Quantum dots are semiconducting, nanoscale clusters that show electronic characteristics distinct from both bulk-scale materials and single molecules. Their special characteristics make quantum dots attractive for a broad range of potential applications, including photovoltaics and nanoscale transistors. The size and shape of quantum dots impact electrical properties and can therefore be used to tune the [...]

Soon after graphene sheets were being produced on a laboratory scale routinely, researchers began producing the hydrogenated version graphane (with a hydrogen atom on each carbon). This step is one of many approaches aimed at harnessing graphene’s powerful conductivity and is also being explored for hydrogen storage and other potential applications (more info in this [...]

On the list of potential post-silicon materials for electronics and chips is none other than silicon. More specifically, silicene — 2D sheets of hexagonally arranged silicon atoms, structurally analogous to graphene and experimentally characterized by physicist Guy Le Lay of Aix-Marseille University in France (2012 abstract here). While graphene possesses exceptional performance qualities, it can’t [...]

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 — [...]

Electrons from a scanning tunneling microscope tip turn a five-arm rotor connected via a single ruthenium atom bearing to a tripod anchoring the molecular motor to a gold surface.

Darpa has launched a “Living Foundries” program to bring an engineering perspective to synthetic biology to greatly accelerate progress through standardization and modularization.

Creating a superlattice by placing graphene on boron nitride may allow control of electron motion in graphene and make graphene electronics practical.

Artist’s conception of a nanopore drilled into a layer of graphene to speed up DNA sequencing. One of the greatest promises of near-term nanotechnoloogy is cheaper DNA sequencing to speed the development of personalized medicine. There are not only genetic differences between different patients, but also genetic differences between, for example, different cancers of the [...]

Researchers in Australia and the US have demonstrated a working transistor by placing of single atom of phosphorous with atomic precision between gates made of wires only a few phosphorous atoms wide. This demonstration points to possibly extending current computer technology to the atomic scale.

A field-effect tunneling transistor comprising a vertical heterostructure of atomically thin layers of graphene and boron nitride or molybdenum disulfide may pave the way for computer chips based on graphene nanotechnology.

An array of 96 iron atoms on a copper nitride surface, assembled using an STM and used to write a byte, demonstrates how small magnetic storage could shrink and may lead to novel nanomaterials for quantum computers.

How small could a molecular switch be made? It is difficult to think of one smaller than the single proton switch just demonstrated by this group in Germany.

We are proud to announce our final conference program for Foresight@Google‘s 25th Anniversary Conference Celebration, held June 25-26 in Mountain View, CA.  For $50 off registration use code: NANODOT This weekend – full of plenary talks, panels, and breakout sessions – is a unique opportunity to be stimulated, enlightened and inspired by direct interaction with [...]

A bacterial virus called M13 was genetically engineered to control the arrangement of carbon nanotubes, improving solar-cell efficiency by nearly one-third.

Smaller, faster, cooler: graphene transistors show promise for practical analog signal processors, for magnetic memory devices, and for self-cooling electronic circuits.

A shear flow processing method has been developed to control the surface attachment and orientation of DNA molecules to use for DNA-organic semiconductor molecular building blocks.

A step toward advanced nanotechnology has been achieved by using attachment to a surface and confinement by surrounding molecules to make two molecules react to form a product that would not form if they were free to react in solution.

Sputtering a pattern of zinc atoms on a graphene surface, followed by an acid rinse to remove the zinc, also removes exactly one atomic layer of graphene from where ever the graphene was covered with zinc atoms, forming a pattern on the graphene surface that is atomically precise in the vertical dimension. Resolution in the horizontal dimensions is determined by the mask used to sputter zinc.

New options to control nanoelectronic systems may arise from the demonstration that mechanical manipulation can control conductance through single molecule electrode junctions.

James C. Ellenbogen writes to provide insight and personal perspective on the world’s first programmable nanoprocessor, achieved as the product of a collaboration between Harvard and MITRE, with the team at MITRE comprising Shamik Das, James Klemic, and Ellenbogen.