Tomas Martin @ 14-03-2008
Tomas Martin @ 11-02-2008
Via the blog Responsible Nanotechnology, Mike Treder, Executive Director of the Centre for Responsible Nanotechnology presents his thoughts on the state of the emerging science of nanotech, five year’s since the centre’s creation. He begins by highlighting the original positions made by CRN in 2003:
“Early in 2003, we published the following foundational statements that summarized CRN’s basic positions:
The following post then analyses each of these in turn, comparing things now in 2008 to how it was then back in 2003. There’s been a lot of progress in the field since then but they believe their assumptions remain true. As new ways to manipulate matter at the nanoscale are discovered, potential beneficial uses and dangers will increase exponentially. Theodore Judson’s forthcoming novel ‘The Martian General’s Daughter’ for instance, has a Roman-like empire collapsing because a nanotechnology plague is destroying the metal inside computers and equipment.
[DNA tetrahedron created by Andrew J. Turberfield, Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Image via Nanorex, Inc.]
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Tomas Martin @ 11-01-2008
Two good examples of nanotechnology in action today from Science Daily. The first comes in the field of solar technology. There are two main forms of solar nanotech: thin films of nanoparticles like titanium oxide doped with nitrogen, and so-called ‘quantum dots’, tiny semiconducting crystals that absorb the energy from light to release conducting electrons. Scientists from California, Mexico and China have shown that both methods can be combined into one material that performs better together than either method alone!
The second article discusses LED lights, which use far less energy than even energy-saving flourescent bulbs. However, whilst LEDs work great for smaller uses like book-lights, computers or mobile phones, they aren’t bright enough to light a room. The method to improve this is to make thousands of tiny holes on the bulb itself, allowing more light to escape the LED. Whilst before this process has been extremely time and money intensive, using nanotechnology lithography to imprint the holes makes the process far cheaper - which could lead to a massive growth in usage of LEDs in our homes and gadgets.
EDIT: As Larry mentions in the comments, there’s also been great progress making solar antennas using nanoscale spirals imprinted onto the material. This method could be printed on flexible materials and potentially is as much as 80% Efficient. Thanks for the heads up Larry!
[via Science Daily, image via NIST]
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Tomas Martin @ 28-11-2007
Usually, heat and electric conductivity go hand in hand. Now, thanks to the emerging nanostructure technology movement, scientists think they can separate these two.
“Thermoelectric devices are based on the fact that when certain materials are heated, they generate a significant electrical voltage. Conversely, when a voltage is applied to them, they become hotter on one side, and colder on the other. The process works with a variety of materials, and especially well with semiconductors — the materials from which computer chips are made.”
Previously thermoelectric devices were far too inefficient to be of use. But by adding nanoscale structures a few billionths of a metre across, the heat conductivity of a material can be disrupted whilst the electricity passes through fine, ramping the efficiency up massively. Imagine a computer chip that doesn’t get heated as it works, or a solar cell that uses heat as well as light to generate electricity. Thermo electrics are already starting to get efficient enough to cool your car seat - how soon before they start to be used in the growing low energy pc market?
[via ScienceDaily, image from Amazon.com ]
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Tomas Martin @ 30-10-2007
Last week both Jeremy and I blogged about the promising developments of Nanowires, which have the prospect of making tiny supercomputers, possibly powered by solar. Although the current method of growing the tiny wires like grass is fascinating, it is very inefficient. To make any of these technologies useable in the real world, vast improvements in the creation of nanowires will be needed. The National Institute of Standards and Technology have improved that by adapting techniques used in the semiconductor industry. By putting tiny amounts of gold into the substrate, they can make up to 600 tiny transistors from one batch of nanowires. The field of Nanoscience still has a long way to go but with advances like this happening all the time, we’re getting closer.
[story via Science Daily, picture by NIST via physorg]
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Tomas Martin @ 22-10-2007
Researchers at a university in Scotland believe that thanks to ever-expanding research into ultra thin nanowires, supercomputers the size of matchboxes might not be more than a decade away. Nanowires, some 1000 times smaller than a human hair, have exhibited strange behaviour due to their small size but the scientists at the University of Edinburgh think they have worked out how to minimise it, leading to their bold prediction.
The department of Physics where I study in Bristol has a massive new nanoscience building nearing completion. The field is full of promising breakthroughs for micro-sized (and so less energy intensive) devices, especially in computing. Anyone hoping to build a palm held supercomputer may well use devices like the holographic nanoassembler coupled with high speed atomic force microscopy to put together such tiny machines. The holographic nanoassembler is especially fascinating research as it never touches the tiny particles, using lasers to manipulate the smallest of objects. Nanowires are also incredibly useful for solar panels, where current efficiency is limited by the large metal substrates that carry electric charge, which obscure some of the sun-collecting surface.
[Photo by Harvard University via IEEE Spectrum]
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Nanotechnology is perhaps the most rapidly advancing new technology out there right now. All kinds of nanomachines based on biochemical mechanisms, tiny structures of metal or other techniques are being created and studied in universities and laboratories around the world.