TNTW Issue 6, 2003.

Welcome to Trends in Nanotechnology Weekly, a round-up of articles and press releases that have appeared on the web, er, recently, on the subject of nanotechnology.

NanoTrends is the first major European event that is completely commercial in focus and brings together nanotechnology leaders from all industries across Europe. Organised in cooperation with the European NanoBusiness Association, this event will be the annual meeting point for the European nanotechnology community. Further information at http://www.nanotrends.de/

CMP Cientifica, the world's leading nanotechnology business information company, and IIR, the world's largest international conference organiser, have joined forces to develop the World Nano-Economic Congress - an international series of comprehensive events that bring together the thought leaders in nanotechnology and business.

+++GENERALLY NANO

--Nanobots around the corner?--
--Swarm intelligence for US military--
--Drexler on molecular manufacturing--
--The ETC Group keeps up the pressure--
--NanoEngineering Advisory Council interview with Ralph Cavin--
--The first Encyclopaedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology--
--I fought the law and the lawyers won---
--Ah. Here are some now . . .--
--Another nano book--
--And another . . . --
--Lifeboat for the Prince--
--Nano dollars for nanotech research in the US--

--Nanoscience major in China--
--Nanoscience centre for Taiwan--
--Korean government invests in nano--
--US House of Congress nanobill--
--Vocal locals lobby lab--

--Milcom partners with Nanosteel--
--New report from Lux Capital--
--A new VC interested in nano--
--Mini-submarine sensors--
--InMat gain $1.5 million in funding round--
--On the latest investment round for Nanosys--

--Applied Nanotech sign a deal with Mitsubishi--
--Millennium Cell announce agreement with Samsung--
--Bug-be-gone nano-mesh--
--Patented pens position precisely--
--Forced feedback for AFMs--
--Nanomagnetics--

--Stretchy conductors--
--Bell Labs organic transistors--
--Guiding light--
--Nanotubes blowing in the wind--
--Buckyballs target anthrax--
--Tracking nanocapsules inside cells--
--Tiny drug capsules shine--
--Patterned particle sandwich--
--DNA motor keeps on running--
--The light at the end of the tunnel--
--Colorimetric biosensors--
--High-frequency semiconductors--
--Hydrogen storage using MOFs--
--Climbing the waals--
--NASA nano network mimics brain--

+++GENERALLY NANO

--Nanobots around the corner?--

A recent report published by Business Communications Co. on robotics (intro here) makes the extraordinary claim that nanorobots are close to becoming a commercial reality. Even if one assumes they are talking about really simple devices, such as, perhaps, a DNA- or protein-based actuator in a nanofluidics chip, then the statement is still very optimistic when compared with the views of those working in such areas. However, it seems they are thinking of something much more ambitious since these machines are expected "to literally revolutionize our daily existence." What on earth have BCC been reading? This is really not going to help bring clarity to the raging debates about nanotech that confuse science fiction with reality.

--Swarm intelligence for US military--

If BCC's announcement doesn't get the nanophobes worried, we're sure this will, even if it's not nanotech. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are funding research into swarm intelligence. Oo-er, Prey, here we come.

--Drexler on molecular manufacturing--

Eric Drexler, who has recently gone from invisible to ubiquitous, writes a brief essay on the molecular manufacturing concept.

--The ETC Group keeps up the pressure--

They continue with their unfortunate twisting of reality (which is a shame, since some of the things they write are quite sound) by describing the reaction to Prince Charles's concerns about grey goo as a 'straw man' created by industry and Nobel laureates. It would surely have been somewhat strange for people to react to the Prince's utterings by talking about something completely different - the choice of grey goo as the subject was his. Moreover, it was the ETC Group themselves who got him on to the subject. If anyone is creating straw men, it is ETC, by claiming that the sceptical voices are premeditated attempts to manipulate public opinion by some fictitious 'nanotech industry'. Why ETC can't be happy with simply having concerns that they don't think are being addressed by a wide range of companies and governments, we don't know. It seems they feel a need to have some sort of Goliath with which to do battle, so they have created one. When they claim that industry is making the same mistakes as with biotech, by assuring us that it will not make mistakes, ETC are again inventing an opposition that is not there. Most industries being, or soon to be, affected by nanotech are actually paying no attention at all to the concerns of ETC or Prince Charles. Ironically, this actually supports the assertion that they are making the same mistakes as with biotech - failing to proactively address concerns in a way that will keep this whole debate sane. So ETC are right here, if for the wrong reasons.

We also thought ETC had moved away from the threats of some far-distant molecular manufacturing capability to focus instead on some matters that really do warrant attention, if not their extreme over-reaction, such as nanoparticles and nanotubes. It seems not. Here they tell us that some form of molecular manufacturing will be a reality sooner than later and they seem determined to mix up the futuristic with the present in people's minds. This is a sad tactic and we suspect it will hinder prospects for dealing with nanotech responsibly.

However, they then play down grey goo in favour of their new bête noir, green goo. With this they manage to move into territory they are long familiar with - genetic engineering. They don't point out, however, that genetic engineering is not nanotechnology. We fully agree that the rapidly developing capabilities in genetic engineering do offer some truly scary prospects in the quite near future, although much of the fanciful stuff the ETC focus on, such as 'playing God' by creating whole new life forms from scratch, is not where the danger lies but is merely a way for ETC to pull a few traditional Luddite strings, with the 'playing God' accusation being an all-time classic. Their determination to demonise the whole of nanotechnology by trying to pull it under the genetic engineering umbrella is only going to distract from the necessary tasks of dealing with the true dangers of cheap and easy genetic engineering, or finding out where dangers, if any, may exist in nanomaterials. Please guys, take a good look at what you are doing and ask yourselves whether your almost religious enthusiasm to flex your considerable PR muscles in a battle with some fictitious nanotech Goliath is in the interests of the health and safety of humanity. Will you be able to live with yourselves if, by engineering a spectacle that will attract the most attention and the biggest crowds, you allow the true dangers to slip by unnoticed?

--NanoEngineering Advisory Council interview with Ralph Cavin--

Ralph Cavin, Vice President of the Semiconductor Research Corporation, talks about his organisation's involvement with nanotechnology and how he sees the future of nanotech. Ralph will be at the IEC's NanoEngineering World Forum on 22-24 June. We'll be there too.

--The first Encyclopaedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology--

Dr. Hari Singh Nalwa, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, has published the first Encyclopaedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The ten-volume encyclopaedia is now available at pre-publication prices.

--I fought the law and the lawyers won---

Law firms are advising emerging technology companies to take legal advice in order to 'protect' their technology. Sound advice. Although it looks likely that it will be abused and, instead of protecting IP the high cost associated with defending any claims will be used as a method to put competitors out of business. In the long run it'll be a relatively small gain for a minority of companies, although you can be sure that lawyers will win on all fronts.

--Ah. Here are some now . . .--

The Atlanta-based law firm Arnall Golden Gregory launch a Nanotechnology Practice.

--Another nano book--

Popping up like mushrooms and dating faster than sliced bread, Bill McKibben, the author of "The End of Nature", has written another book foreseeing dangers facing humanity and the environment. The new book "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age" covers hot topics from bioengineering to nanotechnology. There's an interview with the author here.

--And another . . . --

"Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small", by William Illsey Atkinson, gets mixed reviews, one of which (linked above) made us chortle.

--Lifeboat for the Prince--

The Prince of Wales's recent expression of concern about the possible risks associated with nanotechnology has netted him the Lifeboat Foundations' prestigious Guardian award. Nothing to do with the brave volunteers who rescue sailors in distress, this Lifeboat Foundation, in case you haven't heard of them, is dedicated to providing solutions that will "safeguard humanity from the growing threat of terrorism and technological cataclysm". That said, they're not anti-technology since they are pursuing every avenue, including self-sustaining technologies, using AI and nanotechnology, with an emphasis on self-contained space arks (seriously). Although they exhibit a marked preference for space arks they are not dismissing out of hand more down-to-earth projects such as underground bunkers and caves. So if you think it's time to start reviewing your escape options (it's never too early), visit their rather attractive site.

--Nano dollars for nanotech research in the US--

Wayne Crews, the Director of Technology Policy of the CATO Institute, argues that now is the time to stop the US Government wasting the public's money on nanotechnology. Unfortunately, if forthcoming technologies were "purely the products of capitalism and entrepreneurship, not central planning, government R&D, and pork barrel" you would be receiving TNT Weekly by pigeon post. Ironically, the author of "Contract with America" was one of nanotechnology's greatest fans this time last year. This year threatening Iran and Syria seems to be higher up the political agenda.

+++GOVERNMENT AND INSTITUTIONS

--Nanoscience major in China--

The Hainan University are now offering a nanomaterial science and technology major, the first in China.

--Nanoscience centre for Taiwan--

Taiwan's biggest computer component manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is helping to set up a hi-tech industrial park.

--Korean government invests in nano--

The Korean government has shown its commitment to developing the country's nanotechnology programme by investing $2 billion for 2003.

--US House of Congress nanobill--

By a landslide vote, the US House of Representatives agreed to Representative Boehlert's bill to up the amount of money put aside for nanotechnology to $2.4 billion over the next three years. Apparently this figure does not include the defence department's budget. The final vote was cast when Republicans managed to defeat Democrats who wanted to add two amendments, one ensuring that some of the funds were put aside for research into health and environmental effects and the other for energy research. The house, however, agreed to fund a committee of "non-scientific and non-technical" Americans tasked with considering the possible threat of nanotechnology, which will probably help us fill some column inches in the not too distant future.

--Vocal locals lobby lab--

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's plans to construct a molecular foundry has raised objections from the local population who are saying that the decision was made with insufficient public process and that the lab did not conduct an environmental impact report. The lab's attorneys are maintaining that they have complied with and exceeded the legal requirements for the project.

+++VC AND INVESTMENT

--Milcom partners with Nanosteel--

Milcom help launch new ventures in the tech arena. They've recently taken NanoSteel under their wing. Nanosteel produce a nano-enhanced coating that makes steel more resistant to corrosion (previously mentioned in weeks 49 and 50).

--New report from Lux Capital--

Lux Capital are releasing their 'Nanotech report 2003'. Pint-sized pundit Josh Wolfe, whose stock-picking skills seem to be more consistent than his nanotech writings, bizarrely compares nanotechnology to the rearming of Nazi Germany while informing us that "Pattern recognition is a fancy name for learning from the past." We can see all those AI professors rushing to rewrite their textbooks.

--A new VC interested in nano--

High Peaks Venture Partners has been established to provide investments for technology firms in the New York region becoming known as 'Tech Valley' .

--Mini-submarine sensors--

It's not the submarines that are miniature, it's the sensors. PEL Associates, who make smart materials, received $100,000 from the Pentagon to develop their submarine sensors.

--InMat gain $1.5 million in funding round--

InMat, producers of a nanocomposite coating for rubber, most famously to make tennis balls keep their bounce longer, have recently attracted a further $1.5 million in venture capital funding.

--On the latest investment round for Nanosys--

Nice coverage from The Deal, but it doesn't say much about the technologies and the chances of commercialisation. Though we haven't seen such views in print, we have heard several people express the view that Nanosys's popularity is created by the stars involved in the company more than by any great commercial prospects. To be sure, one of their early target markets, sensors, is hugely competitive and being attacked by a wide range of technologies. Our feeling is that greater prospects may lie in some of their longer-term goals, but it could be argued that when you put so much talent and IP together then something has to come out of it. Time will tell.

+++NANOBIZ

--Applied Nanotech sign a deal with Mitsubishi--

Applied Nanotech, who believe they have the IP sewn up on field-emission applications of nanotubes, have signed an R&D and commercialisation agreement with Mitsubishi.

--Millennium Cell announce agreement with Samsung--

The Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (Samsung's central research laboratory) and Millennium Cell, who make fuel cells, announce a development agreement to develop fuel-cell-powered consumer devices.

--Bug-be-gone nano-mesh--

Start-up Seldon Technologies claim to have produced a mesh, called Nano-Mesh, which can completely sterilise all the bacteria in water, presumably meaning it doesn't kill them but just stops them having babies. The novel way the product works is clearly explained: "It works sort of like a filter." Sounds revolutionary to us.

--Patented pens position precisely--

NanoInk, the dip-pen nanolithography Northwestern spin-out, announce the availability of their first piece of hardware (they put some software on the market a few months back). The tool is claimed to enable researchers to build structures with virtually any material at resolutions of less than 15 nanometres.

--Forced feedback for AFMs--

Pacific Nanotechnology have released a sensory feedback mechanism for their AFMs, allowing you to 'feel' nanoscale features. 3rdTech were the first in this market, with their Nanomanipulator, but many academic institutions have had their own custom-built systems for a long time.

--Nanomagnetics--

Nanomagnetics, the UK company that is using proteins to make magnetic disks, claims that their system will be able to achieve disk densities of around 5000 gigabits per square centimetre.

+++RESEARCH

--Stretchy conductors--

Using a process that deposits layers of metal nanometres thick onto a plastic surface, researchers at Princeton have developed conductors that can stretch. The film is stretchable by up to 22% while continuing to conduct electricity.

--Bell Labs organic transistors--

The inventors of the original transistor are working on smaller, more flexible, lower-cost, printable organic versions. They aren't the only ones, of course.

--Guiding light--

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology and University of Southern California have found a way to guide light over short distances through channels that are several times narrower than the wavelength of the light. According to the article, visible light normally can't be focused more accurately than 200 nm (wavelength is not specified - TRN, who are normally excellent in their coverage, have been getting a little sloppy of late). The approach the researchers used was to exploit the near-field effect (the basis of a popular microscope, the near-field scanning optical microscope) to create plasmons (oscillations in electrons caused by interaction with the light) that could then be directed down a chain of metal nanoparticles representing a waveguide with an aperture only 90 nm wide. This is certainly a very interesting area of research in terms of the devices that may one day be built, although it is early days yet. A very similar achievement by Austrian researchers, directing surface plasmons, was reported back in Issue 3.

--Nanotubes blowing in the wind--

Researchers at Duke University have created nanotubes up to 4 mm long, which the article claims are the longest single tubes ever made. The often rather vague reports from Rensselaer Polytechnic over the last year have suggested tubes much longer than this but maybe the difference is that those were in bundles rather than single (it is surprisingly difficult to measure the length of a nanotube, incidentally, especially in a bundle since, to confirm that you have a single nanotube, you need to start at one end and follow it continuously to the other. For a 4 mm nanotube this is equivalent to trying to follow a piece of string over a distance of about 4 kilometres, which is not so easy on the nanoscale). But never mind the size, it's the alignment that is interesting here, caused simply by the direction of flow of the feed gas. By performing the process a second time with the wafer on which the tubes are grown rotated 90 degrees, the researchers have managed to make grids. The simplicity of the technique suggests that this could be quite an important development.

--Buckyballs target anthrax--

Researchers at Rice University are attempting to use buckyballs for drug delivery. In particular they're talking about targeting anthrax spores and delivering the necessary drugs directly to affected areas. We wonder if there might be an IP issue here with C-Sixty.

--Tracking nanocapsules inside cells--

Researchers at McGill University, Quebec, used fluorescent molecules attached to the nanocapsules (referred to here as micelles) to track where they went in living cells. The aim is control of drug delivery at a sub-cellular level.

--Tiny drug capsules shine--

In a similar vein to the previous piece and similar recent work using quantum dots, researchers from the University of Hamburg, the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the Russian National Research Centre for Antibiotics have made a microcapsule that can communicate its progress in delivering drugs using infrared, which passes nicely through biological tissue. The capsules are far from nanoscale but the light emission is achieved using nanoparticles embedded in the shell of the capsule.

--Patterned particle sandwich--

Using metal microparticles in a solution sandwiched between two glass plates and then applying an electrical current, researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and the Russian Academy of Sciences have found a way to form various patterns. Though only microscale in this case, the technique could be used to create nanostructures.

--DNA motor keeps on running--

An interesting advance in the area of nanomachinery from Oxford University and Bell Labs.

--The light at the end of the tunnel--

It's not that long since light emission from nanotubes was first demonstrated at Rice. Now IBM have managed to get them to emit in the frequency range used in optical networks. Sounds commercially interesting but, like the nanotube transistors, this is not something that shows any sign of being scalable any time soon. There's also somewhat deeper coverage here.

--Colorimetric biosensors--

Scientists at the University of Illinois have developed a biosensor using gold nanoparticles laced with DNA, adding to the recent spate of sensor news related to gold nanoparticles. When the sensors come into contact with a metal ion they change colour, the intensity of which gives an indication of the concentration of the metal ions present. The researchers have found that they can create sensors suitable for different concentrations and targeted at different metals. They hope to be able to create an array of sensors that can detect a variety of different metals at varying concentrations, aiming for application as a detector of environmental contamination by toxic metals.

--High-frequency semiconductors--

Using a silicon-germanium semiconductor nanostructure, scientists from the University of Delaware have managed to produce electromagnetic waves in the much-sought-after terahertz frequency range, which has a number of promising applications, not least in medical imaging.

--Hydrogen storage using MOFs--

Using a nanoporous metal-organic framework, or MOF, researchers at the University of Michigan (collaborating with a number of other US universities and departments) have managed to produce a material capable of storing up to 4.5% of hydrogen by weight, at low temperature. More importantly, they believe that they have found the route to being able to store up to 6.5% by weight, the figure set by the US Department of the Energy as being the point where hydrogen-powered vehicles become economically viable. For a more general article, with some coverage of others working in the field, see here.

--Climbing the waals--

In TNTW last year (weeks 35 and 36), we reported that a team at the University of California at Berkeley were examining the mechanism that enables geckos to climb walls. They discovered that the cumulative effect of weak van der Waals forces between the tiny hairs on the gecko feet and a surface was sufficient to give the gecko its mighty grip. A member of the research team, now at Carnegie Mellon, has gone on to develop synthetic gecko hairs that already have notable sticking power.

--NASA nano network mimics brain--

Researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center have found a way to grow networks of connected carbon nanotubes. The network appears to work in the same way as the synapses in the brain and shows a capacity for fault tolerance and self-correction.

NanoTrends is the first major European event that is completely commercial in focus and brings together nanotechnology leaders from all industries across Europe. Organised in cooperation with the European NanoBusiness Association, this event will be the annual meeting point for the European nanotechnology community. Further information at http://www.nanotrends.de/

CMP Cientifica, the world's leading nanotechnology business information company, and IIR, the world's largest international conference organiser, have joined forces to develop the World Nano-Economic Congress - an international series of comprehensive events that bring together the thought leaders in nanotechnology and business.

TNT Weekly Copyright CMP Cientifica

Contributing editor: Paul Holister, [email protected]

Research and contributions: Steve Willett, [email protected]

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For readers not so familiar with the nanotech world, we have a small glossary of terms and abbreviations we commonly use without explanation. This can be found at Cientifica's nanotechnology glossary