IBM Takes First 3D Image of Atomic Bonds

From what I remember of chemistry, molecules were presented on computer screens, or at the very least with dowels and balls. Thanks to this incredible discovery, however, I’m jealous of how tomorrow’s engineers will view—and control—nature’s building blocks.

Now, the picture above is pretty unremarkable, right? Black and white (trivia: molecules have no color), grainy, shot in the kind of out-of-focus manner you expect from a guy like me, who can’t seem to venture out beyond the Auto setting on his entry-level Nikon D40 DSLR. But wait a second. Doesn’t the image kind of seem, well, familiar? Like high school chem class familiar? Balls and sticks familiar?

Here’s another image; a computer generated image that’s much more at home for anyone who studied atoms and molecules in the dead and gone days of 1997:

Make sense now? That B&W structure is an actual image of a molecule and its atomic bonds. The first of its kind, in fact, and a breakthrough for the crazy IBM scientists in Zurich who spent 20 straight hours staring at the “specimen”—which in this case was a 1.4 nanometer-long pentacene molecule comprised of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

You can actually make out each of those atoms and their bonds, and it’s thanks to this: An atomic force microscope.

Like the venerable electron microscope, but more powerful and with an eye for the third dimension, the AFM is able to make the nano world something we humans can appreciate visually. Using a silicon microscale cantilever coated in carbon dioxide (tiny, tiny needle), lasers, an “ultrahigh vacuum” and temperatures that hovered around 5 Kelvin, the AFM imaged the pentacene in nanometers. It did this while sitting a mere 0.5 nanometers above the surface and its previously invisible bonds for 20 long, unmoving hours. The length of time is noteworthy, said IBM scientist Leo Goss in statement from IBM, because any movement whatsoever would have disrupted the delicate atomic bonds and ruined the image.

And that’s the real beauty of this image. For the first time ever we can see where each of those carbon and hydrogen atoms line up, and the overall symmetrical shape they create. In 3D.

Quirky, Quarky, Quantum Computing

That IBM, a hardware company, was the entity to accomplish this feat should be fairly obvious, given what we know (and don’t yet know) about quantum computing. Said an IBM representative in an email to me this morning, “This pioneering achievement and the new insights gained from the experiments extend the ability of scientists to study matter with atomic resolution and open up exciting new possibilities for exploring electronic building blocks and devices at the ultimate atomic and molecular scale-devices that might be vastly smaller, faster and more energy-efficient than today’s processors and memory devices.”

In a quarkshell, that means this discovery might help future engineers manipulate atoms and their bonds, as well as create powerful, energy-sipping quantum computers for their cryptography needs, space travel or maybe even large black and yellow rooms that make our fantasies come true (or at the very least allow androids to play Sherlock Holmes).

But not so fast, Einstein. I see that tabletop subspace communicator you’ve imagined on your desktop. It’s a great idea, and while I understand your enthusiasm for such things, as Matt explained earlier this month quantum computing, entangled desktops and Star Trek holodecks are all decades away, if not more.

What this discovery does do however is advance our primitive understanding of the Way Things Are. It’s a small, nanometer-sized piece in a puzzle that doesn’t even have all the pieces on the table yet. Hell, we don’t even know where all the pieces are yet. From the looks of these images though, we will someday soon. [Images: IBM]

World’s smallest laser cracks open the door to THz CPU race

So you thought 100nm was about as narrow as lasers could get, huh? Well think again brother, because scientists at Norfolk State University have now demonstrated a 44nm ‘spaser’ that performs a laser’s functions by the alternative means of surface plasmons. By using such an unorthodox technique, the researchers have been able to overcome the minimum size limitation to lasers, and they even claim spasers could be made as small as 1nm in diameter. Peeking into the (not too near) future, this could improve magnetic data storage beyond its current physical limits, and even lead to the development of optical computers that “can operate at hundreds of terahertz” — and here you were, thinking that your brand spanking new Core i7 system with Blu-ray was future-proof.

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World’s smallest laser cracks open the door to THz CPU race originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DNA computer solves logical problems, inches closer to practical use

The world of biomolecular computing is hardly a lonely place: bacteria, enzymes, and all manner of chemicals have already been used to perform basic automated tasks. DNA computers are arguably the most advanced organic form of “autonomous programmable computing devices,” with one already boasting a pretty tight game of Tic-Tac-Toe. The latest, put together by the Israeli Weizmann Institute, advances things with its ability to correctly respond to problems of logic. By feeding molecular rules and facts into the system, the researchers are able to program DNA strands to produce yes and no answers to basic questions. Programming is said to be technically identical to that used in electronic devices, with a robot compiler converting the programming language into molecular-level information. The ultimate aim of the project is to produce miniscule disease-fighting bots that can battle infections within the human body — provided the DNA-programming drones don’t go all Yul Brynner on us.

[Thanks, Karl]

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DNA computer solves logical problems, inches closer to practical use originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips to unveil saliva-based roadside drug test later this year

In the vein of the breathalyzer, Philips has developed an on-the-go drug test, that can be used by the side of the road to test suspected imbibers for cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamines and methaphetamine. Unlike the standard alcohol testing equipment, this one is used by having the suspect spit into a small receptacle, which is then inserted into the measurement chamber which contains magnetic nanoparticles coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups, delivering color coded test results in about 90 seconds. Philips, which has been developing the device since 2001, built it as an optical device that would be easy to mass produce for law enforcement. The company expects to ship them by the end of the year, though there’s no word on exactly which markets will employ them as of yet.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

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Philips to unveil saliva-based roadside drug test later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uber-nano nanolasers could lead to faster computers, reliable internet, neverending list of awesome things

Researchers at Arizona State University and Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands have been collaborating on a project to make lasers significantly smaller than the ones that are currently available, by finding a way around the traditionally accepted diffraction limit — the idea that the size of lasers in any one dimension (say, thickness) is limited to half of the wavelength involved. One way around the size limitation, they’ve found, is to use a combination of semiconductors and metals like gold and silver, which causes electron excitement which helps confine the light in a laser to smaller spaces than that of the supposed limit. Using this method, the team has created nanoscale lasers that are one quarter of the wavelength or smaller — as opposed to the previously accepted size limitation of one half of the wavelength. As far as consumer applications go, the smaller the laser, the easier it will be to integrate them into small electronics components, leading to things like faster products and more reliable internet access. Sounds great, right? Well, chill out: they’re still working on it, with no word on when we’ll see any street application of the nano nanolasers.

[Via Gizmag]

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Uber-nano nanolasers could lead to faster computers, reliable internet, neverending list of awesome things originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tiny, printable batteries promise to change the face of obnoxious greeting cards forever

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS in Chemnitz led by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Baumann have unveiled tiny, printable batteries that they hope to put into production for pennies apiece. The new battery prototype is primarily composed of a zinc anode and a manganese cathode that can be screen printed and covered with a non-printed template cover. Each mercury-free battery weighs less than one gram, and can individually produce about 1.5 volts of electricity. By placing several batteries side by side, however, up to 6 volts can be generated. The institute has already produced these little power houses in the lab, and hopes to see them into production by the end of the year. The batteries have a relatively short lifespan, making them suitable for applications such as powering greeting cards. All we can say is that this battery would have made the card we got two years ago that sang “Word Up” much, much awesomer.

[Via Physorg]

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Tiny, printable batteries promise to change the face of obnoxious greeting cards forever originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have developed an ultra-dense memory chip that is capable of storing data for up to a billion years (besting silicon chips by roughly… a billion years). Consisting of a crystalline iron nanoparticle shuttle encased within a multiwalled carbon nanotube, the device can be written to and read from using conventional voltages already available in digital electronics today. The research was led by Alex Zettl, who notes that current digital storage methods are capable of storing mass amounts of data, but last just decades, while, say, some books have managed to last nearly a thousand years, though the amount of data they contain is quite small. The new method, called shuttle memory, is based on the iron nanoparticle which can move back and forth within the hollow nanotu. Zettl believes that, while shuttle memory is years away from practical application, it could have a lot of archival applications in the future. There’s a video after the break, hit the read link for more tiny details.

[Via The Register]

Continue reading Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years

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Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Corkscrew nanopropellers may one day deliver drugs internally

Clearly, vaccinations are so three years ago. As the race continues to find the best, most mobile internal transportation device for delivering drugs to remote places within the body, Peer Fischer of The Rowland Institute at Harvard University has teamed with colleague Ambarish Ghosh to concoct the wild creation you see to the right. The glass-derived nanopropeller was designed to move in a corkscrew motion in order to plow through syrupy, viscous liquids within the human frame. The device itself is fantastically small, measuring just 200 to 300 nanometers across at the head and 1 to 2 micrometers long. Fischer points out that each of these can be controlled with a striking amount of precision via an external magnetic field, though we don’t get the impression that they’ll be on to FDA testing in the near future. Ah well, at least our gra, er, great-grandchildren will be all taken care of.

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Corkscrew nanopropellers may one day deliver drugs internally originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient

Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let’s be honest — even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn’t apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what’s likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse — which creates a “unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament” — could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power. Per usual, there’s no telling when this new hotness is likely to hit the commercial realm, but one’s thing for sure: we bet GE‘s paying attention.

[Via Physorg]

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Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Purdue researchers concoct new invisibility cloak, plan Walmart debut

Hate to say it, but we’re beyond the point of hope here. We just won’t ever, ever see a real-deal invisibility cloak during our relatively brief stint on Earth. That said, researchers at Purdue University are doing their best to prove us wrong, recently developing a new approach to cloaking that is supposedly “simple to manufacture.” Unlike traditional invisibility cloaks, which rely on exotic metamaterials that demand complex nanofabrication, this version utilizes a far simpler design based on a tapered optical waveguide. A report from the institution asserts that the team was able to “cloak an area 100 times larger than the wavelengths of light shined by a laser into the device,” but for obvious reasons, it’s impossible to actually show us it happened. Regardless, for the sake of the kiddos above, we’re hoping this stuff gets commercialized, and soon.

[Via Digg, Image courtesy of Thomas Ricker (yes, that Thomas Ricker)]

Continue reading Purdue researchers concoct new invisibility cloak, plan Walmart debut

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Purdue researchers concoct new invisibility cloak, plan Walmart debut originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 09:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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