Atomically precise 3D Imaging by electron microscopy alone
Foresight Update 27.07—October 16, 2014
ISSN 1078-9731
Nanotech News
Discuss these news stories at http://foresight.org/nanodot.
In this issue:
… Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence News reports a butterfly-shaped molecule that changes molecular structure upon photoexcitation, shortening the distance between two platinum atoms, producing both red and greenish-blue emission, resulting in white light production. …
Foresight has had a long-term interest in the directed evolution of nanoscale science and technology toward productive nanosystems and atomically precise manufacturing … Foresight has also had a parallel interest in integrating incremental advances in nanotechnology to meet pressing human needs … Bringing together these parallel interests, a recent invitation-only workshop gathered leading researchers to focus on the opportunities created to better meet human energy needs through greater control over the structure of matter. …
The need for improved imaging and characterization on the nanoscale was emphasized in the 2007 Roadmap and again at the 2013 Foresight Conference on Atomic Precision. We noted last year a new advancement in atomic-scale resolution of 10-nm platinum particles, requiring multiple imaging techniques in combination, and recently the marked improvement in optical imaging for characterization of biological machinery at 1-nm. Now researchers at Stanford University successfully used high-resolution electron microscopy alone to characterize 1-nm gold nanoparticles (containing 68 gold atoms) — a capability new enough that x-ray scattering was used to verify the result. …
To develop a productive nanosystem for molecular manufacturing/atomically precise manufacturing it would be very useful to have a nanoscale assembly line. A month ago we posted here about a proof of principle for one such assembly line based upon biomolecules. This month Christine Peterson sends word of an assembly line for complex artificial organic molecules. …
Christine Peterson sends word of a US National Science Foundation nanomanufactring program that explicitly mentions nanorobots and other nanomachines “The NSF Nanomanufacturing Program“:
… The NSF Nanomanufacturing Program supports fundamental research in novel methods and techniques for batch and continuous processes, top-down (addition/subtraction) and bottom-up (directed self-assembly) processes leading to the formation of complex heterogeneous nanosystems. The program supports basic research in nanostructure and process design principles, integration across length-scales, and system-level integration. …
A few weeks ago we posted the announcement of a new DARPA program, the Atoms To Product (A2P) project. For those who were not able to catch the webinar explaining the initiative, more information is available in an article on Fedscoop “DARPA wants help closing nanotechnology’s ‘assembly gap’:
The Pentagon’s advanced research agency wants to do something that currently cannot be done: Take things built at a really, really small level and scale them for production in really big systems. …
Scaffolded DNA origami provided the starting point for the modular molecular composite nanosystems approach to atomically precise productive nanosystems … . Over the past seven years we have pointed here to numerous advances in structural DNA nanotechnology and the related underlying technologies as advances toward atomically precise manufacturing, but one limit has been the maximum size available of the conventional single stranded scaffold available from the bacteriophage M13, which limits the scale of the uniquely addressable DNA structures that can be built. A second limit has been the cost of synthesis of the DNA staple strands. Now both of those limits have been greatly extended. …
A variety of nanoparticles have been designed for multiple nanomedical purposes. An article at KurzweilAI.net presents news from UC Davis of a “nanoporphyrin” platform for developing multifunctional nanoparticles based upon treelike dendrimer structures made using porphyrin, cholic acid, amino acids, and polyethylene glycol …
—Nanodot posts by Stephanie C. and James Lewis
Foresight Events and News
2014 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize Nominations Are Now Closed
Nominations for the 2014 Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes: Experimental and Theory were due on September 30, 2014.
The winners of the 2013 Feynman Prizes …
Foresight Lectures
October 25, 2014 San Francisco
Symposium: Engineering the Future
Foresight co-founder Christine Peterson will discuss the future of nanotech at this free event.
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