Precisely placing dangling bonds on a silicon surface
Foresight Update 26.03—April 19, 2013
ISSN 1078-9731
Nanotech News
Discuss these news stories at http://foresight.org/nanodot.
In this issue:
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious, superparamagnetism may become a familiar term in the context of nanoscale electronics and devices.
Loosely speaking, superparamagnetism is a size-based phenomenon in which materials that are ferromagnetic on the macroscale—meaning predisposed toward strong magnetization at room temperature, such as iron and nickel—display zero net magnetization at nanoparticle sizes. …
We have previously speculated here whether the continued improvement of technology to place single atoms on silicon with atomic precision for the purpose of developing practical quantum computers would also lead to more general methods of atomically precise or molecular manufacturing. That speculation remains open, but we note that the field of atomically precise quantum engineering continues to advance …
One of nature's many types of molecular motors combines protein and RNA subunits to force viral (in this case, bacteriophage) DNA into a protein capsid. The understanding of the molecular mechanism by which this motor works has been advanced by the discovery that it revolves the DNA around a central channel, as the Earth revolves around the sun, rather than by rotating, as the Earth does about it axis. …
In anticipation of Eric Drexler’s new book, Forbes contributor Bruce Dorminey interviews him about the meaning of nanotechnology and its revolutionary prospects. …
Of all of the paths toward molecular manufacturing, structural DNA nanotechnology seems to provide the most frequent and photogenic advances. By re-engineering the Holliday junction, the basic cross-over structure adapted to build complex structures from DNA, Prof. Hao Yan and his colleagues has been able to construct a variety of new wire frame and mesh structures. …
Researchers from UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute and Northwestern University have combined multiple imaging techniques to produce high quality 3D images of platinum nanoparticles, allowing advanced visualization of atomic-scale structural defects (an important advancement over X-ray crystallography). …
Research into using nanotechnology for improved drug delivery continues to advance as current nanoparticle technology is combined with increasingly more sophisticated biotechnology. One major problem with using nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery is that the patient’s immune system often clears the particle before they can be effective. A new approach uses a peptide derived from an important immune system molecule to fool the immune system. …
—Nanodot posts by James Lewis and Stephanie C.
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