New report on Environmental, Health and Safety related to Nanomaterials
January 26th, 2012Engineered nanomaterials are being used for various applications and it was always felt to understand the environmental, health and safety related aspects of these materials in details before these are brought in practice. Recently National Research Council (NRC) has published a report where it is focused to address the strategic approach to develop research to address these issues.
If we look into the nanomaterials or we better call these as engineered nanomaterials, these are the materials that have been created on molecular level and the properties of these nanomaterials differ from the bulk of the materials. These are at present not only used in skin care and cosmetics but many of the nanomaterials are being designed for medical use especially for treating many diseases.
A lot of research is going on throughout the world and we may see a large number of nanomaterials come in use for multiple applications for the coming years and therefore the research committee has identified only four areas which need to be addressed in the next five years.
These four categories include the identification and quantification of nanomaterials that are released and are exposed to population and environment, understanding the process that affect both exposure and potential hazard, examining the nanomaterial interaction ranging from subcellular to eco system especially in complex systems and support and adapt the knowledge infrastructure and research so that progress is accelerated and rapid feedback on the advanced system is provided.
Nanoparticles that has potential to deliver Cancer Drug accurately
January 23rd, 2012A novel class of micelles has been synthesized by Kit Lam, Professor Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine and his team at the US Davis and these micelles are called as dual-responsive boronate cross linked micelles (BCMs) and the research work is published in the recent issue of Angewandte Chemie.
These micelles are nano-sized measuring about 25-50 nanometers and hold potential as nanocarriers for greater accuracy to deliver cancer drugs to the tumors. Researchers claim that these BCMs releases the medicine as soon as these come in contact with the acidic micro environment and thus the premature drug release can be prevented by selecting a reversible cross-linked nanocarrier.
Stimuli responsive cross-linked micelles (SCM) have been found very versatile in releasing the payload as soon as these get some specific triggers and the present system develop by researchers show a great promise to the treatment of cancer. It has been observed that nanoparticles can prematurely release drug, which can cause damage to the healthy cell and at the same time the cancer cells don’t get the medicine and hence they spread as usual.
SCM can better retain the payload and prevent the premature delivery of the drug and the new dual-responsive boronate cross-linked micelles that researchers have developed can actually act to a number of stimulating agents and can thus ensure that the drug is delivered in the right environment. These micelles due to boronic acid and catechol containing polymers are sensitive to the slight change of the pH of the environment.
Efficient OLED to light up in Europe
January 20th, 2012Energy is one of the prime requirements of each country and with the aim to improve the energy efficiency and life of the OLED or organic light emitting diode, EU’s Seventh Program (FP7) the OLED100.eu project was focused. Thanks to the researchers and scientists working in the program and whose effort has significantly increased the energy efficiency and life of the OLED.
The project theOLED100.eu is led by Phillips Technologies, GmbH and is in progress for the last 36 months and researchers and scientists have almost resolved the technical issues with the project leading to the more and more acceptance of the OLED by general consumers. The researchers also developed a large area OLED and succeeded in demonstrating the technology developed by them.
Using the Novaled PIN OLED technology, researchers from the OLED100.eu teams succeeded in developing a high efficiency OLED showing 60 lumens/watt, which is better efficient that a conventional energy saving lamp and using this technique the lifetime was also obtained comparable to the inorganic LED lifetime. The research team also succeeded in the devising standardization of the OLED measurement procedures and the team is hopeful that the project result will increase better understanding and further acceptance of the technology by end user.
National Institute of Health Partners with FEI to crate Living Lab Structural Biology Centre
January 17th, 2012Structural biology techniques such as near-resolution microscopy technique is found useful in important medical discovering in many areas including cancer and AIDS and now a new lab has been created by NIH and FEI, which will provide more in-depth study in various inter-disciplines. The new facility called as “Living Lab structural Biology Centre” was formed by agreement between the NIH and a scientific company FEI.
The lab is located at NIH campus and it will indeed provide unique interdisciplinary collaboration and will harness the strength in multiple disciplines in the structural biology. The experts from various institutes such as FEI, National cancer Institute and other institutes will enhance their understanding on the key issues. The Centre will also create facilities and some of the state of the art equipment such as transmission electron microscope, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, cryo electron microscopy etc., will be made available in the centre.
National Institute of Health (NIH) is primarily engaged in the development of ways and means to protect public health by fostering the innovative research strategies and creating the research facilities and environment and this collaborative work will further help the mission of the institute. This collaborative jobs will involve the identification the role of molecular structures in the causes of various diseases such as AIDS, cancer etc., through the latest techniques and equipment, which will help in providing the proper development of treatment and medication for the deadly diseases.
Spherical Gold Nanodroplets produced
January 14th, 2012Researchers now have developed a technique through which the perfect spherical gold nanodroplets were produced. The details of the research has appeared in recent issue of Advanced Materials where the team of International researchers claim that the nanodroplets that produced through nanojets can find major applications in medicine.
Researchers used the backjet phenomenon and using a plasmonic hotspots or the region where electric current is used for heating gold nanostrutctures locally converts the gold nanostructures to the desired nanojets. The tightly focused laser pulses acts as heat source and these are sufficient enough to provide energy to melt the surface of gold and once the gold is melt, nanojet of molten gold appears upwards.
There was an anticipation from the scientists working on the project that the gold nanojet that will formed will not be significantly smaller than the wavelength of light, however the researchers found opposite and the nanojet can be made significantly smaller than the wave length of light with the help of the plasmonic hotspots. Dr. Ventsislay Valey of KU Leuven and other researchers believe that the gold nanodroplets as synthesized will have multiple applications in medical field.
New Nanomaterials for highly efficient refrigerators and cooling systems
January 11th, 2012Thermoelectric refrigerators are being used for more than 20 years now and these solid state cooling systems use thermoelectric materials that convert electricity into a range of temperatures from hot to cold and recently the research carried out shows a potential of improvement in these devices.
One of the major disadvantages with the present thermoelectric cooling devices is that the material is costly and at the same time, it is difficult to make huge quantity of the required material. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have now designed a new way to produce advanced nanomaterials that even will not require any refrigerants and moving parts in the modern high efficient refrigerators. The study findings have been published in the Journal Nature Materials.
Researchers have actually deliberately contaminated the nanostructured thermoelectric materials or it is better to say doped the material with sulfur. The resultant pea size pallets are obtained by cooking the dopant and the material together in a microwave oven and these pallets are showing much superior properties than the thermoelectric materials available in the market. This is superfast and very economical way of making the material that can significantly change the future thermoelectric cooling devices.
Harvard Scientists observed Electrical Signals While Passing DNA through Nanopore
January 8th, 2012Research team led by Charles Lieber at Harvard University have designed a device that can detect small electrical changes that are produced by the DNA strands while the strands is allowed to pass through the nanopores and the new technique perhaps will bring the revolution in DNA sequencing in the near future. For the first time, Professor Charles and the team has created an integrated nanopore detector.
DNA sequencing is still a time consuming and costly technique and focus around the globe is to minimize the cost of DNA sequencing making it quicker and cost effective. Although nanopores were used for sequencing DNA strands by observing electrical signals more than a decade ago but reading and analyzing those subtle electrical currents is indeed a difficult task and the technique never became a reality at larger scale.
It was a great challenge to measure the tiny changes in electrical currents at localized level, which by developing a detector that is extremely localized, Lieber and his team reached a step closure to DNA sequencing. The technique used by the research team is based on earlier work on nanowires, however changing it to nanoscale nanowire transistor and amplifying the electrical potential at pore level made the task more convenient and scalable.
Researchers were not only able to measure the electric potential quickly as larger signal, which is an important aspect of DNA sequencing as DNA is large enough so that each and every part of it is correctly analyzed. This localized measurement also scalable and parallel sequencing can easily be carried out and this will further significantly reduce the cost of DNA sequencing.
TMC Acquired by AMETEK
January 5th, 2012Technical Manufacturing Corporation (TMC) is one of the world leaders that are engaged in the business of high performance vibration isolation systems for multiple applications including microelectronics, manufacturing, life sciences etc., and the company TMC has recently acquired by AMETEK as per the announcement made by AMETEK. TMC, a medium size private manufacturer having more than 40 years of experience has the sales of around $30 million will be part Ultra Precision Technologies Division of AMETEK.
AMETEK is a renowned name in the area of electronics instruments including electro mechanical devices and with the recent acquisition of TMC, the vibration analysis of sophisticated instruments will become convenient. Most of the high end analytical instruments require highest order of vibration isolation to provide accurate and reliable results and TMC provides the leading edge in these areas.
Although TMC will enhance the capabilities of Electronics instruments Group of AMETEK, which has a sales of over $1.3 billion out of total sales of more than $30 billion of AMETEK, and especially the company will benefit from the patented piezo technology.
Fuel Cell reactions monitored at Nanoscale
January 2nd, 2012Researchers from United States and Ukraine have now observed and described the reactions inside fuel cells in Nanoscale. The findings of the research team have come in the form of a paper in the journal Nature Chemistry. For explaining the new innovation, researchers from US and Ukraine has devised a new microscopy technique.
Fuel cells consists of two electrodes separated by ion conductor and these are coming up fast in many hybrid vehicles to produce energy from hydrogen, where hydrogen is converted to electrical energy. Actually the energy or electrical energy is produced by transfer of ions between the electrodes and an expensive material, platinum is used as catalyst.
The electron transfer mechanism and the role of platinum plays the key role and the oxygen reduction process determines the longevity and efficiency of fuel cells. Dr. Francesco Ciucci, a renowned mathematician has developed ESM (Electrochemical Strain Microscopy), a new microscopy technique that can monitor the ion transfer at nanoscale and while studying researchers found that the platinum catalyst up to 50 nanometer thick layer doesn’t allow equal degree of ion transfer.
University of Illinois Researchers Make High End Optoelectronic Devices
December 26th, 2011The researchers at University Of Illinois have developed a new method that can be used for developing the high end optoelectronics devices. Research led by Xiuling Li, Professor electrical and computer engineering developed a new innovative method to chemically etch patterned arrays in the semiconductors.
Chemical etching is done to improve the electrical and optical properties of the semiconductors and chemically two common methods wet and dry are used for etching. In wet method, a chemical solution is used to erode the semiconductor in all directions and in dry method; ions are bombarded to the surface.
The research findings has been published in the Nano- Letters where researchers claim that they have developed a two stage wet etching process to fine tune the structure of the semiconductors so that these can be used solar cells, light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs), capacitors and sensors.
In the first stage researchers patterned the thin film of metal on GaAs surface and later the semiconductor with metal pattern is immersed in the chemical solution. The metal on the surface of the semiconductor is etched away by the chemical solution leaving behind the high aspect ratio structures required for high end applications.
New innovations can lead powerful optical devices
December 23rd, 2011New research at Purdue University has shown that the plasmonic nanoantennas can change the very important property of light that is called phase and the change in this property of light can significantly promise and hope for new powerful optical devices such as microscope, telecommunication and other optical devices.
The findings of the research have already been published in the recent online journal Science where researchers argue that the new discovery opens possibilities for many potential applications.
The discovery is based on Snell’s law, which implies that whenever light propagate from one medium to another there is no significant abrupt change in phase at the interface, however researchers from Harvard have already found that by placing a new structure at the interface, the phase changes abruptly and the material used is instead an array of antennas.
The researchers at Purdue University, created arrays of nanoantennas and changed the phase and thus changed the propagation of light. The researchers selected light in the range 1 to 1.9 microns as in the range of near infra red at around 1.5 microns light is used for telecommunications and therefore the technology can be used for potential applications.
ISA Award Goes to Berkley Design Automation
December 19th, 2011India Semiconductor automation (ISA) consists of more than 160 members from Indian Electronic System Design and Manufacturing and global manufacturing industry. ISA organizes many events to propagate the activities of Indian industries and works closely with private / public sector and governmental bodies.
Recently Berkley Design automation has announced that they have been selected for the ISA Technovation award in the intellectual property (semiconductor) category. Berkley is the one of the leading provider of the World’s fastest nanometer circuit verification and more than 100 reputed companies rely on the Berkley Design Automation for the circuit verification.
The recent award to Berkley goes for Semiconductor Intellectual property category and it was selected from among many multinational companies engaged in semiconductor research and development operation in India. This award is for the excellent contribution in the area of intellectual property created by multinational companies in India.
Nanotechnology helps in understanding cancer metastasis
December 16th, 2011Cancer detection at the earliest stage is the aim of the researchers working in the area and a recent nano- technique allow researchers to monitor the single cancer cell in real time and thus the technique help in identifying the cell responsible for spreading of the cancer disease. The research finding by the University of Michigan researchers has already been published in the recent issue of PLos One.
It is now very much clear that not all cancer cells spreads at same pace and some spread fast and some at very slow pace as all the tumor cells don’t have the same genetic code and in other words some of the cancer cells are difficult to destroy. Researchers are looking for those selected cells only which are not killed by a specific cancer drug and therefore the single cell study has a great role to play in.
Circulating cells are most dangerous cancer cells as these cells get separated from tumor and start circulating in blood stream and can invade the distance tissues in the body and therefore scientists have great interest in studying these cells. The metastasis is the main reason of deaths in cancer patients and unfortunately the number of these cells is very low and therefore studying them is really a difficult task and researchers are hopeful that the study of circulating cancer cells will lead to better treatment and better life for cancer patients.
In the new technique developed by the researchers at University of Michigan, researchers used magnets to rotate cancer cells and the spinning speed of the cell revealed their shape and status and for demonstrating these, they took magnetic nanoparticles and embedded cervical cancer cells. Once the solution was rotated under asynchronous magnetic field, researchers found that the dyeing and dividing cells rotate much slower and have specific pattern as well.
Nanotechnology Online Courses
December 13th, 2011Nanotechnology is becoming one of the favorite subjects for students and demand for the course covering some aspects of nanotechnology is rapidly growing. With the aim to impart some fundamental knowledge about nanotechnology to the students, the National Network for Computational Nanotechnology and Purdue University will offer online courses from January 2012.
The details can be obtained from nanoHUB.org and initially the first course on Basic Concepts of Nanoelectronics is on offer from Jan 23rd 2012 and it will cover five topics, which are the new Ohm’s law, quantum of conductance, electricity from heat, the spinning electron and quantum of conductance.Students on above topics will go through learning at the webportal and will have to pay $30 for each five week course.
These courses are aimed for graduate students, academics and engineers who wish to keep updated themselves for the latest developments in the field of nanoelectronics and who needs to understand basics.
Professor Supriyo Datta, an awrd winning researcher and teacher has been assigned the task of teaching the first two courses which will begin from January 23rd and March 19th 2012. Students will have the opportunity to interact with Professor Datta and other faculty members and researchers at Purdue University.
Collaboration for developing vaccine for RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus)
December 10th, 2011Although we might have come across many diseases caused by viruses the RSV is similar one but highly contagious and it causes bronchiolitis and pneumonia. The virus generally infects children and by the time child reaches at the age of 3, nearly all children would have been infected by the virus one or other time.
RSV is very dangerous for children who born premature or the children having other health conditions. RSV is also dangerous and needs careful examination and treatment for the elderly people and people who are suffering from pulmonary diseases, asthma etc. At present there is no vaccine for treating RSV and hopefully we may see some vaccine in near future.
With the aim to develop a vaccine for RSV, NanoBio Corporation has recently announced a preclinical collaboration with Merck & Co. Inc. and the study will use the available combination of technologies (Merck’s proprietary RSV antigen & NanoBio’s Nanostat technology) from both the partners for the developmental work. Both the partners are looking forward in advancement of the RSV vaccine research.
Nanotech 2012 to be held during February 15-17 at Tokyo
December 7th, 2011Thailand is one of the beautiful country in recent past it is facing the worst hit by flood and especially in some of the regions are still under the worst climatic disaster and to seek help in business partnership, this year’s theme at NANOTECH is “Thailand: Nanotechnology for Natural disaster Mitigation”.
The country Thailand has suffered lot during past three months worst case of floods in past 50 years and more than 600 people lost their lives. The country’s 64 provinces has been affected by the flood and rain and it is expected that more than one million people will lose their jobs and the overall economic damage to the country is targeted over $20 billion.
NANOTECH has come forward voluntarily and has nanobednets and nano mosquito spray to the residence and as well the Nanotech has also participated in the relief centres. NANOTECH 2012 is going to showcase the research topics in 6 major areas that are based on natural disaster mitigation. These include clean water, leptospirosis test kit, nano Sack, nano mosquito repellant, nano clean and nano guard products.
$50 Million approved for Research & Development on Nanotechnology
December 4th, 2011Recently on the initiative of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, US Senate approved 50 million dollars of fund for the development and research in the area of nanotechnology and the study will also include whether there is a need for a centre of nanotechnology. Senator Kirsten is a member of Armed Services Committee and has taken earlier initiative of language in the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
Senator earlier worked closely with other representatives for creation of a centre of nanotechnology at University of Albany and with this initiative, the new centre is likely to created at University of Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science, however the College need to compete with other institutions for getting the fund.
Senator Gillibrand is a promoter of nanotechnology and she thinks that the best institute to carry forward the research initiative is Albany’s Nano College, and it will not only help the Defense Industrial base here but domestic industry will also benefit from it. With the efforts of senator and other house representative, the nanotechnology will definitely progress in the heart of this region, New York and will lead the world.
Three Dimensional Products offered by CVD Equipment
December 1st, 2011CVD Equipment Corporation is is one of the leading manufacturer of various equipments used in electronic components manufacturing such as CVD (chemical vapor deposition) for manufacturing carbon nanotubes, graphene etc. and recently the company has offered a new state of the art product named as CVD 3D Graphene TM cellular material and it will be very useful for producing high performance products.
CVD earlier announced expansion of the Application Laboratory be enhancing the strength on novel and high efficiencies materials that will enable growth. These products will be marketed throughout the globe by CVD Material Corporation.
According to the company the CVD 3D Graphene TM cellular material is based on the three dimensional graphene having two dimensional graphene sheets and these graphene sheets are interconnected to form a three dimensional structure and this platform provides unique characteristics and material properties to the two and three dimensional graphene layers.
Further using the latest state of the art CVD equipment has features of functionalizing the three dimensional graphene to impart specific properties so that it can find applications in high performance products to be used in electronics and medical applications.
High Efficiency electroplating on silicon substrate developed
November 28th, 2011Solar energy is one of the easy and clean source of energy, however it’s conversion is tedious job and researchers across the globe are looking for some improved way of getting photovoltaic electricity. In the present conference of International Photovoltaic Science and Engineering, Nov 28- Dec 2, 2011, Fukuoka, Japan researchers have presented the paper through which they claim of high conversion efficiency.
Research at Kaneka has developed a technique using imec’s copper electroplating technology using 6-inch silicon substrate with an electroplated copper contact grid. This silver free approach used a formation of top grid electrode with copper electroplating and thus obtained a hetero-junction silicon solar cell, which the researchers claim that it’s conversion efficiency is around 21%, which is much higher than the conventional photovoltaic techniques.
Imec is headquartered in Belgium and is one of the world leader in nanoelectronics research and it has huge innovative and scientific knowledge among it’s total of 1900 staff including many guest researchers. On the other hand Kaneka is based in Osaka, Japan and employees more than 7000 people across the globe and photovoltaic market is it’s one of the core business. The present research output will have significant improvement in the future photovoltaic using the latest nanotechnique.
Nanotechnology Training at San Bernardino Community College from December 5
November 27th, 2011Here is the last opportunity to participate in the federally funded training program beginning December 5th at the San Bernardino Community College District as the grant is going to expire in February 2012. The grant is meant for graduates to impart the skill so that they can begin their career in the emerging sectors of nanotechnology.
The program is in continuation for the last three years and more than 400 individuals have taken hand on experience on the various tools and techniques provided during the training program. Interested individuals can go the website to learn more about the program or can contact to the Economic Development and Corporate Training Centre of the San Bernardino Community College District and can have the details.
Nanotechnology requires especial skills, which many people are lacking and once they are familiar with the basic skills, they can compete either in the job market or they can begin their career in Nanotechnology by going for specialized courses. Lots of topics including electronics devices, material characterization, fabrication, optoelectronics devices will be covered by the reputed faculties of the college.
Nanotechnology to help in power storage
November 25th, 2011Tapping of solar and wind energy is one of the task for the power engineers but they are looking for some high power rechargeable battery that can store large quantities of power. If the solution of this is achieved quickly, it will help in storing the excess solar power during summer and similarly excess wind power during windy season.
Researchers at Stanford now claims to have made a electrode, the battery component that is based on crystalline copper compound nanoparticles and the research finding has recently been published in the Nature Communications. The electrode has rigorously been tested in the lab and it survived 40,000 cycles of charging /discharging, which is much above than the conventional Lithium ion battery which normally deteriorates after 400 cycles.
The life of the electrode was significantly increased by using crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate for making it and the crystalline nanoparticle having an open framework allows ions to enter and leave and thus smoothens the charging and discharging process, which ultimately results in the faster charging and discharging of the electrode.
The researchers also tried the right size of ion for the structure and found that hydrated potassium is the better choice than lithium and sodium ions. This electrode is therefore the best option for a high voltage electrode and as a battery needs both high voltage and low voltage electrodes, researchers are looking for right type of low voltage electrode so that a complete battery can be used for storing excessive energy produced by renewable sources.
High Energy aluminum and copper oxide nanocomposite formed
November 21st, 2011Aluminum and copper oxide are mixed to produce energy and especially these were earlier used for welding railway track, however according to the recent claim of researchers, the energy density of specifically designed material can be at par to the nitroglycerine. Researchers at CNRS (Laboratory analysis and architecture system) in collaboration with the University Toulouse have developed an innovative technique for producing the energy.
As per the claimed technique the nanoparticles are brought in contact with the DNA strands and the strands allow nanoparticles to assemble and release the energy by combining various kinds of nanoparticles. The energy released by the new explosive is comparable to the best explosives and thus the energy can be used for powering the embedded system in the environment and even in the space.
DNA strands (two complimentary strands) self-assemble to form helix structure and remain firm and due to this property of DNA strands, researchers took separately grafted DNA onto the aluminum and copper oxide before mixing these together resulting in binding both nanoparticles to the solid material which ignites when heated to 410 degree Celsius. The composite not only have low ignition temperature but it also have similar energy density as of nitroglycerine. This composite can find many applications including igniters for internal combustion engines, aircraft , rocket nozzle etc.
Newly developed nanoparticles inhaled to deliver anticancer drugs at lungs
November 18th, 2011Lung diseases and especially lung cancer is growing across the globe and is among the top killer disease. Researchers in various universities and research institutions are looking for a better solution for treating lung cancer that can be effective as well as the treatment can produce minimal toxicities.
Researchers at Rutgers claim to have developed a method for delivering potent anticancer cocktail to lungs using an inhalable porous silica nanoparticle. The inhaled nanoparticle largely remains in the lung as observed by the research team headed by Tamara Minko when tried in animals and small amount of the nanoparticles accumulates in liver and kidneys as well.
Researchers choose to develop mesoporous silica nanoparticles for their suitable pore size and for their biocompatibility and anticancer agents doxorubicin and cisplatin were selected for treating cancer as these are the commonly used medicines to treat lung cancer today. In addition to these, researchers also designed siRNA for stopping the development of drug resistance and used silica nanoparticles to deliver these at the site.
New gelatin based nanoparticle dissolves blood clot faster
November 15th, 2011A new technique has been found effective in animals for dissolving blood clot while studying the acute coronary syndrome. Doctors at Nara Medical University in Kashihara, Japan has found that gelatin based nanoparticles could be used to treat chest pain patients while bringing them to hospital.
Treating acute syndrome is one of the challenges before doctors and during the disease the blood flow to the heart reduces and more than one million people in US alone suffers with the disease every year. Quick clot busting therapy can prevent heart attack and death if the blood flow to the heart is quickly restored.
Traditionally the tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) is injected to the patients in hospital through vein or through catheter , however doctors at Nara Medical University found that the tPA if mixed with gelatin and given to patients as nanoparticles, reduces tPA activity. Due to reduced activity of tPA, the bleeding complications minimizes and thus the chance of patient’s survival increases.
In our body, tPA is automatically produced, which prevent blood clotting in normal circumstances by inhibiting certain proteins that form clots and researchers found that the gelatin combined with tPA acts faster in acute syndrome. Scientists tracked the drug using radioactive tPA and analyzed the output in animals and found that after 30 minutes blood flow was restored partially to almost complete.
Manufacturing Unit for Flexible Packaging Material at Kazan opened
November 12th, 2011Danaflex group of companies, opened a new factory where Danaflex-Nano will use the proprietary nanotechnology process to manufacture improved flexible packaging material. Danaflex-Nano is a RUSNANO project and it is expected that the project will require an investment of around 2.45 billion rubles.
On the 10th anniversary of Danaflex, dignitaries from government and board members of Danaflex attended the grand opening ceremony. Flexible packaging is required for day to day job for various products including the packaging of food items, cosmetics, chemicals etc; and the company has the design capacity of forty six thousand tons of the material per annum.
The advantages of this new material are huge and having an excellent film, it will prevent ingress of oxygen and other gases, moisture, dirt dust and other greasy material to the packaged food or chemicals and at the same time it will also prevent the degradation of foodstuff or other material by microorganism and ultraviolet rays.
The factory is equipped with the latest machineries from Windmoeller & Hoelscher, a renowned German company and with the flimex flat-slit extruder, the high barrier polymer films that will be produced using nanotechnology will have as many as 17 layers resulting to outstanding physical and mechanical properties required for a packaging material.
Danaflex with a market share of 12% in flexible packaging is the largest company in Russia and has ambitious plans for the coming years.
Nanotechnology in thermoelectric applications
November 9th, 2011Wherever and whenever we use energy, apart of it is wasted in the form of heat and especially in automobiles, the energy used for driving vehicle is less than 30% of the total energy produced by burning fuel. The remaining energy is lost in the form of friction and heat. Researchers now think that to use nanotechnology for better applications so that the energy loss can be minimized.
University of Oslo researchers are looking for collaboration to the scientist at the Foundation of Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) to develop thermoelectricity, which is a new form of environmental friendly technology and will minimize the waste of power. Currently thermoelectricity is used for limited applications especially in space flight. Solar batteries based probe when travels too far from the sun, life of its batteries shorten and therefore plutonium based probe is the right solution for it.
Team of researchers from the University of Oslo and SINTEF are working together to search a pollution free, inexpensive material that can recover around 15% of the energy, which currently with existing technology is around 10%. Researchers are hopeful to use the nanotechnique to come at the solution. Starting with the use of the new thermoelectric generators, which will be initially used in cars and several manufacturers have already expressed their interest in the technology; and once successful results obtained these will further find applications in refrigerators.
People took interest in exploring nanotechnology at University of Albany
November 7th, 2011Recently a community day at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the University of Albany was organized and more than 1200 people of all ages from across the New York State participated in the event. The event is known as NANOvember and it is totally deliberated on providing the educational insights to the visitors.
The event included the presentation and discussion on the use and applications of technology for most critical and challenging areas of 21st century and showcased the research in nanotechnology area and the participants were taken a tour to the facilities at the institute including the state of the art cleanroom.
The authorities were delighted with the huge response from people. The administration also hoped that the interest of people across the globe will grow in nanotechnology area and more and more student will pursue higher education in nanotechnology.
The CNSE at University of Albany is dedicated to the research and development in the emerging areas of the nanotechnology such as nanobioscience, nanoeconomics, nanoscience etc and so far more than $12 billions has already been invested. The institute don’t only provide students the excellent facilities for research and education but also provide more than 300 corporate partners, the access to the nanotechnology innovations.
Potential applications of graphene
November 3rd, 2011Graphene, a two-dimensional material that in one atomic layer thick of carbon and has a honeycomb like structure has great surface area that provides it unique properties. It is hardest and strongest and at the same time it is extremely useful for number of applications in especially electronics and photonics applications.
Graphene has many useful properties and some of them are electron mobility, excellent thermal conductivity and high mechanical strength and all these properties can play a significant role when graphene is placed on a substrate. Phaedon Avouris, Manager, Nanometer Scale Science and Tribology Division, IBM’s T.J. Watson Research centre will present a paper at AVS Meeting, Nashville during Oct 30- Nov 4, 2011.
Researchers have studied the properties of graphene and have successfully demonstrated high frequency graphene transistors for simple electronic circuits such as frequency mixers and will focus in future on the quality of synthetic graphene. The high quality graphene produced synthetically will find applications in the frontiers of electronics and photonics applications.
Nanoscale Copper for semiconductor industries
October 31st, 2011A project on development of nanoscale copper for use in semiconductor industries was awarded $16,000 to the Carleton University by GreenCentre and researchers here got some breakthrough by producing nanoscale copper metal layers. GreenCentre has done much in this area by providing grants to many researchers across several universities and research institutions.
Researchers Sean Barry and Jason Coyle has been working in this area, which was a challenge to create a defect free layer of copper suitable for use in semiconductor wafer and researchers were able to produce copper by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. The researchers repeated the process for preparing gold thin films and researchers got success using plasma-enhanced ALD and the new product will enhance the applications of it in many fields including biomedical applications and micro-electrical mechanical applications.
As copper has excellent thermal and electrical properties, it is universally preferred metal for microelectronics applications, where it is used to connect small transistors in a silicon chip and atomic layer deposition (ALD ) technique seems to be the best choice for making it. Working on the ALD instrument supplied by a Finland based manufacturer, researchers at Carlton University were able to create a copper precursor that has a potential to meet the requirements of semiconductor industries.
Nanotechnology for early breast cancer detection
October 29th, 2011Breast cancer is one of the growing disease and mammography is the commonly used techniques for detecting breast cancer and it can detect up to very small around 5 mm of tumors very early, however it still fails to detect up to 25% of tumors in early stages. One of the major drawbacks of mammography is that this technique is also not able to distinguish between the benign and malignant tumors.
The superconductive quantum interface device (SQUID) sensors, a magnetic relaxometry technique has been found more useful than mammography and because the technique is designed to detect tumors based on nanoparticles. Researchers Helen J Hathaway and coauthors has published a paper in online issue of journal Breast Cancer Research.
Researchers selected breast cancer cells with varying level of plasma membrane and antibodies conjugated with supermagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, incubated with breast cancer cell lines were visualized using multiple techniques including magnetic relaxometry and microscopy. The technique was found useful in detecting in vitro nanoparticle development and in vivo breast cancer cell detection.
32nm HD Digital Camera System-On-Chip (SoC)
October 26th, 2011Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd;, and Cadence Systems, Inc, has recently come out with an innovative technique to produce Ambarella’s 32 nanometer (nm), HD digital camera system on chip. The production facility at Giheung, was based on Samsung’s Foundry business 32 nm gate first High k Metal Gate (HKMG).
The combined technology of Samsung Foundry and Cadence has given birth to the new Ambarella A7L SoC, which will enhance the digital lifestyle and will improve the performance and power feature of digital camera. VLSI, Ambarella claims that with new technique, power saving up to the level of 95% during power shut off and up to 60% during sleep modes can be achieved.
All the three companies engineers took part in the design and development process of Ambarella A7L SoC and engineers consider various aspects during designing including several million logic gates and custom proprietary high speed mixed signal blocks. The team successfully achieved optimized IP along with silicon-proven design flow in real time. This enabled the development of next generation design needs.
The design engineers were finally able to exceed their targets for performance and thus for validating and integrating the Ambarella A7L design, Samsung Foundry ported all necessary Ambarella IP to its production facility, where it was successfully demonstrated.
Nanotechnology to help in treatment of Ischemic conditions
October 23rd, 2011Medistem Inc., and University of Western Ontario has recently come up with the a novel method that can prevent transplant associated with Ischemic liver injury. The method is based on a selective nanotechnology delivery system that targets hepatocytes and the research finding has recently been published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
Meidtem Inc., is a company which mainly developes technology for a range of clinical stage biotechnologies in the area of adult stem cell extraction and manipulation and the company has already a universal donor stem cell ERC (endomaterial regenerative cell) being developed for Ischemia and now in collaboration of Dr. Wei Ping Min, University of Western Ontario has developed a new technique. The group of researchers has found that nanoparticle targeted on short interfering RNA can effectively protect liver from oxygen and other nutrient deprivation damage.
Organs during transplantations are transported across the long distance and during the transportation outside the body, these organs are damaged, which is known as ischemic injury and to avoid it, Medistem is currently using the ERC especially for treating ischemia in legs and hearts. The new collaboration with researchers from Dr. Wei Ping Min’s lab will bring hopefully the fruitful results in future.
REACH Implementation for Nanomaterials
October 20th, 2011REACH is a European Regulation, which comes into force w.e.f. 01/06/2007 and it deals with the safe use of various chemicals. The REACH community regulation deals with Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances and it has recently come out with the final reports on nanomaterials.
With the aim of protecting human health and environment with the earliest identification of intrinsic properties of nonmaterial, REACH took the study involving others including Cefic and NIA.
The two REACH implementation Projects on Nanomaterials (RIP-oN 2&3) were commissioned by JRC’s Institute for Health and Consumer Protection and they have recently published the final report. The committee consulted with various stakeholders and took 12 to 16 months to complete the report.
The report has summarized various aspects such as assessment of nanomaterials in the context of REACH and provides recommendations to the European Commission of how it can further develop way to better address nanomaterials. It has also addressed the requirement of intrinsic properties of nanomaterials and additional information needed for safety evaluation of the nanomaterials.
The committee consisted of experts from various fields including physical sciences, life sciences and risk assessment and the projects was undertaken by a consortium led by SAFENANO.
Method for growing high quality Graphene developed
October 17th, 2011Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms has been found promising in a number of applications including electronics and it is really a challenge to produce it so that it can suitably be used for advanced nanoelectronics applications.
In the year 2010, Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to researchers Geim and Novoselov, University of Manchester researchers for lifting flakes of grapheme from graphite using adhesive tape, however there is still need to grow grapheme in a controlled way.
Now researchers have University of California, Santa Barbara has developed a method that produces high quality grapheme. The research team under the guidance of Kaustav Banejee, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department &Director, Nanoelectronics Research Lab has found a perfect method of growing grapheme sheets and the research findings has recently been published in the Journal Carbon (November 2011 issue).
Researchers claim that they have developed a technique that can yield high quality and high uniformity grapheme, that can commercially adopted for full fledge commercial production of grapheme. Researchers claim that for using grapheme in advance electronics, it should be made available selectively in larger sheets and the technique products the exact quality grapheme required by the industry.
Nanotechnology used in monitoring cancer cells
October 14th, 2011Senior Scientific, LLC a Manhattan Scientifics funded company has recently developed highly precise magnetic cell measurement device that is useful for determining the progress of cancer treatment. The company is looking for commercialization of its novel nano-electromagnetic sensing technology.
According to the Senior Scientific, the new device is able to accurately monitor the tumor cells in leukemia as well as solid tumors including breast cancer and it can report the accurate guidance to the doctors whether the cancer cells has disappeared or not during treatment. This can help doctors in determining the next course of action of treatment and also the right amount of therapy and thus the side effects with the overuse of therapy can also be minimized.
The technique uses a magnetic needle with targeted magnetic nanoparticle that determines the minimum residual disease. The information might help doctors for taking appropriate treatment including repeating treatment in case of recurrence. The present biopsy for detecting leukemia cells fails to detect the disease if the cells are less than 5% of the sample, however with the newly developed device, the MRD can be detected down to 0.3% of level, which is a great level of sensitivity.
New methods for counting Nanoparticles
October 11th, 2011Nanoparticle size distribution and counting is carried out by dispersing the nanoparticles in gas; however some nanoparticles get agglomerated in certain conditions, and it become difficult to accurately analyze their size distribution. Researcher at Sweden has developed a new method to do the analysis even if the nanoparticles are agglomerated.
Nanomaterials are now widely used in a number of applications ranging from cosmetics to energy and the surface area and size of the nanoparticles can widely change their properties. Knowing these physical parameters can really help in understanding of the nanomaterial so that these can widely be used for improving the particular properties required for different applications.
Ann of the Department of Chemistry, University of Gothenburg has found that certain nanoparticles may aggregate under certain environmental conditions and form gel. Ann has studied colloidal silica for analyzing the particle size of nanomaterials. The researcher first took the aggregated nanoparticle or gel by diluting them and dispersing them into gas phase.
Nanoinformatics 2011 to be held during 7-9 December 2011
October 8th, 2011Call of poster abstracts for presenting at the nanoinformatics Conference during 7-9 December 2011 are being invited by the organizing committee and the abstracts not exceeding 500 words and all submissions that are made before November 14, 2011 will be reviewed. The conference theme is “Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship and Minimum Required Characteristics”.
The Nanoinformatics Conference 2011 will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal city Hotel, Arlington, VA during December 7-9, 2011. The program will start with the welcome lecture by Christian Lehinger on 7th December 7.0 am, which will be followed by reception and poster exhibition session. On 7th a large number of scientists and government representative has already confirmed for the guest lectures and the last day of the conference is reserved for discussion of Pilot working Group on nanoinformatics.
The poster abstracts are invited in various topics including nanoinformatics projects within a specific nanotechnology area, innovative use of nanoinformatics or computational technology to solve problem within nanotech domain, novel approach to the collection and curation of nanotechnology area, address various barriers in data sharing within the nanotechnology community including legal, cultural and ethical barriers.
Nanoparticle as potential therapy for brain Cancer
October 5th, 2011Cancer is one of the deadly diseases and especially glioblastoma; an aggressive form of cancer spreads quickly to the surrounding brain tissues making it difficult to treat by any of the method. Several models have found completely ineffective and resistant to all types of treatment attempts for glioblastoma.
A recent study conducted by the researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research institute and Salk Institute for Biological studies fund that the newly developed method is far better for treating glioblastoma. The method involves combination of tumor-homing peptide, a cell killing-peptide and nanoparticle and the method used in mice eradicated most of the tumor cells in one model and delayed developments in other model.
According to researchers, the present developed method is totally unique as it links the cell killing peptide to a nanoparticle and thus it is possible to deliver it directly to the tumors and thus totally eliminating the risk of killer-peptide’s effect to the normal cells. In this method researchers were also able to deliver the drug directly at the cell’s energy generating centre.
DOE awarded $156 million for 60 Energy Research projects
October 2nd, 2011Department of Energy has recently announced an award of $156 million under it’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and the award will be distributed under 60 cutting edge energy research projects. The outcome of these projects will focus on better production and utilization of the energy in United States.
The focus for the year 2011 projects is to produce, distribute a clean energy and become competitive in the area of rare earths alternative. The focus has also equally strong in the area of bio fuels, solar power, grid control and thermal storage. Many of these areas will require clear understanding and utilization of nanotechnology in various forms.
The Director of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) Arun Majumdar has told that the projects are selected from across 25 states and 50% of the projects will be led by Universities and a fair 23% of the award goes to small businesses. The 13 % of the remaining award goes to national labs and 12% to the large businesses and the last 2% goes to non-profit organization.
Light from nanoparticles controlled
September 30th, 2011Researchers at Rice University were able to control useful optical properties of nanoscale materials and the discovery can open the useful applications of the material in near future. The researchers at Rice University used liquid crystals for controlling light scattered from gold nanorods.
Although the technique developed by Stephan Link, assistant professor of chemistry and electrical and computer engineering is simple but it took two years to develop the method so that the light from nanoparticles is completely controlled and the research finding has recently been reported in the ACS journal Nano Letters.
Researchers learned during experimentation the technique of manipulating light at nanoscale and approached in-plane rotation of the liquid crystal molecules that covers individual gold nanorods. With the technique, researchers are able to control or manipulate light from any source including nanostructures that scatters absorb or emit lights.
Researchrs argue that for controlling the light, they need to polarize it and in a polarized light, the light wave, which is aligned in a particular direction, can easily be filtered or blocked using a liquid crystal. Researchers took gold nanorods as a source of light and these when re-illuminated reemits light in a particular direction.
Cardiac Patch with Gold Nanowire
September 27th, 2011MIT and Children hospital Boston researchers has made some innovations in creating fine piece of tissues resembling heart muscles and these are made from the gold nanowires and researchers are hopeful that the developments can one day help people suffering from heart attacks.
The study is in its initial stage only and researchers are hopeful to improve it so that it continuously receive conductivity required for ensuring smooth and continuous beating of the larger piece of the tissue. The research report has already been published in the recent issue of Nature nanotechnology.
In these developments researchers scattered gold nanowires among cardiac cells while growing them and the researchers found that the technique enhances the performance of cardiac patch. Researchers are hopeful that the technique can suitably used for resulting in implantable patches that can replace the damaged cardiac cells due to heart attack.
The authors of the study include postdoc Brian Timko and Tal Dvir, Robert Langer and David H. Koch, Professor. Brian and Tal had worked in the area of semiconducting nanowires and cardiac tissue engineering respectively, which helped them a lot in developing the technique.
RUSNANOTECH 2011 to be held at Moscow during October 26-28
September 24th, 2011RUSNANOTECH has become a national event in Russia and this year, IV International nanotechnology forum will be held during October 26-28 at Moscow, where leading politicians, scientists, government officials, engineers and research scholars, heads of companies are expected to take part. The forum will provide a platform for discussion on innovative technologies and their commercialization.
The major focus this year will be on innovation and participants are expected to discuss various aspects of innovative nanotechnology for use in wide range of industries including electronics, pharmaceutical, construction etc. A separate section has been arranged for large industrial companies where the participants will discuss various innovative programs.
RUSNANOTECH 2010 was attended by more than ten thousand participant from across 50 countries and more than 400 speakers delivered their talks including Nobel Laureates. Lot of exhibitors also showcased their technology products and processes at the event.
This year too it is expected than more than hundred exhibitors will participate in the event and so far more than eighty has confirmed their participation. A lot of participants have already booked and many more are booking daily. So, if you are interested in such event, visit the RUSNANOTECH website and confirm your participation.
Nanoparticles used to discriminate Prostate Cancer cells
September 21st, 2011Prostate cancer is rapidly growing among men older than 50 years of age especially in Asian countries and researchers at University of California; Santa Barbara has recently found a technique which identifies the prostate cancerous cells in bodily fluids. The research findings have recently been published in the proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
Prostate cancer on developments spread to other parts of the body and researchers are confident that the technique will help in understanding this stage of the cancer. The identification of cancer cells in human blood can set a stage for prognosis and higher the number worse is the prognosis. Researchers argue that the cells found in blood initiates metastasis and correctly identifying them either in blood or other bodily fluid can help in diagnosis and treatment of the cancer.
The researchers are of the view that it is the metastasis, which is fatal and therefore correct identification of the cells if rightly treated can stop metastasis. The team has therefore developed a technique, which can discriminate between the cancerous and non-cancerous cells. The team used SERS (surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy) and silver nanoparticles as biotags, and upon absorbing laser lights, the silver nanoparticles emits rich set of colors and the technique is more powerful than the fluorescence.
NSF grant of $20 million to University of Massachusetts
September 18th, 2011National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently awarded a five year grant of $ 20 million to the University of Massachusetts to fund the University’s Centre for Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM). The grant will support the roll-to-roll nanoscale processing of flexible electronics and cell phone displays, batteries, sensors, solar cells etc.
Roll-to-roll processing is a quite old technique and is similar to printing technology where paper while printing moves between rolls. With the new grants provided to the Centre, the CHM will focus on low cost, large volume roll-to-roll nanoscale processing technique that will find it’s applications in printing, coating and flexible electronics industries.
It is the second time when National science Foundation have awarded fund to the University’s Centre after 2006. The Centre of Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM) closely associates with private industries and help the economy grow in the region. The scientists at CHM has already developed a custom manufacturing laboratory and the current grant will further concentrate on their works on roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing process.
Cambridge Nano Tech and 4D LABS join hand to develop Nanomaterials
September 15th, 2011Cambridge Nano Tech and 4D LABS join hand together to develop novel nanomaterials that can find applications for the real world use. 4D LABS is a premiere research institute at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and it’s nanofabrication facility has recently got financial support from various organizations including NSERC, CFI and BCKDF.
Cambridge Nano Tech is known for its Fiji Plasma enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) systems and the current joint project will expand the capabilities of 4D LABS. Fiji, an advanced thermal and plasma processing technology will enhance the 4D LABS nanofabrication facility and thus help them in developing in new thin film technologies and processes.
4D LABS nanofabrication facility is a class 100 and ISO 5 clean room, where new thin film processes and technologies are available for various users from diverse fields. The facilities are open for people from academia, research and government who seek the solution in the latest material research areas.
NSF announces new Material Interdisciplinary Research Team
September 12th, 2011National Science Foundation has recently announced three new Material Interdisciplinary Research Teams (MIRT) and these are the Columbia University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina. National science Foundation has also funded nine centers during the year. The nine centers are also known as the Material Research Science and Engineering Centers.
These are the centers of excellence in material research and innovation and supports various multi-disciplinary research and these centers not only address the fundamental problem in material science research but also collaborate with the universities and world class institutes across the globe. These awards will ensure the timely discoveries and support and strengthen the infrastructure required for world class research.
Inter- disciplinary and multi- disciplinary award will promote next generation electronics and photonics. These research centers with excellent world class infrastructure will work on the nanomaterial that can address the country’s requirement and at the same time, these institutes will provide the leadership in the frontiers in nanotechnology to the country.
Workshop on Atomic Force Microscopy is being hosted on Sept 14-15
September 8th, 2011Centre for Nano and Molecular Science and Technology, University of Texas and Asylum Research are jointly organizing a workshop on Atomic Force Microscopy on September 14-15 at Austin. The workshop will cover characterization of materials and life science applications in the form of lectures, demonstrations and tutorials etc.
The workshop is useful for current and potential researchers in the area of AFM techniques and will cover various topics including nanomechanics in biology, Scanning Kelvin probe Microscope (SKPM), piezoresponse force microscopy etc. The organizers are hopeful that the workshop will help the participants in learning the advanced capabilities of AFM instrumentation and at the same time and at the same time the workshop will also focus on providing valuable tips for AFM operation.
Asylum Research was established in the year 1999 and it is the technology leader in atomic force and scanning probe microscopy. The company provides a range of instruments for imaging and measurement capabilities and is being used in broad areas of application including in material science, chemistry, bioscience, polymers etc.
Nanodermatology Society (NDS) Focuses on research on Nanotechnology for skin disease applications
September 7th, 2011Nanodermatology society (NDS) is an organization led by well known physicians and recently they have come out with a pilot study about the understanding of nanotechnology by dermatologists especially in United States. The survey findings have been published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, Vol 10, Issue 9 of September 2011.
Nanotechnology is in use for many applications from years and we have seen many encouraging results including the new investigating and treatment techniques of it in medicine. Nanoproducts has already been use in the treatment of many skin diseases such as acne, however dermatologists feel that there is enough scope of nanotechnology in dermatology and it needs to be explored.
Although majority of dermatologists appreciate the potential of nanotechnology for treating dermatology, they feel a lot of education and research in this area is required. All are of the view that the subject needs to get more attention and focus and more topics about nanotechnology are required to be taught and researched in academia and research institutions.
The survey further stresses the needs of organized bench and clinical research so that it can serve people and community. The study also highlights that there is strong need of collaborative projects and efforts between the governing bodies and dermatologists. The better understanding of the subject will definitely bring hope for millions of people suffering from skin diseases across the globe.
Researchers were able to measure contact angle of a nanoparticle
September 4th, 2011Contact angle is parameter essentially required for production of new material as it contains all vital information for predicting the behavior of the nanoparticles and now researchers at the Laboratory of Surface Science and Technology at ETH Zurich has successfully developed a procedure for measuring contact angle for nanoparticles as small as 10 nm.
The research finding has been recently published in the journal Nature Communications, where the researchers claim that they have studied liquid or fluid interfaces. Both hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials in the range of few nanometers were studies. The present method doesn’t allow measuring the contact angle below 500 nm and now researchers claim to have measured the contact angle even for very small and well below 500 nm nanoparticles.
As per the new procedure, researchers got an idea of using freeze-fracture technique, which is used by biologists and in this technique samples freeze within microseconds and after scientists fracture the samples and study internal structure using cryo-scanning electron microscope. Using the technique once the nanoparticle samples are fractured, they left hollow mark on the opposite surface and using 1-3 layer metallic coating on the opposite side, researchers were able to measure contact angle much more preciously.
Nanoscale behavior of wire studied
August 30th, 2011Many wires including gold wires are flexible and conductive and that’s why these wires find applications in electronics industry but at nanoscale the properties of these materials are very much different. Researchers at Rice University have studied the 20 nm wide gold wires and their research findings have been appeared in Advanced Functional Materials.
The gold wire under stress behaves differently and material scientist at Rice University Jun Lou and other colleagues have shown that the nanowire have unique properties at nanoscale. The wires deform extensively and fracture on both micro and nanoscale and researchers find a new phenomenon known as necking actually takes place or in other words, the material first deform under specific region and lastly break.
Research took 22 wires of gold having 20 nm and below and pulled these after clamping these to a transmission electron microscope. Gold is very ductile material and you can stretch it and on stretching it researchers found that gold at nanoscale is not as much ductile. Once a stress is applied across the wire, it appears that the wire getting deformed and which further lead to nanoscale tectonic fault across the wire.
