X-Message-Number: 19708 From: "Gina Miller" <> References: <> Subject: The Nanogirl News~ Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 02:12:07 -0700 The Nanogirl News August 4, 2002 Nanotech Runs Behind Semiconductors, MEMS in Optical IC Market. The market for integrated circuits (ICs) used in optical switches will be worth more than $5 billion in 2006, according to a report by Pioneer Consulting, and nanotechnology is one of three chip technologies vying for a piece of the pie. The report, "Optical Chips: Enabling Technologies and Markets from Semiconductors to MEMS, Nano-Optics and Photonic Crystals," predicts that total worldwide optical IC sales will increase from $654.3 million in 2002 to $5.4 billion in 2006. The report used a fairly broad definition of optical ICs, encompassing all chips, regardless of manufacture, used in optical switches. (Internetnews.com 7/27/02) http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/1377751 Bucky Ferrocenes. Hybrid molecules combine key features of ferrocenes and fullerenes. Take two beautiful, fascinating molecules, fuse them into one, and the result is likely to capture people's imaginations. That, in essence, is what Eiichi Nakamura has done. The University of Tokyo chemistry professor and his coworkers have prepared molecular hybrids of ferrocenes and fullerenes, two families of molecules whose rich scientific legacies have intersected before, but never like this. In a preliminary communication, the Tokyo chemists describe the synthesis, on a multigram scale, of the first two "bucky ferrocenes" [J. Am. Chem. Soc., 124, 9354 (2002)]. In both, an iron(II) atom is sandwiched between a discrete cyclopentadienyl (Cp) ring and a cyclopentadienide ring that is part of a C60 or C70 cage. (Chemical & Engineering News 8/2/02) http://pubs.acs.org/cen/today/aug2b.html Kyoto University and five Japanese companies have agreed to jointly research and develop next generation organic electronic device technologies, they announced Thursday. The main theme, "organic electronic devices", covers five fields, which are: Basic technologies for functional flexible displays, including development of organic electroluminescence displays (OELDs).Organic solar batteries and high-efficiency organic opto-electronic materials. Basic technologies for organic super-high-volume memory devices, and development of functional optical materials. Development of functional organic nanocomposite materials and device applications. Other developments of organic electronics devices. (IDG.net 8/1/02) http://idg.net/ic_912268_4394_1-3921.html Nanowires self-assemble from individual particles. Researchers from Oklahoma State University in the US and the Hahn-Meiter-Institut in Germany have developed a method to spontaneously self-assemble luminescent crystalline CdTe nanowires from individual nanoparticles. Growing the nanowires is a seven-day long process. They form not through point-to-point-initiated vectorial growth but by the recrystallisation of multiple nanoparticles in a linear aggregate that fuses gradually into one crystal. Full details of the growth process can be found in Science. (EETimes 7/26/02) http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020726S0001 The future is gaining on us ... have hope. This is a response to: _The future is gaining on us ... be afraid_ in the Seattle Times july 14th opinion. This response is written by Glen Hiemstra founder Futurist.com and Brenda Cooper a contributor and sci-fi writer. "When it comes to the future, fear reigns. Fear of terror, of economic collapse, of technology, of change, of others different from ourselves, and on it goes. We do not think there is any greater need today to fear the future than at earlier moments in time, but fear of impending doom has captured the imagination of the public and the popular press." (The Seattle Times 7/29/02) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/134502218_future29.h tml Good thing really tall author Michael Crichton's got big pants. He's gonna need some roomy pockets in which to stuff the $5 million he's getting for the movie rights to his upcoming novel. Fox has snapped up Crichton's novel Prey, which doesn't hit bookstores until this November. The movie project will begin gearing up ASAP. The details are more covert than Site B operations, but the story apparently involves nanotechnology, and is a political thriller that blends themes from the writer's Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. So, diseased dinosaurs in the White House? (CHUD 7/27/02) http://www.chud.com/news/july02/jul27prey.php3 X-ray diffraction reveals nanoscale secrets. Scientists from the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Michigan State University, US, have developed an X-ray diffraction technique that can analyze nanocrystals. They used the method to examine a silicon-oxide zeolite that had caesium ions trapped inside its nano-sized pores. (nanotechweb.org 7/31/02) http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/7/25/1 Carbon Nanotubes Found to Fluoresce; Possible Applications in MRI. Add fluorescence to the growing list of unique physical properties associated with carbon nanotubes - the ultrasmall, ultrastrong wunderkind of the fullerene family of carbon molecules. In research detailed in the current issue of Science magazine, a team of Rice University chemists led by fullerene discoverer and Nobel laureate Richard Smalley describes the first observations of fluorescence in carbon nanotubes. Fluorescence occurs when a substance absorbs one wavelength of light and emits a different wavelength in response. The Rice experiments, conducted by Smalley's group and the photophysics research team of chemist R. Bruce Weisman, found that nanotubes absorbed and gave off light in the near-infrared spectrum, which could prove useful in biomedical and nanoelectronics applications. (Small Times 8/1/02) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=4321 Nanotechnology backers see trillion-dollar industry. Government, industry, and academic leaders announced Wednesday that a consortium of private and state interests have come together to form New Jersey Nanotechnology Laboratory, a facility based in Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs that supporters say will make the state a center in a growing technology worth trillions. (North Jersey News 8/1/02) http://www.bergen.com/page.php?level_3_id=7&page=4483929 A Marriage of Nanotech and Biotech. Harvard chemistry professor George Whitesides' latest quest is getting tiny nonliving structures to assemble themselves. ...Much of his work remains in areas that may have implications for biotech: Self-assembling molecules used for making nanomachines, polyvalent drugs that attack a disease from multiple directions, and new analytical tools for drug discovery. He also helped invent a molecule that helps treat anthrax by interfering with the bacteria's toxic machinery....Whitesides' goal is to find a way for nonliving things to spontaneously assemble themselves just as living things do. This would take care of many of the most minute and difficult steps involved in nanofabrication. Already, he's trying to get nonliving devices to self-assemble -- and he has started work on advanced nanosize structures that would combine self-replicating machines and the natural self-assembly that occurs in living cells.....(Business Week online 7/30/02) http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2002/tc20020730_2633.htm (Feature) This week, The Nano Circuit talks with a company that is less nanotechnology and more electronics at the nanoscale for our readers interested in and invested in the broader IT sector. The first nanotech-enabled products and processes in the IT sector will need to be integrated into the current manufacturing process. We spoke with Dr. Abe Ghanbari, vice president of engineering for Dielectric Systems Inc. (DSI), which develops low-k tools and materials that enable sub-100 nanometer chip manufacturing. (Nanotech Planet 8/2/02) http://www.nanotech-planet.com/features/article/0,4028,6571_1438771,00.html Honey, Who Shrank the Circuits? While nanowires have been around for many years, scientists had no way of mixing different materials together within one wire. Until now. Setting the stage for integrating devices right into the wires themselves -- a development expected to further shrink electronic circuits -- three teams of scientists managed to grow single nanowires made from layers of different semiconductors earlier this year. The Swedish team was the first to report the ability to construct functional electronic devices using the technology, within wires just 20 billionths of a meter wide, this week at the 26th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Wired 8/2/02) http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,54093,00.html Close-Up of Atomic Cave-Dwellers. Researchers have captured the most detailed pictures yet of particles crowded into an industrially useful nanoscale sponge. They extended an old method for analyzing x-ray diffraction data to a zeolite--a porous crystalline substance--filled with metal ions. The result, appearing in the 12 August print issue of PRL, confirms that this material is the first room-temperature stable electride, a class of compounds with curious electrical, magnetic, and optical properties that may eventually have applications as nanoscale devices. (Physical Review Focus 7/29/02) http://focus.aps.org/v10/st4.html Scientific Partnership Seeks Huge Benefits from Small Devices. Fla.-Physicists and biologists at Florida State University are joining forces in a unique partnership with potential implications for advancing medical science and combating bioterrorism with tiny devices. Scientists from FSU's biology department have teamed up with the physics department and the Center for Materials Research and Technology (MARTECH) to conduct groundbreaking research incorporating biological matter into nano scale machines. "There has been a lot of speculation about how nano scale devices in general will improve our lives," said biology Professor Bryant Chase, coordinator for one of the two research projects the scientists will undertake. "If even only 1 percent of the speculation turns out to be correct, our lives will be greatly improved." (Neww Wise 7/31/02) http://www.newswise.com/articles/2002/7/DEVICES.FSU.html Researchers in Germany have turned a single molecule into a sort of motor. In the race to build ever-smaller devices, a new entry appears to have burst into the lead. Researchers in Germany have turned a single molecule into a sort of motor. Azobenzene, a polymer molecule, has a unique characteristic: It changes from one shape to another when exposed to light of different wavelengths. Scientists led by Hermann Gaub, a professor of physics at the University of Munich, have used this quality to build a tiny gadget. (Popular Science Aug 02) http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,321209,00.html Nanomat creates spinoff. Nanomat Inc., a North Huntingdon-based designer and developer of nano materials, said it had created a spinoff company, Nanova LLC, to produce two of the proprietary products it developed. The new company expects to buy or build a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that will employ between 100 and 200. No site for the factory has been selected, but Nanomat said it hoped to find one in Pennsylvania. (Business News 8/2/02) http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/20020802biz9.asp Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Extropy member http://www.extropy.org "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19708