Tag Archives: Small Times Magazine

Oct. 19, 2006 — The International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) announced that it has issued a comprehensive review of existing efforts to develop “best practices” for handling nanomaterials in the workplace.

The work was performed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as part of a two-phase project to catalogue how industry is managing the potential occupational safety risks posed by nanomaterials. The report can be found on ICON’s web site.

ICON, which paid for both phases of the project, is a coalition of academic, industrial, governmental and civil society organizations. It is administered by Rice University’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN).

The Phase 1 report, “Current Knowledge and Practices regarding Environmental Health and Safety in the Nanotechnology Workplace,” offers a review and analysis of existing efforts to develop best practices.

The report found that efforts to catalogue workplace practices have not systematically documented current environment, health and safety practices in a variety of workplace settings and geographies. Moreover, it finds that some existing documents are not publicly available.

In the second phase of this project, the researchers interviewed a range of U.S. and international firms to produce an international snapshot of workplace practices in nanotechnology industries. ICON plans to issue a report of those findings on Nov. 13.

“This first report shows the need for better information about how industries are dealing with the unknowns about nanomaterials,” said ICON director Kristen Kulinowski in a prepared statement. “The phase-two survey will shed light on existing practices so that a global dialogue can move forward on safe handling practices.”

Oct. 19, 2006 — IMEC, the Leuven, Belgium, independent research center for micro and nanotech, showed in collaboration with ASML the potential of double patterning 193nm immersion lithography at 1.2NA for 32nm node Flash and logic.

These organization said in a statement that the results prove that double patterning might be an intermediate solution before extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and very high NA (beyond water) 193nm immersion lithography will be ready for production.

The results were obtained by splitting gate levels of 32nm half pitch Flash cells as well as logic cells in two complementary designs. The splitting was done automatically using software from EDA partners in IMEC’s lithography program. After splitting, both designs received optical proximity corrections (OPC) and a classical lithography approach “litho-etch-litho-etch” was performed. Exposures of both lithography steps have been carried out on an XT:1700i at ASML.

These results show that the XT:1700i 193nm immersion tool, which has a maximum NA of 1.2, could be extended beyond the 45nm node. Since both hyper NA 193nm immersion lithography using high-index liquids and EUV still require a lot of research, IC manufacturers welcome double patterning as a solution to continue their research on material integration for the 32nm node.

Oct. 19, 2006 — Imperial College London announced it has installed an FEI Titan 80-300 S/TEM.

The UK’s first Titan will allow the London Center for Nanotechnology (LCN) — an interdisciplinary collaboration between Imperial College London and University College London (UCL) — to provide a world-class nano-characterization facility for the first time. LCN can now offer scientists the opportunity to view and analyze material at a resolution smaller than half a nanometer.

The Titan is intended to support a range of nanotechnology research projects in medical, pharmaceutical and materials science. These include understanding the processes which influence degenerative brain diseases, developing lightweight aircraft materials to reduce fuel consumption and researching quantum dots as a way to increase the communication bandwidth available from fiber-optic cables.

The microscope was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council following a joint submission from Imperial College, University College London and the London Center for Nanotechnology.

Oct. 18, 2006 — WiSpry Inc., a fabless semiconductor company developing dynamically tunable radio frequency integrated circuits for wireless devices, announced it has raised a $13.5 million Series B financing.

L Capital Partners, a new WiSpry investor, led the round. Participating in the round was other new investor Hotung Capital Management, as well as existing investors American River Ventures, Blueprint Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Tech Coast Angels and Western Technology Investment.

“The company’s patented CMOS-compatible manufacturing process makes us the first fabless semiconductor company to enable high-volume, low-cost commercial production of fully integrated RF-MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) devices,” said WiSpry co-founder and CEO Jeff Hilbert in a prepared statement. “As a result, we will deliver next-generation performance at prices competitive with traditional integrated circuits.

He said the financing would fund continued growth as the company ramps the development, production and sales of its integrated RF-MEMS-enabled CMOS products for the mobile handset market. He said the company’s proprietary products would eliminate the need for multiple RF paths required in multi-standard, multi-band applications, including ‘global’ mobile phones, mobile wireless subsystems and wireless base stations.

Oct. 18, 2006 — Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are mimicking one of Nature’s best non-stick surfaces to help create more reliable electric transmission systems, photovoltaic arrays that retain their efficiency, MEMS structures unaffected by water and improved biocompatible surfaces able to prevent cells from adhering to implanted medical devices.

Based on a collaboration of materials scientists and chemical engineers, the research aims to duplicate the self-cleaning surfaces of the lotus plant, which grows in waterways of Asia. Despite growing in muddy conditions, the leaves and flowers remain clean because their surfaces are composed of micron- and nano-scale structures that — along with a waxy coating — prevent dirt and water from adhering. Despite their unusual surface properties, the rough surfaces allow photosynthesis to continue in the leaves.

“When rain hits the leaves of the lotus plant, it simply beads up,” said C.P. Wong, a Regents Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, in a prepared statement. “When the leaves are also tilted at a small angle, the beads of water run off instantaneously. While the water is rolling off, it carries away any dirt on the surface.”

The plant’s ability to repel water and dirt results from an unusual combination of a superhydrophobic (water-repelling) surface and a combination of micron-scale hills and valleys and nanometer-scale waxy bumps that create rough surfaces that don’t give water or dirt a chance to adhere.

The researchers have attempted to duplicate the two-tier lotus surface using a variety of materials, including polybutadiene. But that organic compound isn’t suitable for coatings that are exposed to sunlight because ultraviolet radiation breaks down its carbon bonds. So to address their first lotus application – self-cleaning insulators used on high-voltage power lines – the researchers had to develop another material.

Supported by the National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC), that project would solve a problem that plagues electric utilities. The build-up of dirt and dust on ceramic or silicone insulators used by high-voltage power lines can eventually create a short circuit that can damage the electric distribution network. It’s impractical to manually clean the insulators.

Wong and collaborators Yonghao Xiu, Lingbo Zhu and Dennis Hess have developed a lotus-like surface able to withstand ultraviolet radiation using a combination of silicone, fluorocarbons, and inorganics such as titanium dioxide and silicon dioxide. Their prototype coating has shown excellent durability in long-term testing.

Supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA and other agencies, Georgia Tech is also pursuing other work based on lotus applications:

  • Use of carbon nanotube bundles to create the surface bumps needed to prevent dust from accumulating on the surfaces of photovoltaic (PV) cells, space suits and other equipment intended for use on the moon or Mars – where there’s no rain.

  • Application of lotus coatings to prevent “stiction,” which is the strong adhesive force that can form between the structures of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and substrates. The magnitude of these forces can be enough to deform the structures, resulting in device failure. With its superhydrophobicity and surface roughness, a lotus surface coating can prevent stiction, Wong said.

  • Lotus surfaces for use in implantable medical devices to prevent cells from attaching to form blood clots. If successful, this application could replace anti-clotting materials that are coated onto implantable devices such as stents used to hold blood vessels open.

Oct. 17, 2006 — Lumera Corp. of Bothell, Wash., a developer of products for the bioscience and communications/computing industries using proprietary molecular structures and polymer compounds, announced it has completed successful testing of its millimeter wave wireless bridge. The bridge is intended to enable government and commercial entities to transmit vast amounts of data via a variety of high speed telecommunications networks.

The test included transmitting 10 Gbps at 94 GHz, through the use of Gigabit Ethernet and other standard protocols. The single band wireless communications system completes the first phase of Lumera’s product development. In mid-November, Lumera expects to finalize the development and testing of its multiband, high-data-rate, adaptive millimeter-wave wireless communication system.

“Based on these internal results, we are confident that the third party tests to be conducted next month on the multiband system will be equally positive,” said Raluca Dinu, director of Lumera’s electro-optics business unit, in a prepared statement. “We’ve already begun discussions with prospective customers who have expressed interest in the fully functional commercial product.”

Oct. 17, 2006 — The speed of nanoparticle assembly can be accelerated with the assistance of DNA, a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., recently found.

Nanoparticles could potentially be used for more efficient energy generation and data storage, as well as improved methods for diagnosing and treating disease. Learning how to control and tailor the assembly of nanoparticles into larger functional systems remains a major challenge for scientists. The Brookhaven results, published online on Oct. 11, 2006, by the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could be a step in that direction.

“Understanding how to self-assemble these types of nanomaterials has applications in all areas of nanotechnology, from optics to electronics to magnetic materials,” said the study’s lead author Mathew Maye, a Brookhaven chemist, in a prepared statement.

Maye is part of a team of interdisciplinary scientists from Brookhaven’s new Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) and the biology department. The researchers found a way to control the assembly of gold nanoparticles using rigid, double-stranded DNA. Their technique takes advantage of this molecule’s natural tendency to pair up components called bases, known by the code letters A, T, G and C.

The synthetic DNA used in the laboratory is capped onto individual gold nanoparticles and customized to recognize and bind to complementary DNA located on other particles. The process forms clusters, or aggregates, of gold particles.

“It’s really by design,” Maye said. “We can sit down with a piece of paper, write out a DNA sequence, and control how these nanoparticles will assemble.”

One limitation to the assembly process is the use of single-stranded DNA, which can bend backward and attach to the particle’s gold surface instead of binding with surrounding nanoparticles. This flexibility, along with the existence of multiple forms of single-stranded DNA, can greatly slow the assembly process.

In the Brookhaven study, researchers introduced partially rigid, double-stranded DNA, which forces interacting linker segments of DNA to extend away from the gold surface, allowing for more efficient assembly. “By using properties of DNA, we can increase assembly kinetics, or speed, by relatively simple means without a lot of synthetic steps,” Maye said.

Oct. 17, 2006 — The New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) has awarded a grant of nearly $2 million to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany to help spur development of an Energy Test Farm that will enable innovative research on renewable energy technologies and generate significant economic impact.

The $1,922,000 award, made as part of NYSTAR’s Center for Advanced Technology Development Program, will support the efforts of CNSE’s Center for Advanced Technology in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics. The funding will be used to expand the capabilities of the CATN2 by creating an Energy Test Farm to evaluate zero energy concepts, based on the development and testing of nanomaterials and nanoelectronics for clean energy technologies, such as fuel cells, solar photovoltaic cells, ultracapacitors and power electronics.

The research will be conducted by CNSE in collaboration with several New York-based alternative energy companies, including DayStar Technologies of Halfmoon (solar photovoltaics), Plug Power Inc. of Latham (fuel cells), MTech Laboratories of Ballston Spa (power electronics) and Custom Electronics Inc. of Oneonta (ultracapacitors). The research is expected to develop new business opportunities for those firms, while at the same time attracting additional interest and investment from clean energy companies around the world.

Oct. 16, 2006 — Scientists from Northwestern University have demonstrated a novel carbon nanotube-based nanoelectromechanical switch exhibiting bistability based on current tunneling. The device could help advance technological developments in memory chips and electronic sensing devices. The research was published online by the scientific journal Small.

“We believe the unique characteristics of this nano device will likely lead to many high-impact applications in the field of nanoelectronics and nanosensors,” said Horacio Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, in a prepared statement. Espinosa and Changhong Ke, a former graduate student of Espinosa’s, co-authored the paper.

“Although several carbon nanotube-based NEMS devices have been proposed, frankly, none of them has reached the level of commercial success,” said Espinosa. “There are many challenges associated with nanofabrication and reliability.”

The device is made of a free suspended multiwalled carbon nanotube interacting electrostatically with an underlying electrode. In the device circuit, there is a resistor in series with the nanotube, which plays an important role in the functioning of the device by adjusting the voltage drop between the nanotube and the underlying electrode.

Espinosa and Ke demonstrated the behaviors of the device by mounting individual carbon nanotubes to the tip of a tungsten probe using a nanomanipualtor inside a scanning electron microscope. Then the nanotube was actuated by applying a potential to an adjustable micron-size gap between the nanotube and an electrode. The motion of the nanotube was recorded by the electron microscope, and the current in the circuit was recorded by a source-measurement unit.

The research was supported by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Science Foundation.

Oct. 16, 2006 — Nextreme Thermal Solutions, a Research Triangle Park, N.C., developer of technology for solid-state thermal management in electronics and semiconductors, announced that it has signed an exclusive option to license new, thin-film thermoelectric technology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

The technology covers work on thin-film thermoelectric devices carried out at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an operating division of Caltech. The addition of this technology to Nextreme’s intellectual property portfolio complements technology previously acquired from RTI International in 2004. The company says it significantly strengthens the company’s IP portfolio as a developer of embedded thermoelectric cooling solutions.