NanoBlog

Scott Elder at Planet Analog describes how to Design a Custom Analog IC in Your Garage. Most of the tools are free or very inexpensive ($100). The fab cost is around $3000 and the packaging cost is around $1000 for 10 packaged parts. The tools can be found at:

• LTSpice
• MAGIC VLSI Layout Editor
• Electric
• Fedora Electronics Lab
• juspertor layout editor

Oak Ridge National Laboratory posted a short video of six Si atoms dancing around on a graphene layer in an SEM. Researchers used the electron beam of the SEM to cause the Si atoms to move. They were able to reverse the Si atoms motion. Thus the atoms appear to dance. The ability to make atoms move between two positions is a new achievement and pretty cool.

Nature posted a neat video showing a 3-D image of a platinum nanoparticle. Researchers used a SEM to create a 100+ images of th nanoparticle and combined them together to produce the 3-D image. The researchers are interested in learning about how step dislocations occur in the crystal lattice and how they affect the material properties of the nanoparticle. The full paper Three-dimensional imaging of dislocations in a nanoparticle at atomic resolution is available on Nature's website.

The Workshop on Relativistic Dynamics of Graphene was held at the University of Washington in January 2008. I missed it big time but the seminar papers are still available. There were some very interesting talks that included:

• Fractionalization of charge and statistics in graphene and related structures
• Nonlinear Screening in Graphene Nanostructures
• SO(3) Theory of Graphene's Quantum Hall Effect
• Surprises in Dynamics in Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene
• Gauge Fields in Corrugated Graphene
• Quantum Critical Scaling in Graphene
• Atomic Collapse in Graphene
• Graphene, Vorticity and the Index Theorem
• Chiral Gauge Theory for Graphene-Like Systems
• The Magneto-Optical Response of the Dirac Quasiparticles in Graphene
• Simulating Dynamical Fermions in Lattice QCD
• The Schwinger Mechanism and Graphene
• RG Flow of Quartic Perturbations in Graphene: Strong-Coupling and Large-N Limits
• Plasmon Excitations in Graphene

The Intellectual Property Office has posted the Graphene The worldwide patent landscape in 2013 report. The report describes the graphene patent landscape as of March 2013. Over 3500 graphene patents were filed world wide in 2012. Academic patents are more numerous than corporate patents again this year and this trend shows a continued trend in this area. Samsung has filed the most graphene patents. China has invested heavily in graphene research as shown by the increase of patent generated in China.

The Mathematica Summer School on Theoretical Physics website contains a number of interesting papers on 1-D conduction in nanowires and on various aspects of graphene. Papers and and mathbooks have been posted. Look for the Material from the 2nd edition days 3-5 on the navigation links in the left hand column toward the bottom of the list.

• Day 3 - Nanowires, Graphene and Hubbard
• Day 4 - Graphene
• Day 5 - Graphene

The Top British Innovations website is asking visitors to vote on the best British innovation. One of the choices is Graphene. They posted a TEM image of graphite which is pretty cool looking. Voting remains open for another 9 days.

The logo is based on an illustration I did for my Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology course term paper. The illustration is based on a wonderful review paper by Katz and Willner on the integration of biomaterials with nanoparticles. A link to the paper follows.

Integrated Nanoparticle-Biomolecule Hybrid Systems: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications

The figure below shows a magnetic nanoparticle that has been coated with either gold or a mesoporous material to keep the iron stable in air. Linker molecules are then used to attach various biomolecules to the nanoparticle to give it functionality. The figure shows a summary of the different functions that could be attached to the magnetic nanoparticle. In practice, only one biomolecule would be attach along with a photoluminescent marker and injected in to a mouse with cancer to see how effective the biomolecule is at targeting a specific type of cancer. The magnetic nanoparticle (mnp) shows up as a contrast enhancement agent in an MRI and the photoluminescent marker can be used in a microscope for tissue studies.



Katz and Willenr wrote the book Bioelectronics: From Theory to Applications that looks very interesting but is still a bit pricey for me.

Synopsys has posted the technology update FinFET: The Promises and the Challenges on its website. The update describes the history and issues associated with FinFets. The big advantage with FinFETs is that dynamic power consumption is reduced by 50% and static power dissipation is reduced by 90% while being 37% faster. FinFETs are 3D structures with a fixed channel width making them harder fabricate, model, and simulate.

Applied materials has posted two videos giving a tour of their research fab known as the Maydan Technology Center. It has a 35,000 sqft class 1 cleanroom and has around 120 process tools. It has a cool overhead monorail wafer storage system and is powered by a 2 MW solar power system.