The recent demonstration of the ability to “fully engineer the electronic band gap of graphene” is a major advance in the top-down approach to nanotech applications that take advantage of the many marvelous properties of graphene.

Two stories today in ScienceDaily point to different nanotech applications that could enable a solar solution to our energy problems.

Nanotech has taken a major step along the road to molecular electronics with the demonstration that one molecule of benzene can form a highly conductive junction between two platinum electrodes.

Researchers have demonstrated atomically precise cuts through a few graphene layers.

A new concept for a very cheap plastic nanotech memory has been developed by combining the favorable properties of ferroelectrics and semiconductors.

Very precise measurements confirmed many of the unusual effects theoretically predicted for graphene, but they also revealed effects of unanticipated additional interactions, which are not yet understood.

Nanotechnology has provided a fourth fundamental two-terminal passive element for electronic circuits.

Graphene has now been shown to retain essential properties when used to make transistors at the one-nanometer-scale.

Nanotechnology using a molecular-scale switch could enable storing half a petabyte on one square inch.

Advancing the case for graphene in nanotech is the recent demonstration that the intrinsic mobility of electrons in graphene is much greater than in silicon or in any other conventional semiconductor.

Researchers have assembled molecular films on the Si(100) surface utilized in conventional CMOS technologies and shown them to be of comparable quality to those assembled in earlier studies on the Si(111) surface, which is not compatible with CMOS.

IBM announced (credit PhysOrg.com) that stacking two layers of graphene—one on top of the other—reduces noise that has bedeviled attempts to build nanoelectronic circuits from graphene. From “IBM Scientists ‘Quiet’ Unruly Electrons in Atomic Layers of Graphite“: [IBM researchers] today announced a discovery that combats one of the industry’s most perplexing problems in using graphite [...]

Researchers at IBM are developing DNA nanotechnology to assemble nanoelectronic components into arrays in a bid to replace current lithographic methods of making computer chips.

In a virtuoso demonstration of nanotechnology, researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to build walls of carbon monoxide molecules to confine electrons on a copper surface so that they resonate like a drum.

French nanotech researchers have used theory to increase the precision of carving with electron beams enough to remove individual atoms from single walled carbon and boron nitride nanotubes.

Physorg.com and many others report a molecular nanotechnology achievement by a UCLA/Caltech nanotech team: A team of UCLA and California Institute of Technology chemists reports in the Jan. 25 issue of the journal Nature the successful demonstration of a large-scale, “ultra-dense” memory device that stores information using reconfigurable molecular switches. This research represents an important [...]

Robert Bradbury brings to our attention an article by John Markoff in The New York Times on the inclusion of nanotech into the semiconductor industry’s roadmap: “Nanotechnology is officially on the road map. A handful of futuristic chip-making technologies at the atomic scale have been added to an industry planning effort that charts the future [...]

Longtime Foresight readers will remember Masakazu Aono from his pioneering Atomcraft Project started in 1989. Now he’s working on “Atomic Electronics” based on an “Atomic Switch”; see the report in today’s Japan Nanonet Bulletin. This is interesting, but we were more excited by the earlier bottom-up fabrication work. Dr. Aono has some advice: “Researchers should [...]

For those of us struggling to keep up with the very latest nanotech research: Get a quick intro of two key areas from the website of Harvard’s Prof. Charles Lieber, co-chair of this fall’s Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology research sessions. See the nanoelectronics animation on his homepage, and the nanosensing one here. Also on [...]

Just back from the INC1 conference on nanotechnology and the future of computer chips. Lots of great talks for those tracking this field. Favorites today: Paolo Gargini of Intel on roadmaps and Michiharu Nakamura of Hitachi on work in Japan. Mike Roco’s talk included 4th generation nanotech featuring robotics and guided assembly. Strong international participation [...]