By J. Storrs Hall, on November 17th, 2009
Over at Nanoclast, Dexter Johnson writes:
It seems when nanotech is applied to photovoltaics it can either boost their efficiency to new heights or it can cheapen their manufacturing process. But it never seems to provide a solution to both of these. It’s always a tradeoff: increased efficiency but difficult manufacturing processes or a cheaper production [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on November 16th, 2009
Gallery – A joyride through the nanoscale – Image 1 – New Scientist.
This New Scientist article has some nice images from Whitesides recent book, sort of a retake on the “Secret House” idea.
By J. Storrs Hall, on November 14th, 2009
Technology Review: Self-Cleaning, Super-Absorbant Solar Cells.
Amorphous-silicon solar cells patterned with nanoscale domes absorb more light–and shed water and dust.
By J. Storrs Hall, on November 3rd, 2009
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxihhBzCjk)
From NanoWerk: Rice scientists argue nanotubes can be treated like polymers
Wade Adams, Matteo Pasquali, Micah Green and Natnael Behabtu at Rice pick up that thread in their discussion of what we know — or think we know — about carbon nanotubes.
Their review in the journal Polymer (“Nanotubes as polymers”) makes the argument that single-walled carbon [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on October 28th, 2009
IEEE Spectrum: German Environmental Agency Miffed at Exploitation of Position Paper on Nanotechnology.
From Dexter Johnson at nanoclast:
Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) last week made a background paper available on their website, which they now concede contained no new research and none that their organization had actually performed, entitled “Nanotechnology for Humans and the Environment: Increasing [...]
By Christine Peterson, on October 27th, 2009
Nanotechnology Enables Real Atomic Precision is the title of a piece by Susan Smith in Desktop Engineering, which includes comments by longtime Foresight Senior Associates Steve Vetter and Tihamer Toth-Fejel:
While nanotechology might mean different things to different people, the term was originally coined to describe the building of things from the bottom up with atomic [...]
By Christine Peterson, on October 23rd, 2009
Here’s a talk happening next Tuesday at UCLA:
NanoSystems Seminar Series
Title: High-speed AFM meets the Holographic Assembler
Mervyn Miles
Physics
Bristol University
Abstract: High-speed AFM is important for following processes occurring on short time scales inaccessible to conventional AFM. We are working on two versions: one is capable of extremely high imaging rates and can image over relatively large [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on October 20th, 2009
Nanoparticle Breakthrough Can Make Higher Efficiency Solar Cells and Speed Development of Nanotechnology. Brian Wang at Next Big Future has the story of a classic case of serendipity in research.
The yellow is what the sun puts out that hits the top of the atmosphere (what a solar power satellite would see, for example). The red [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on October 12th, 2009
Superconductor World Record Surpasses 250K.
Superconductors.ORG herein reports the observation of record high superconductivity near 254 Kelvin (-19C, -2F). This temperature critical (Tc) is believed accurate +/- 2 degrees, making this the first material to enter a superconductive state at temperatures commonly found in household freezers.
In 3 months, it will be colder than that on my [...]
By Christine Peterson, on September 21st, 2009
Josh Hall, on his way to catch a plane, sends us this news from Technology Review’s Katherine Bourzac:
A California company is using silicon ink patterned on top of silicon wafers to boost the efficiency of solar cells. The Sunnyvale, CA, firm Innovalight says that the inkjet process is a cheaper route to more-efficient solar power. Using [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on September 9th, 2009
A nice article in New Scientist about the search for substances harder than diamond. This is important for nanomechanical engineering because hardness translates into properties useful in machine parts at the nanoscale.
A nanocrystalline form of diamond, sometimes called aggregated diamond nanorods, was described in 2003 by Tetsuo Irifune and his colleagues at Ehime University in [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on August 24th, 2009
From nanowerk:
Nanotechnology speeds desalination.
This story illustrates both the best and worst of near-term nanotech research and reporting. It’s a valuable result in a very important application:
“Current desalination methods force seawater through a filter using energies four times larger than necessary. Throughout the desalination process salt must be removed from one side of the filter to [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on June 10th, 2009
Brian Wang over at Next Big Future has an article about improving the properties of aluminum as a structural material by filling with buckytubes, the way plastics are made stronger by filling by fiberglass. This isn’t particularly new: what’s new is that Bayer appears to be able to make nanotubes in enough quantity to [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on June 9th, 2009
The Nanomanufacturing Summit, held in Boston recently, was largely what you would have expected — near-term bulk-tech approaches to nanostructured materials, some interesting research aimed at new electronics, and so forth. Notable, however, was a plenary talk by M. C. Roco, who appears to have changed his tune to the extent of predicting nanorobotics and [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on June 5th, 2009
What will your car run on in 2020 or 2030? What form of energy storage and transmission will allow intermittent energy sources, such as wind and solar, to be a viable input to the economy?
There’s a good chance, of course, that cars will still run on gasoline — its demise has been predicted early [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on June 2nd, 2009
From Physorg.com:
Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a method of nanofabrication using an atom pinhole camera…. The technique could produce individual nanostructures down to 30 nm, a size reduction of 10,000 times compared with the original object.
“Our present experimental results show the resolution about 30 nm, but our calculations (the theoretical prediction) tell us that [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on June 2nd, 2009
Here’s a University of Rochester press release from 2006:
Scientists at the University of Rochester have created a way to change the properties of almost any metal to render it, literally, black.
The process, using an incredibly intense burst of laser light, holds the promise of making everything from fuel cells to a space telescope’s detectors [...]
By J. Storrs Hall, on May 8th, 2009
Another step along the Moore’s Law-like trend line for solar power: Ink-Jet Printing for Cheaper Solar Cells at Technology Review. (see also Nanoscale Inkjet Printing)
By J. Storrs Hall, on May 6th, 2009
In Arthur C. Clarke’s classic SF novel Against the Fall of Night, there is a description of the “moving ways”, the powered sidewalks on which people rode around the city, as being made of a material that would have baffled an engineer of our own times because it was solid in one direction and liquid [...]
By Jim Lewis, on April 24th, 2009
A nanotech-based gene-therapy method that dramatically improved the efficiency of conventional cancer therapy in animal models is now undergoing clinical trials.
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