nanoREV.

Hopes for carbon nanotube space elevator

Basic concepts of a “space elevator” predate the development of rocket-based space travel but have always lacked a practical system or materials to achieve the objective. Recently, as reported in a TimesOnline article, a team of British scientists led by Alan Windle have developed a process for manufacturing carbon nanotube ribbons which could be one step closer to a feasible space elevator system. Prof. Windle already has several patents pending for carbon nanotube production and alignment (e.g. US 2006/0133982) and at least one U.S. patent (US 6,981,674) has been issued to space elevators which mention carbon nanotubes.

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BlackLight Power Inc. and the Hydrino Theory

Although innovative, none of the applications of nanomaterials to energy production devices such as solar panels and fuel cells go so far as to violate the laws of physics. However, a company called Blacklight Power is developing a system based on a new theory of the hydrogen atom which is in conflict with conventional quantum mechanics. While the new theory may not have much creditability among the scientific establishment, this apparently has not prevented Blacklight from working out deals with Energy companies in New Mexico based on the technology.

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Top Ten U.S. Nanotechnology Patents for 2008

TinyTechIP has a listing of the top 10 patents in nanotechnology issued over the last year including some basic patents to the memristor, graphene electrodes, and carbon nanotube filaments for lightbulbs.

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Memristors on Youtube

Last month a symposium was held at UC Berkeley on a new type of nanoscale circuit element called the memristor which could have a big impact in areas such as non-volatile memory and neuromorphic computing. Youtube has video of the conference available here and a six minute primer available here.

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International Graphene Machines

An article in the current issue of Nanotechnology Law and Business (available free: here),  spun-off from  an April post here on nanoREV explores  the patent challenges of graphene based inventions.  While several companies are now jumping on the graphene bandwagon, especially for its promising uses in electronics, each is hoping to be the first to publish a major breakthrough.  As per usual, IBM pushes the envelope yet again. 

In a recent letter published in arxiv.org, an open-access and electronic archive of scientific papers, researchers at IBM have measured the switching speeds of a graphene-based transistor.  By reducing the gate length from 500nm to 150nm, the maximum cut-off frequency increased from 3 to 26GHz.  With a maximum clock speed of 26GHz, the team proclaims to effectively have established the state of the art and indicate the possibility of carrier mobilities of 2000 cm²/V-s with a gate length of 50nm.  Keep your eyes peeled.

Interestingly, to isolate the graphene for their transistors, the team at IBM used the now seemingly obvious “mechanical exfoliation” method (i.e. shaving small flakes onto adhesive tape, but you can’t just say that in a DARPA funded paper), an example of which can be viewed here.

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Bailouts, Atlas Shrugged, and Nanotechnology

Anyone familiar with the novel Atlas Shrugged will recognize some similarities between the events of the novel and the current economic predicament. In the novel the devaluation of the ideas of innovators in comparison to the needs of the masses eventually leads to economic decline followed by government bailouts followed by further economic decline. Continued requests for bailouts from the auto industry seem to follow the same path. The question is what innovations will the auto industry produce to earn any assistance? While, like most large corporations, there is much development in improving the existing systems in automobiles the major innovations seems to mostly be emerging from smaller companies such as Tesla Motors or foreign companies such as Hyundai and Toyota (e.g. a search of the number of patents using the term “hybrid vehicle” finds 33 to Hyundai, 32 to Toyota but only 8 to GM). So, based on their track record of innovation it would seem that a bailout to the U.S. would be a bad investment and a better investment would be in the smaller companies developing more innovative automotive technologies. Some areas where nanotechnology can contribute to this include:

Nanoparticles for improved automotive coatings - Nanovere Technologies has developed some new scratch resistance and self-cleaning coating materials applicable to automotive coatings.

Nanomaterial Enabled Battery, Solar Cell and Fuel Cell Power - Alternative energy sources produced by companies such as A123Systems (lithium batteries), NanoSys (fuel cells/solar), Nanosolar (solar), and Innovalight(solar) provide nanomaterials for enhanced energy production as potential alternatives to enable non-fossil fuel or hybrid power solutions.

Neuromorphic computing for driverless automobiles - Inspired by DARPA’s Grand Challenge there is a drive to create true AUTOmobiles removing the necessity of a human driver with the potential to reduce accidents caused by human error, increase efficiency of drive time and energy use, and providing freedom to the passenger to perform other activity without worrying about driving or directions to a particular destination. While this is still in the early stages the developments of neuromorphic and reconfigurable computing architectures by Hewlett-Packard (using memristor crossbars) and Nantero (using carbon nanotube mechanical switches) have the potential to advance this effort.

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Memristor Symposium

The memristor was listed by TIME magazine as one of the top inventions of 2008 and could revolutionize non-volatile memory by replacing transistor based memory cells with a new type of nanoscale resistance switch. In addition, there has been some speculation that the memristor may be a key ingredient to a new type of neural network that could have an impact on electronics on the same level (or perhaps much greater) than the invention of the transistor. This Friday there is a symposium being held at Berkeley discussing potential applications which could unveil details on how this development will effect electronics and the semiconductor industry in the next few years.

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D-Wave 128 qubit quantum computers

In the article “Alternative Nanoelectronics: A Comparative Analysis,” published in the December 2006 article of Nanotechnology Law and Business, D-Wave was noted as one of the top four companies producing new paradigms of electronics in the 21st century with their focus being on quantum computing. In the last several months D-Wave has taken some steps forward in the production of multiple quantum bit computing which may eventually provide competition with conventional supercomputers. D-Wave’s blog gives some information and video from a recent talk discussing their research and hurdles in development available at this link.

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Brain-Machine Interfaces and Nanotechnology

Advancements in both neuroscience and microelectronics over the past decades has brought about new ways for computer interfacing with the human brain. Neuroscience has brought about enhanced understanding of the working of the brain via electroencephalography and has applied such understanding to neuroprothetics offering various ways of repairing damage caused by stroke or trauma. Meanwhile, microelectronics continues to be miniaturized to nanoscale dimensions while more biocompatible materials are being incorporated into semiconductor research.

The applications of brain-machine interfaces created by such developments have so far been mostly limited to the medical realm. However, new companies such as Emotiv and Neurosky are beginning to make related technology available for video gaming controllers using electrodes to detect the emotional state of the brain to control a game character or object. It is not too difficult to see that refinements of this type of technology can be adapted to control various other electronic devices.

Some recent developments of nanotechnology in this area include the use of carbon nanotubes as coatings for electrodes to improve biocompatibility or using carbon nanotubes as a nanoelectrode probe as described in this patent application from Tsinghua University.

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Three reasons why a declining economy can be good for nanotechnology

With the recent decline of the stock market, the reduction of lending, and the dearth of IPOs in 2008 things may look bleak for emerging technologies such as nanotech. But, while near term projections may look bad, in the long term economic decline could actually be extremely beneficial to technological developments involving nanomaterials. Here are three reasons why:

1.   Less resources force innovators to look for simpler more economical solutions.

Most invention is incremental in nature and build upon decades of earlier developments. For example, the  techniques to manufacture integrated circuits have been developed over about 50 years and while the improvements in these techniques have been significant and have led to cheaper and more efficient electronics, the manufacturing cost and complexity have increased at a similar pace in accordance with Moore’s 2nd law. Semiconductor and electronics companies faced with a rapid decline in capital may be forced to look for dramatically different approaches to fabrication in order to stay in business. It is very likely that nanomaterials and nanolithographic techniques may play a key role in such new fabrication.   

2.   Nanotech. start-ups will be forced to focus on applications rather than on pure materials.

With less venture capital to go around it is likely that investment will go to those companies having business plans with clearly identified markets and applications. Start-ups lacking such direction will be forced to reprioritize or go out of business. While harsh in the short term this could be a good thing in the long run leading to new market creation.

3.   The fall of the stock market will weaken older, public companies allowing newer, non-public companies a competitive advantage.

Companies not relying on public stock have a strategic advantage and more freedom to operate than public companies. Meanwhile older, public companies which need to answer to shareholders will be forced to compromise and may be more willing to deal with newer companies offering cost-cutting solutions offered by nanomaterials. In addition, in good economic times, distributors may have no desire to work with new companies offering cost reduced products due to longstanding relationships with more established companies. However, when the economy declines to a sufficient degree the distributors may reprioritize and give more weight to cost reduction than customer relationships offering a window of opportunity to newer competitors.

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