, you don’t want people hacking in and writing messages on your forehead.”

Will he be heard? Time will tell.

Finally, for more information about Pearson’s thoughts, you can read all the articles he published on this British Telecom web site, “Views of the future.” My only regret is that these articles are not dated — at least explicitly.

Sources: Jo Twist, BBC News Online, December 6, 2004; and British Telecom ‘Views of the future’ web site

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• Future
  


• Nanotechnology
  


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Carbon nanotubes, which can have useful electrical or optical properties, are typically grown using chemical vapor deposition techniques. During this process, amorphous and useless carbon layers are also produced, meaning that a post-growth purification process is needed. Not anymore. According to this article from Technology Research News (TRN), Japanese researchers have successfully used water to get rid of these impurities. The idea of using water to clean carbon nanotubes is so simple that I’m amazed that nobody thought about it before. Anyway, this method, which eliminates the post-growth purification process, still needs some improvements and will not help to mass produce carbon nanotubes before at least five years. There were several other announcements about nanotechnology achievements in the last two weeks, so read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the TRN article.

Washing away impurities with water turns out to be as good for growing carbon nanotubes as it is for keeping a clean house.

Carbon nanotubes show great promise as building blocks for molecular machines, high-speed electronics and super-strong materials, but it has proven difficult to reliably grow large amounts of pure carbon nanotubes and to keep the growth process orderly.

And here are the essential details of this new cleaning process.

Researchers from the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have added water to the standard method of manufacturing carbon nanotubes to produce tall, dense, vertically-aligned stands of pure nanotubes.

The purity of the nanotubes makes the usual post-growth purification process unnecessary. This makes the method quicker, less expensive and less likely to damage the nanotubes than existing processes, said Kenji Hata, a senior researcher at the Japan National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. Nanotubes produced using the method are orderly and pure enough for use in many fields, including biology, medical implants, chemistry, electronics and magnetics research, he said.

Please read the full article TRN article for other details and keep in mind that this method for growing carbon nanotubes is still a work in progress.

The method could be used to mass produce carbon nanotubes within five years, and for practical applications within ten years, said Hata.

The research work has been published by Science on November 19, 2004 under the name “Water-Assisted Highly Efficient Synthesis of Impurity-Free Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.” Here is a link to the abstract.

We demonstrate the efficient chemical vapor deposition synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes where the activity and lifetime of the catalysts are enhanced by water. Water-stimulated enhanced catalytic activity results in massive growth of superdense and vertically aligned nanotube forests with heights up to 2.5 millimeters that can be easily separated from the catalysts, providing nanotube material with carbon purity above 99.98%. Moreover, patterned, highly organized intrinsic nanotube structures were successfully fabricated. The water-assisted synthesis method addresses many critical problems that currently plague carbon nanotube synthesis.

This column is getting too long, so you’ll find other references in this sidebar, “Nanotech News Roundup #1.” Maybe there will be another edition in about a couple of weeks.

Sources: Eric Smalley, Technology Research News, December 1-8, 2004; Science, November 19, 2004

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Australian and U.S. researchers have found a new way to exploit the old technology of spinning wool. This CSIRO news release, “Futuristic ’smart’ yarns on the horizon,” tells us that spinning of carbon nanotubes could lead to ’smart’ yarns which could be knitted together to make artificial muscles for robot soldiers or even bandages that send a signal after you’re hurt. However, this news release is short on facts, and in “Knitting in nanometres,” ABC Science Online wrote something more substantial. You’ll discover that the scientists “created the yarn by growing a mat of fibres on a substrate, called a nanotube forest.” And with this spinning process, this ‘forest’ can grow as long as you want, like several kilometers long. If it is proven, this is truly amazing, and practical military or medical applications could be ready within five years. Read more…

Before going further, let’s look at some very interesting pictures.

Now, here are the two first paragraphs of the CSIRO news release.

In a collaborative effort, scientists at CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology (CTFT) have achieved a major technological breakthrough that should soon lead to the production of futuristic strong, light and flexible ’smart’ clothing materials.

In partnership with the world-renowned NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, CTFT has adapted textile technologies used to spin wool and other fibres to produce yarns made solely from carbon nanotubes (CNTs).

As you can notice, there is not much ‘meat’ there. So let’s switch to ABC Science Online for more technical details.

Ken Atkinson from CSIRO Textile & Fibre Technology said the nanotubes’ structure was similar to a square of hexagonal wire coiled up to form a cylinder.

The researchers created the yarn by growing a mat of fibres on a substrate, called a nanotube forest. A sharp, pointed instrument then pulled at the fibres along the plane of the substrate.

Atkinson said the tubes then formed into a “conga line” and were twisted and wrapped around each other as they were pulled. “As long as there are fibres in the forest, you can make a yarn as long as you want. You get a very even strand,” he said.

And Atkinson is pretty vocal about this spinning process — read carefully this quote.

“People say how can you spin something that is one-third of a millimetre long, but it is the length-to-diameter ratio that matters. We use fibres with a 10 nanometre diameter and put in a lot of wraps.”

Atkinson said nanotubes were usually grown to about 300 micrometres. And scientists couldn’t make nanotube yarn with continuous lengths without blending the fibres with other materials. With spinning you can get pure nanotube yarn as long you want, Atkinson said.

What can we expect of this ’spinning wool’ process adapted to nanotechnology?

Here is what CSIRO says.

Initial research into the potential uses of the new material is focussed on the production of vests and ’soft’ body armour to provide protection from bullets and other small ballistic missiles.

“Small ballistic missiles?” Wow! I don’t think I need protection against this. ABC gives us more realistic expectations.

The team says its unusually long fibres could also be used to make bandages that help injured limbs move again, tighten to stem bleeding or send a signal to say someone was hurt.

For more information, the research work has been published by the journal Science under the title “Multifunctional Carbon Nanotube Yarns by Downsizing an Ancient Technology.” Here are two links to the abstract and to some supporting online material to the article (PDF format, 3 pages). The above illustration was extracted from this document.

Sources: CSIRO news release, November 19, 2004; Heather Catchpole, ABC Science Online, November 19, 2004; Science, Vol. 306, Issue 5700, Pages 1358-1361, November 19, 2004

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• Chemistry
  
  
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Researchers at Nanomix, a 20-person Californian company, have developed a nanoelectronic sensor which combines carbon nanotubes, carbon dioxide-detecting polymers and silicon to become a human breathing monitor. The device can determine carbon dioxide concentrations in exhaled air, according to “Monitoring Life, One Breath At A Time,” a news release from the National Science Foundation. It could be used as early as 2005 to monitor patients’ breathing during surgery. Even more importantly, it will be used in the field for emergency care by helping to verify proper breathing tube placement or to provide feedback about adequacy of ventilation. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the NSF news release.

Researchers have created a tiny device that can monitor a victim’s breathing in emergency situations by effectively shrinking an operating room machine into a small, disposable tool that can be carried to a disaster site.

NSF-supported researchers at Nanomix, Inc., in Emeryville, Calif., have created a transistor that fuses carbon nanotubes, polymers and silicon into a capnography sensor — a human breathing monitor.

What will the uses for such a nanoelectronic sensor?

Capnography sensors detect subtle changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in a person’s breath, revealing respiratory diseases in children and adults, and allowing anesthesiologists to monitor a patient’s breathing during surgery.

In the field, emergency responders may be able to use the new sensor to verify proper breathing tube placement, monitor the patient’s respiratory patterns and assess the effect of life support measures.

Here is a link to a larger version of this illustration. You also can visit this photo gallery at Nanomix.

The research work will appear as the cover article of the November 15, 2004 issue of Advanced Materials under the title “Nanoelectronic Carbon Dioxide Sensors.” Here is a link to the abstract.

And for more information, you also can check the site of one of the co-authors of the paper, George Grüner, professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) — and also Chief Scientist at Nanomix. Here is a link to G. Gruner Nano-Biophysics Group at UCLA.

Finally, I was curious to know how such a small company was able to be pick such a simple and valuable domain name, nano.com. I found the information with the help of Allwhois. Nanomix registered this domain name more than seven years ago, on June 8, 1997 to be precise.

Sources: National Science Foundation news release, November 10, 2004; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Medicine
  


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