NanoBlog

Gigaom has posted the article What is graphene? Here’s what you need to know about a material that could be the next silicon. The article gives a good overview of the material and its applications.

The July issue of MRS bulletin is out and is on Ionic liquids for energy applications.

DME made a custom Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with an integrate Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The video Manipulating Graphene in a hybrid SEM AFM shows the AFM tip interacting with graphene that was deposited on a TEM grid. It was cool to see the interaction of the AFM tip and the graphene in real time?

A new x-laser is being built at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) known as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). This X-ray Laser Animated Fly-through shows how the two-mile-long linear accelerator (linac) will produce 12 GeV electrons that will traverse a long undulator causing the electrons to produce hard x-ray for scientific research. The system will allow researchers to image individual molecules.

Derek at Veritasium produced this nice video: How Does a Transistor Work?.

John Myer CEO and co-founder of Graphene Technologies is interviewed at the Future in Review 2013 (FiRe 2013) conference. John started out looking for a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere but found that no one was interested in such technology. He stumbled onto a process technology to produce graphene platelets by combusting CO2 and magnesium in a reactor. The process should allow for high volume production to support aerospace, anti-corrosion coatings, and conductive coating for automotive applications to name a few.

The HUBzero Foundation makes an open source scientific collaboration platform. It's an impressive resource. Sites include:

• nanoHUB.org granddaddy of all hubs focused on nanotechnology
• nees.org Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)
• IndianaCTSI.org accelerating clinical and translational research in healthcare
• pharmaHUB.org pharmaceutical product development and manufacturing
• GlobalHUB.org global engineering education
• cceHUB.org cancer care engineering
• memsHUB.org microelectromechanical systems
• CLEERhub.org Collaboratory for Engineering Education Research
• hub.vscse.org Virtual School for Computational Science and Engineering
• trust-HUB.org hardware security and trust issues
• iemhub.org Developing and sharing knowledge and tools for environmental systems analysis
• hpc2.org Hub for NY State HPC consortium
• VHub.org A virtual organization dedicated to collaborative volcano research and risk mitigation
• CUAHD.org Communities and Universities Addressing Health Disparities
• CatalyzeCare.org transforming healthcare delivery
• C3Bio.org hub for energy from biomass
• manufacturingHUB.org advanced manufacturing techniques
• IAShub.org Institute for Accessible Science
• STEMEdHub Transforming Education: From Innovation to Implementation
• ethics core Digital Library a project of the national center for professional and research ethics
• CTSA 2 Community dedicated to providing a place to share ideas, experiences, and best practices utilized by CTSA community engagement programs
• metastudio.org Studio-based education initiative
• HABRIcentral.org Resources for the Study of the Human-Animal Bond
• [http://drinet.hubzero.org|driNETDrought Research Initiative Network
• ciHUB.org A community for concept inventory developers,
• DiaGrid Instant access to high-throughput computing Purdue University Research Repository (PURR)Data management and dataset publication
• MolecularHUB Taking molecular sciences to the next level
• GEOSHAREGeospatial data hosting for discovery and decision

IBM special foundry service provides RF SOI, SiGe, and High voltage processes with features sizes at 500 nm, 350 nm, 250 nm, 180 nm, 130, and 90 nm. The processes are designed for wireless and RF applications. IBM also has a project wafer program to support small companies and research programs.

PVD Products website has a some videos describing their Pulsed Laser Deposition systems. The system appears to highly automated and allows for 6 target substrates, RHEED ports, Load-Lock, magnetron sputter source, ion source, substrate rotation, and laser beam rastering to produce multilayer films.

The Next Big Future website has posted an interesting article about Graphene solar sails. A graphene solar sail could be very large and be very light. It appears to provide the best performance in terms of strength. I'm having trouble find a 100 mm wafer coated with a single layer of graphene so I can't imaging how someone would build a 100 m² graphene sail.