Posts tagged as:

Nanotechnology

Studying Nanotechnology: A Preface

February 18, 2009

Students interested in nanotechnology have often asked me for advice on what to study. I plan to write a series of posts about this, but there’s one basic piece of advice that will serve not only for nanotechnology, but for almost any area of physical science and technology: Study math and physics, then study more, [...]

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Advanced Nanotechnology Keynote

for WORLDCOMP’09

February 17, 2009

I’ll be giving a keynote talk for the opening plenary session of WORLDCOMP’09, the 2009 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing. The conference, to be held July 13–16 in Las Vegas, is the largest annual gathering of researchers in computer science, computer engineering and applied computing.
In my keynote, I’ll describe critical [...]

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Nanostructures, Nanomaterials,
and Lattice-Scaled Stiffness

February 15, 2009

Toward Advanced Nanotechnology: Nanomaterials (4)

The peg aligns with the hole if the hole is large enough, and the fluctuations are small enough.

In a nanofabrication technology that uses nanomachines to assemble products, the stiffness of the machines is important because it limits the amplitude of thermal fluctuations, yet tolerance for fluctuations is important too. When both [...]

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Nanomachines: How the Videos Lie to Scientists

February 10, 2009

Sound physical inference from an illusory premise

Don’t let this animationfool you about the physics!

By now, many scientists have seen videos of molecular-scale mechanical devices like the one shown here, and I have no way to know how many have concluded that the devices are a lot of rubbish (and have perhaps formulated an unfortunate corollary [...]

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Toward Advanced Nanotechnology:

Nanomaterials (3)

February 8, 2009

Mechanical engineering meets thermal fluctuations
Thermal fluctuations distort nanoscale structures, and this makes them an enemy of nanotechnologies that rely on precise mechanical motion. Indeed, if one were to set aside design and calculation and instead substitute guesses (I’m not naming guilty parties here), one might suppose that this would prevent nanomechanical engineers from designing reliable [...]

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Toward Affordable Structural DNA Nanotechnology

February 4, 2009

Science recently reported a research advance linked to a series of topics I’ve covered:

Self-assembled systems
George Church’s roadmap for radically lowering the cost of DNA
Structural DNA nanotechnology for modular molecular composite nanosystems
Cryo-electron microscopy for visualizing large self-assembled structures

The advance is an improved structural map of the core of the self-assembled protein machinery that some bacteria use [...]

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From Self-Assembly to Mechanosynthesis

February 3, 2009

In an ongoing series, I’ve been discussing paths forward from today’s atomically precise fabrication methods to advanced molecular manufacturing. The posts that address broad topics are:
Modular Molecular Composite Nanosystems
Toward Advanced Nanotechnology: Nanomaterials (1)
Toward Advanced Nanotechnology: Nanomaterials (2)
Self-Assembly for Nanotechnology
In some areas I’ve discussed, lab research is active today; in other areas, research (at least, of [...]

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Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem

February 1, 2009

There’s recently been another ripple of media attention to the other CO2 problem: Not climate change, but ocean acidification. In brief: The oceans absorb a portion of CO2 emissions; this mitigates greenhouse warming, but forms carbonic acid, lowering ocean pH. Acidification of the oceans impedes the formation of coral and shells, and within decades, if [...]

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Productive Nanosystems: The Movies

January 30, 2009

In his comment on Molecular Machine Assembly: The Movie, Drew Whitehouse reminded me of a set of excellent animations of biological productive nanosystems, work done by Drew Berry. These videos are based on scientific data describing molecular structure and function, and from what I’ve seen, Drew Berry’s work is the best of its kind. Below [...]

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Self-Assembly for Nanotechnology

January 26, 2009

Everyone knows how to assemble things: Just grasp the parts and put them together. Self-assembly, though, doesn’t work at all like this, and as a consequence, it presents major challenges. Despite its inherent difficulties and limitations, self-assembly is the leading means for implementing atomically precise nanotechnologies today, and I expect it will lead for years to come. Self-assembly is a powerful method, and powerful enough to provide a path to nanotechnologies that are yet more powerful. Improving methods for making complex structures by self-assembly is an enormously important area of research.

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Toward Advanced Nanotechnology:

Nanomaterials (2)

January 16, 2009

As every mechanical engineer knows, the stiffness of a material — its elastic modulus — is often a critical property; likewise in nanomechanical engineering, though in part for a different reason. I’d like to say a few words about this, then discuss some materials of interest in implementing nanosystems. And there is something I must [...]

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Molecular Machine Assembly: The Movie

January 12, 2009

I just watched an extraordinary set of videos that shows the assembly and operation of an intricate molecular machine. Beware, though: these highly realistic videos lie — but because they must!

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