June 24, 2009: As the economic downturn seizes up several nanoenabled product markets, growth has eroded all along the value chain to include nanointermediates and nanomaterials, according to a new report from Lux Research. The firm now projects sales from products incorporating nanotechnology should top $2.5T by 2015, but that’s -21% lower than what the firm had earlier predicted.
Basically, certain nanotechnologies will fare better or worse depending to their exposure to specific end markets — e.g. autos, construction, and electronics are faring worse in these sluggish times, while others — e.g. healthcare, life sciences — should “remain largely unscathed, and recover from the recession more quickly,” notes Jurron Bradley, senior analyst at Lux Research and lead author of the report, in a statement. The report is based on >1000 annual interviews and targeted talks with execs from 15 established companies and startups.
Key findings in the report:
Carbon nanotubes and ceramic nanoparticles will suffer due to their broad exposure in automotive and construction industries; nanocomposites and coatings will see big declines.
The US and Europe will still account for more than 2/3 of emerging nanotech revenue through 2015, but the new forecast sees each losing about 2%-3% share; Asia-Pacific sales will rise <5% due to its "relatively more competitive automotive industry," the analyst firm notes.
As the economy sputters, larger entrenched firms see opportunities to “renew and reposition” their offerings through bargain-basement M&A; meanwhile, “cash-strapped startups” need to conserve cash to wait until markets revive.
Changes to government nanotech initiatives will be needed to sustain jobs and GDP growth. “Rather than tax credits, they’ll need to offer more creative incentives like R&D grants to help struggling start-ups survive the recession,” Bradley says.
Shocks to the output of nanoenabled products ripple thorugh value chains. (Source: Lux Research, “The recession’s ripple effect on nanotech,” June 2009)
June 23, 2009 : The Center of Innovation in Nanobiotechnology (COIN) at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center has landed $2.5M in funding over the next four years to help statewide universities commercialize their nanobiotech research.
The award builds on a $100K planning grant given a year ago, which was used to hire an executive director (biotech/life-sciences veteran Brooks Adams, appointed in January) and develop a business plan — and make the group eligible for the new funding, which will be paid based on milestones (e.g. more funding goals and corporate spinoffs), and make COIN an independent self-sustaining entity
“Nanobiotechnology is an exciting new discipline that has the potential to change everything from medicine to biofuels. This Center of Innovation will help commercialize more of the nanobiotech breakthroughs that are already being made in North Carolina laboratories,” said Mary Beth Thomas, senior director of the Centers of Innovation program at the Biotechnology Center, in a statement.
Involved in the planning effort were North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Wake Forest University, as well as the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering and academic and industry partners statewide. The Piedmont Triad Partnership, a nonprofit economic development corporation, administered the grant and provided office space during the planning phase. With the new funding, the core group has been expanded to include Duke, NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, and UNC-Charlotte.
The COIN is one of four Centers of Innovation created by the Biotechnology Center to help commercialize technologies “of particular economic promise,” including marine biotechnology, drug discovery, and advanced medical technologies, coordinating research toward commercial opportunities and sector development. A separate $2.5M phase II funding was awarded back in March, earmarked for advanced medical technologies.
The study, which appears in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research, notes that the public tends to focus on benefits of nanotech in terms of end applications — everything from information technology devices to coating additives to materials. It’s the scientists, they say, who focus more on potential risks, and the economics of nanotech.
“We think that nanoscientists view regulations as protections for the public, and that’s part of the reason why they focus on the potential risks,” notes Elizabeth Corley, prof. of public policy at Arizona State’s School of Public Affairs, in a statement. The general public, meanwhile, “seems to think of nanotechnology regulations as restricting their access to new products and other beneficial aspects of nanotechnology.”
From the paper abstract:
In the absence of risk assessment data, decision makers often rely on scientists’ input about risks and regulation to make policy decisions. […] We conclude that nanoscientists are more supportive of regulating nanotechnology when they perceive higher levels of risks; yet, their perceived benefits about nanotechnology do not significantly impact their support for nanotech regulation. We also find some gender and disciplinary differences among the nanoscientists. Males are less supportive of nanotech regulation than their female peers and materials scientists are more supportive of nanotechnology regulation than scientists in other fields. Lastly, our findings illustrate that the leading US nanoscientists see the areas of surveillance/privacy, human enhancement, medicine, and environment as the nanotech application areas that are most in need of new regulations.
It’s an interesting study given how little is known about nanotechnology — practically by definition, scientists and researchers are weighing heavily on discussions of regulations and risks, because many simple answers just aren’t known the deeper into the nanoworld we go. Moreover, the study finds that “economically liberal” researchers are more likely to support regulations that “economically conservative” ones — a notable difference in gauging discussions of nanotech regulations. Though, “this says less about scientists than it does about the lack of conclusive data about risks related to nanotechnology,” according to Dietram Scheufele, prof. at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
The study was based on survey responses from 363 of “the most highly cited and active” US-affiliated scientists working in nanotech, conducted in May-June 2007.
The polymer chains are grown as an ultrathin (5-50nm) film from the surface in a “grafting” approach, in which a single layer of thiophene is laid down as an initial coating, followed by built-up chains of more thiophene or benzene using a controlled polymerization technique. The structure is said to resemble toothbrush bristles. Thiophene is an insulator, “but by linking many thiophene molecules together in a controlled fashion, the polymers have conducting properties,” notes Jason Locklin, UGA chemist and lead of the paper which appeared in the June issue of the journal Chemical Communications.
The technique enables systematic control to vary the polymer architecture, which opens up application in devices such as sensors, transistors, and diodes. Fuel sources within the body are difficult to harness, he pointed out, and those that are good at chemical-electrical energy conversion (e.g. enzymes) don’t transmit the electricity well due to insulating layers. “Hopefully our molecular wires will provide a better conduit for charges to flow.”
Next step in the research is to pinpoint specific applications — e.g., interfacing the polymer brush directly with living tissue as a biochemical sensor, prosthetic limb, pacemaker, or bionic ears. Other possible applications include transistors (think organic semiconductors) or photovoltaic devices.
The work was funded by the Petroleum Research Foundation.
June 19, 2009: Russia’s state-owned nanotech business group RUSNANO and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) have agreed to establish a “workgroup” to collaborate in nanotechnology, initially to select Japanese nanotech application projects that can be implemented in Russia, according to the according to a statement.
The agreement — announced as RUSNANO officials tour Japan to study the nation’s support for its nanotech industry and innovation, seeking “best practices” will focus on selecting specific projects the two can work on together. Companies being visited on this tour include Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sumitomo, as well as Nippon Keidanren (the Japanese Business Federation) and the city of Tsukuba, seen as a nanotech R&D hub. Alexander Losyukov, RUSNANO deputy director general (and former Russian ambassador to Japan), will spearhead things from the Russian side; Japan’s participation will be helmed by Hideiti Okada, director general of METI’s trade policy department.
Further discussions will involve how to expand the cooperation to include smaller businesses alongside larger ones. The two also are eyeing a follow-up “platform for dialogue,” possibly to coincide with the Nanotechnology International Forum in Moscow scheduled for October.
June 18, 2009: Researchers from IBM and the U. of Regensburg (Germany) say they have demonstrated the ability to measure the charge state of a single atom, distinguishing between neutral/positive/negative ones, using noncontact atomic force microscopy (AFM) — an achievement they say opens up explorations into nanoscale structures and devices “at the ultimate atomic and molecular limits” for applications in molecular electronics, catalysis, and photovoltaics.
The work, reported in the June 12 issue of Science, imaged and identified differently charged gold and silver atoms by measuring the differences in forces between the AFM tip and charged/uncharged atoms located below it. The tool setup is a combined scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) operated in vacuum at very low temperature (5 Kelvin). The AFM incorporates a qPlus force sensor with a tip mounted on one prong of a tuning fork (the other prong is fixed), which actuates mechanically with ≤0.02nm oscillation amplitudes. As the AFM tip approaches the sample, the tuning fork’s resonance frequency shifts; scanning the tip over the surface and measuring the differences in frequency shift creates a force map of the surface; measuring the variation of force with voltage applied between tip and sample allowed them to distinguish between positively and negatively charged single atoms. The researchers found the difference in forces between a neutral gold atom and one with an additional electron was about 11piconewtons (accurate to <1piconewton), measured about half a nanometer above the atom.
Figure 1: Single atoms (orange) could be connected with molecules to form metal-molecular networks. Using the tip for charging these atoms, scientists could then inject electrons into the system and measure their distribution directly with the non-contact AFM. Understanding the charge distribution in molecules and molecular networks is a crucial step in the exploration of future computing elements on the nanoscale. (Source: IBM)
“The AFM with single-electron-charge sensitivity is a powerful tool to explore the charge transfer in molecule complexes, providing us with crucial insights and new physics to what might one day lead to revolutionary computing devices and concepts,” explains Gerhard Meyer, who leads the STM and AFM-related research efforts at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory. To study the charge transfer in molecule complexes, scientists envision that, in future experiments, single atoms could be connected with molecules to form metal-molecular networks (see Figure 1). Using the tip for charging these atoms, scientists could then inject electrons into the system and measure their distribution directly with the non-contact AFM (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Model of the experimental setup (left). The gold atom is on a substrate covered with a very thin insulating film of sodium chloride, which also stabilizes the charged atom. The atomically-sharp AFM tip is brought into close proximity with the gold atom, up to a minimum distance of about 0.5nm. The tip, which is mounted on one prong of a tuning fork (not shown) oscillates with amplitudes as small as 0.02nm, about one-tenth of an atom’s diameter. Using this setup, the scientists were able to sense the minute differences in the force exerted by a neutral gold atom and a gold atom charged with one additional electron (right). (Source: IBM)
June 18, 2009: Researchers at the U. of California-Riverside and Seoul National University have fabricated microscopic polymer beads that change color according to changes in magnetic fields, touting their possible use in reusable signs, magnetically activated security features, and environmentally friendly pigments.
The “magnetochromatic microspheres” are said to be compatible with dispersion media including water, alcohol, hexane, and even polymer solutions, able to retain magnetically tunable colors in various chemical environments. They have “excellent structural stability” with the color change not affecting their structure or intrinsic properties, according to UC-Riverside’s Yadong Yin, assistant professor of chemistry.
In the lab, researchers mixed magnetic iron oxide particles into a resin (a liquid that solidifies on exposure to UV-curable resin), and dispersed the resin in oil where it transformed into spherical droplets. An external magnetic field was applied to organize the iron oxide particles into periodically orderedstructures , which display a reflective color if viewed along the direction of the magnetic field. Exposing the liquid system to UV radiation polymerized the resin droplets to make them solid microspheres. Changing the orientation of the array “switched” the colors on and off via interference effects, rather than pigmentation (think the color schemes seen in some birds, butterflies, and beetles). The color states are also bistable, which is required for rewritable displays.
“Conventional methods to produce tunable structural color rely on changing the periodicity of the array or the refractive index of the materials — changes that are difficult to achieve or involve slow processes,” said Yin in a statement. In the UC-R/Seoul method, the color is tuned by changing the relative orientation of the microspheres’ periodic arrays through stimulation of external magnetic fields — which, he added, “has the additional benefits of instant action, contactless control, and easy integration into electronic devices already in the market.”
The researchers next plan to further explore specific applications for the magnetochromatic microspheres. Candidates include rewritable energy-saving display units such as papers and posters; future work will target development of a similar material for chemical and biological sensors.
Optical microscopy images of magnetochromatic microspheres with different diffraction colors switched “on” by using external magnetic fields. (Image credit: Yin lab, UC Riverside.)
June 18, 2009 — Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene exhibit extraordinary electrical properties for organic materials, and have a huge potential in electrical and electronic applications such as sensors, semiconductor devices, displays, conductors and energy conversion devices (e.g., fuel cells, harvesters and batteries). A new report from IDTechEx brings all of this together, covering the latest work from 78 organizations around the World to details of the latest progress applying the technologies.
Depending on their chemical structure, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used as an alternative to organic or inorganic semiconductors as well as conductors, but the cost is currently the greatest restraint. However, that has the ability to rapidly fall as new, cheaper mass production processes are established, states the report.
In electronics, other than electromagnetic shielding, one of the first large applications for CNTs will be conductors. In addition to their high conductance, they can be transparent, flexible and even stretchable. Here, applications are for displays, replacing ITO; touch screens, photovoltaics and display bus bars and beyond.
In addition, interest is high as CNTs have demonstrated mobilities which are magnitudes higher than silicon, meaning that fast switching transistors can be fabricated. In addition, CNTs can be solution processed, i.e. printed. In other words, CNTs will be able to provide high performing devices which can ultimately be made in low cost manufacturing processes such as printing, over large areas.
They have application to supercapacitors, which bridge the gap between batteries and capacitors, leveraging the energy density of batteries with the power density of capacitors and transistors. Challenges are material purity, device fabrication, and the need for other device materials such as suitable dielectrics. However, the opportunity is large, given the high performance, flexibility, transparency and printability. Companies that IDTechEx surveyed report growth rates as high as 300% over the next five years.
While manufacturers in North America focus more on single wall CNTs (SWCNTs); Asia and Europe, with Japan on top and China second, are leading the production of multi wall CNTS (MWCNTs) with Showa Denko, Mitsui and Hodogaya Chemical being among the largest suppliers. The split of number of organizations working on the topic by territory is shown.
A number of companies are already selling CNTs with metallic and semiconducting properties grown by several techniques in a commercial scale but mostly as raw material and in limited quantities. However, the selective and uniform production of CNTs with specific diameter, length and electrical properties is yet to be achieved in commercial scale. A significant limitation for the use of CNTs in electronic applications is the coexistence of semiconducting and metallic CNTs after synthesis in the same batch. Several separation methods have been discovered over the last few years which are covered in the report, as is the need for purification.
Opportunities for Carbon Nanotube device manufacture
There are still some hurdles to overcome when using printing for the fabrication of thin carbon nanotube films. There is relatively poor quality of the nanotube starting material, which mostly shows a low crystallinity, low purity and high bundling. Subsequently, purifying the raw material without significantly degrading the quality is difficult. Furthermore there is also the issue to achieve good dispersions in solution and to remove the deployed surfactants from the deposited films, according to the report.
June 15, 2009: Researchers at New York University say they’ve created a method to precisely bind nanoparticles into larger structures that overcomes a “sticky” problem and enables creation of stable, sophisticated microscopic and macroscopic structures.
The work, reported in an advanced online publication by Nature Materials, describes confronting the problem of self-replication: when the number of objects doubles in each cycle it presents a linear challenge when trying to fabricate things microscopic objects with a sophisticated architecture.
Their solution? Coat micrometer particles with short stretches of DNA (“sticky ends”), each with a particular sequence of DNA building blocks; those with complimentary sequences form reversible bonds when a certain temperature is applied. Thus, the particles can be organized in a controlled fashion onto a template, and then released again.
The novel DNA ‘sticky ends’ can form intra-particle loops and hairpins (e.g. schemes II & III), giving more control over the particles’ interactions than conventional sticky ends that can only form inter-particle bridges (scheme Ia). (Source: NYU)
DNA-mediated interactions are known, but binding just subsets of a particle (not the whole thing) into structures has proven difficult. So the researchers at NYU’s Center for Soft Matter Research and in the university’s Department of Chemistry focused on a particular type of DNA sequence that can fold like a hairpin and bind to neighboring “sticky ends,” determining that lowering the temperature rapidly caused the sticky ends to fold up on the particle before they could bind to other sticky ends; this occurred long enough (a few minutes) for the sticky ends to find binding partners on other particles (moved around by optical traps), thus building a structure. “We can finely tune and even switch off the attractions between particles, rendering them inert unless they are heated or held together — like a nano-contact glue,” said Mirjam Leunissen, the study’s lead author, in a statement.
Potential applications listed by NYU include ordering arrays of these particles into optical devices such as sensors and photonic crystals. The same organizational principles also apply to smaller nanoparticles, which have a range of electrical, optical, and magnetic properties useful for applications, NYU noted.
The work was supported by the NSF’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) program, the Keck Foundation, and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.
June 11, 2009: Engineers from the University of Pennsylvania, Sandia National Laboratories and Rice University have demonstrated the formation of interconnected carbon nanostructures on graphene substrate, in a simple assembly process that may eventually lead to a new paradigm for building integrated carbon-based devices.
Curvy nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes and fullerenes have extraordinary properties but are extremely challenging to pick up, handle and assemble into devices after synthesis.
Penn materials scientist Ju Li and Sandia scientist Jianyu Huang have come up with a novel idea to construct curvy nanostructures directly integrated on graphene, taking advantage of the fact that graphene, an atomically thin two-dimensional sheet, bends easily after open edges have been cut on it, which can then fuse with other open edges permanently, like a plumber connecting metal fittings.
The “knife” and “welding torch” used in the experiments, which were performed inside an electron microscope, was electrical current from a Nanofactory scanning probe, generating up to 2000°C of heat. Upon applying the electrical current to few-layer graphene, they observed the in situ creation of many interconnected, curved carbon nanostructures, such as “fractional nanotube”-like graphene bi-layer edges, or BLEs; BLE rings on graphene equivalent to “anti quantum-dots”; and nanotube-BLE assembly connecting multiple layers of graphene.
Remarkably, researchers observed that more than 99% of the graphene edges formed during sublimation were curved BLEs rather than flat monolayer edges, indicating that BLEs are the stable edges in graphene, in agreement with predictions based on symmetry considerations and energetic calculations. Theory also predicts these BLEs, or “fractional nanotubes,” possess novel properties of their own and may find applications in devices.
Li and Huang observed the creation of these interconnected carbon nanostructures using the heat of electric current and a high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The current, once passed through the graphene layers, improved the crystalline quality and surface cleanness of the graphene as well, both important for device fabrication.
An electron micrograph showing the formation of interconnected carbon nanostructures on a graphene substrate, which may be harnessed to make future electronic devices. (Source: Ju Li/U. of Pennsylvania)
The sublimation of few-layer graphene, such as a 10-layer stack, is advantageous over the sublimation of monolayers. In few-layer graphene, layers spontaneously fuse together forming nanostructures on top of one or two electrically conductive, extended, graphene sheets.
During heating, both the flat graphene sheets and the self-wrapping nanostructures that form, like bilayer edges and nanotubes, have unique electronic properties important for device applications. The biggest obstacle for engineers has been wrestling control of the structure and assembly of these nanostructures to best exploit the properties of carbon. The discoveries of self-assembled novel carbon nanostructures may circumvent the hurdle and lead to new approach of graphene-based electronic devices.
Researchers induced the sublimation of multilayer graphene by Joule-heating, making it thermodynamically favorable for the carbon atoms at the edge of the material to escape into the gas phase, leaving freshly exposed edges on the solid graphene. The remaining graphene edges curl and often welded together to form BLEs. Researchers attribute this behavior to nature’s driving force to reduce capillary energy, dangling bonds on the open edges of monolayer graphene, at the cost of increased bending energy.
“This study demonstrates it is possible to make and integrate curved nanostructures directly on flat graphene, which is extended and electrically conducting,” said Li, associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. “Furthermore, it demonstrates that multiple graphene sheets can be intentionally interconnected. And the quality of the plumbing is exceptionally high, better than anything people have used for electrical contacts with carbon nanotubes so far. We are currently investigating the fundamental properties of graphene bi-layer edges, BLE rings and nanotube-BLE junctions.”
