IPHONE TRACKING BLOOD PARAMETERS

      Using the tattoo which is modified iphone can track your water level and sodium and oxygen levels.It can usefull to prevent the dehydration for cyclist and anemic patience.

      The tattoo which contains nano particles which is injected on the skin,which reacts with the glucose and sodium and it will be glowing according to the level of the florescence in the tatoo,the modified iphone which found the variations in the florescence rate so it can tell that how much glucose present in your blood.

      Heather Clark, a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern University, is leading a team working to make this possible.

The tattoo developed by Clark's team contains 120-nanometer-wide polymer nanodroplets consisting of a fluorescent dye, specialized sensor molecules designed to bind to specific chemicals, and a charge-neutralizing molecule.

                                            

 

Phone sensor: This modified iPhone case can be used to detect sodium levels via a nanosensor “tattoo.”

Credit: Heather Clark and Matt Dubach

Indian astronaut to walk on Moon in 2025: Kalam

Bangalore: Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Wednesday hoped an Indian astronaut would walk on the Moon in 2025 and on Mars by 2035.

"I believe an Indian astronaut will walk on the Moon in 2025 and on Mars by 2035. The Indian space agency should attempt to put an Indian on Moon and Mars between 2025 and 2035," Kalam said at a function here.

Releasing a book titled "All About Rockets", authored by advisor to the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) S.K. Das, Kalam said Indian space scientists should innovate cutting-edge technologies to reduce the cost of access to space to $2,000 per kg from the current $20,000 per kg.

"Low cost access to space is the way forward. The challenge for the Indian space scientists is to reduce the launch cost to $2,000 per kg from $20,000 per kg currently by using nanotechnology and reusable single-engine stage launches," Kalam told ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan and directors of the space agency's various space centres who were present on the occasion.

Recalling his long association with the space agency and his involvement in the failures and successful launches of the first satellite launch vehicle (SLV) and the subsequent polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs), Kalam said space was another destination for man's quest for renewable energy.

"One of the spin-offs I foresee from space technology is to innovate a low-cost energy solution. We are already using solar energy to power satellites to orbit around the Earth and run its various payloads (instruments). We need to innovate a solution to transfer the solar-generated energy to earth and store it in the form of power cells or batteries that can be used as renewable energy," Kalam pointed out.

Regretting that India has been a laggard in achieving breakthroughs in rocket launches, building satellites or supercomputers, Kalam said the country should overcome the status of being a "fourth or fifth nation syndrome" to becoming the first country in cracking space technology and ICT (information and communication technology) through innovation and research.

"After every successful launch of a rocket or satellite, India is ranked as the fourth or fifth nation in the world to have achieved success or breakthrough in space technology. It is time for us to overcome the fourth or fifth nation syndrome and be the first among equals if we have to become a superpower. We can do it," Kalam added.

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Tiny Technologies Promise Powerful Protection

The U.S. Army’s Soldier 2030 concept includes this futuristic look for the infantry soldier. Research being done at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies supports the vision for a lightweight uniform offering a wide array of soldier protection capabilities.

Today’s dismounted infantry soldier often packs more than 140 pounds and still has incomplete ballistic protection, insufficient defense against chemical and biological weapons, and too many pieces of equipment that do not work well together, according to officials at the U.S. Army Research Office’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. Reducing the cumbersome weight that soldiers lug around on the battlefield is a major priority for the Army, which is intent on transforming itself into a lighter, more flexible 21st century force. Research being conducted at the institute one day could help transform current combat fatigues and bulky equipment into a do-it-all battle uniform that not only is lightweight but also provides many other benefits.

Basic research conducted at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN), which is housed within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is designed to develop and exploit nanotechnology to improve soldier survivability dramatically. The ultimate goal is to help the Army create a 21st century battlesuit that combines high-technology capabilities with light weight and comfort. Army officials envision a thin, bullet-resistant uniform that monitors health, eases injuries, communicates automatically, and reacts instantly to chemical and biological agents. The multipurpose battle uniform is a long-range vision for how fundamental nanoscience might make soldiers less vulnerable to an array of threats, whether from the enemy or the environment.

The institute conducts fundamental research, and when that work proves especially promising, ISN usually passes it along to the Army Research Laboratory or other research centers for further development. The institute is less than an hour from the Army’s Natick Soldier Systems Center, Natick, Massachusetts, and over the years has developed a close working relationship with Natick scientists. “The reason the Army is interested in studying these materials is to provide the basis for any kind of technologies that ultimately could provide protection for our soldiers,” says Bob Kokoska, the Army’s ISN program manager. “In the end, it’s to provide a whole suite of lightweight materials and functionalities that will reduce the load on the soldier while providing unique tools and capabilities for soldier survivability.”

Recent advances include research into multifunctional fibers that has resulted in a prototype device for sensing explosives. The development could lead to a soldier battlesuit with a built-in acoustic sensor for sensing and locating explosions or sniper fire. Additionally, ISN’s research on coatings for materials has been transitioned to the Army Research Laboratory and the Natick Soldier Systems Center for development of a prototypical product to protect eyes from lasers. Other capabilities that have transitioned to the Army Research Laboratory include nanoscale coatings that provide both a water-repellent and microbial repellent function to keep soldiers dry and kill harmful bacteria at the same time.

ISN also has made strides in nanotube technology. One ISN scientist has developed a “drawing technique” that Kokoska compares to stretching candy. “One technology allows you to take, say, a plastic tube maybe a centimeter across that contains within it some materials that have optical properties so they react to different frequencies of light, or maybe they are able to sense an explosion. Envision this tube being drawn out, like a taffy pull, to the diameter of a human hair. This scientist has been able to draw this out and make meters and meters of this material in a way that maintains the optical or acoustic detection properties embedded there,” Kokoska explains. “This is a tremendous technology that has really gone a long way to miniaturizing different types of these sensing capabilities within fabrics and can have quite an impact on the capabilities that can be embedded in a soldier’s uniform.”

It is the nature of fundamental research that scientists sometimes discover unintended uses for the developed technologies. ISN’s nanotube research, for example, contributed to a surgical laser now being used at military and civilian hospitals. “Picture the interior of a narrow tube containing this metallic material that can act as a perfect mirror. The advantage is that you can pump CO₂ laser light through it in a very flexible manner.”

That laser surgery technology has been commercialized by a company called OmniGuide and has been used in more than 25,000 procedures. “There was a surgeon who was trying to remove a brain tumor from a young patient, and he was very frustrated. Serendipitously, he found out about this technology while surfing the Web one night, and within a matter of days he saved his patient’s life with it,” Kokoska says. “The ISN was not tasked to develop surgical tools. What the ISN was developing were these material systems that could be used, for example, for fiber optic communications; but through the ingenuity on the part of some of the people at MIT, they were able to adapt that system for something completely different. In this case, it has a good payoff for the Army and for the civilian medical community as well.”

Kokoska speculates that nanomaterials potentially could result in a medicinal patch for battlefield use. “We may be able to develop a patch that you put on a wounded soldier that can sequentially release a burst of antibiotics over a period of time to ward off infection, or maybe provide a therapeutic anti-inflammatory agent. That patch could be finely tuned to address wounds,” he explains. He also suggests the possibility of a small device for detecting minuscule traces of harmful materials, such as chemical or biological agents. The device may or may not be integrated into the uniform, but would be easily available, he adds.

Blast and ballistic protection is one of the core areas of research, including the study at the nanoscale level of some sea creatures with hardened shells or beaks. Christine Ortiz, MIT professor of materials science and engineering, studies a wide range of natural materials in support of ISN’s quest for better body armor. Some of her research, for example, has focused on the so-called scaly foot snail, a type of sea mollusk that has a foot covered in plates of iron sulfide minerals. The snail’s tri-layered shell also is covered in a layer of iron sulfide and is more resistant to crushing than the typical snail shell.

The fundamental, multidisciplinary nanoscience research is conducted in collaboration with Army and industrial partners and focuses on five strategic areas: lightweight, multifunctional nanostructured fibers and materials; battlesuit medicine; blast and ballistic protection; chemical and biological sensing; and nanosystems integration.

Much of the research is aligned with the Army’s Future Soldier 2030 concept, which is not a part of Army doctrine. Instead, it is designed to stir imaginations and prompt researchers to find creative solutions for equipping future soldiers. “We are getting away from the creation of potential future soldier physical prototypes and are now supporting the soldier and small-unit research and development community with analysis, insight and concepting related to future technology-enabled capabilities,” explains Lt. Col. David Accetta, USA (Ret.), chief of public affairs and strategic engagement for the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.

Among other capabilities, the Future Soldier 2030 concept calls for a nanofiber-enabled, flexible, form-fitting, lightweight uniform. It may be paired with a vest for ballistic protection of vital organs and could include additional modular armor that can be attached for joints and extremities. Shear-thickening fluids and fabric composites may provide lightweight extremity protection. Limited protection from cuts and fragments could be built into the uniform using chain mail fabricated from carbon nanotubes. Additional protection for the extremities may be provided by an exoskeleton structure.

Founded in 2002 by a $50 million, five-year contract from the Army Research Office, the ISN is an interdepartmental research now approaching the end of its second five-year contract. This year, the institute is undergoing a major comprehensive review to determine whether the Army is receiving a good return on its investment. The ISN will be developing its next five-year plan, which will carry over or tweak current research projects while possibly adding new areas of study. If all goes well with the review, a new contract could be awarded before the current contract expires in summer 2012. “From my own perspective, the ISN has done a tremendous job in developing a strong basic science program and has worked with the Army to transition some of this work as well. We try to listen to what our soldiers’ needs are. That should always have a bearing on the research being done at the ISN,” Kokoska adds.
By George I. Seffers, SIGNAL Magazine
June 2011
WEB RESOURCES
Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies: http://web.mit.edu/isn/index.html
Ortiz Laboratory at MIT: http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/
OmniGuide: www.omni-guide.com/

Assess risk from nano-pollution and antimicrobials in packaging - IFST

The Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) has called for greater appraisal of the potential risks from the release into the environment of nanomaterials used in food packaging.

The possibility that wider exposure to anti-microbial agents in food contact materials (FCMs) may contribute to heightened bacterial resistance was highlighted as an area of concern for the UK-based body. It also said the accumulation of nanosilver in the environment should be scrutinised and the development of bespoke recycling procedures considered.

The IFST made its comments in its response to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) guidelines on the potential risks of nano-applications in food and feed published in January 2011.

The independent group said it was important that the EFSA document suggest the need for full toxicity data on engineered nanomaterials (ENM) used as composites in FCMs even where there is no evidence for migration of these particles into food, or where levels of migration are low, it said.

The body added: “IFST considers that this is important because, although the direct use of these materials may not lead to significant ingestion of the particles, knowledge of the level of toxicity, or lack of toxicity, may be needed in order to assess the acceptable levels of migration.”

Antimicrobial issues

The organisation said it was “concerned” that a number of mineral ENMs were being used, or put forward for use, as anti-microbial agents in food contact materials. It called for more research on the consequences of their release into the environment and declared this should be evaluated when considering their use in food applications.

The IFST said the use of antimicrobial agents was potentially important in the future – particularly in light of the spread of antimicrobial resistant microorganisms.

“If there is to be a use for such antimicrobials in the medical area in dressings, treatment of wounds, or generally in coating of medical implants, surgical instruments or hospital surfaces, then the IFST believes one should avoid widespread low-level exposure, which could lead to bacterial resistance to these materials,” said the body.

This issue should also be taken into account when considering the use of antimicrobials in supplements, or in directly-applied coatings for natural food products to prevent spoilage

Whole life concerns and specialised recycling

Crucially it raised the issue that production and disposal of these materials may eventually lead to increased exposure to the nanoparticles and urged that the possible consequences of this be explored.

Consideration of the ‘whole life’ aspects of encapsulated nanoparticles should be taken into account in their use or regulation, said the IFST.

It noted there was already evidence that the increased commercial use of nanosilver had led to a rise in the level of silver in streams and rivers. But it added that most nanosilver particles were removed during sewage treatment and converted into less reactive and more stable silver sulphite nanoparticles.

The IFST raised the possibility that disposal of food contact materials containing nanoparticles – and their subsequent breakdown - could lead to the release of more reactive forms into the environment.

The body cited evidence that nanoparticles can be transferred up the food chain once released into the environment and suggested the development of specialised recycling procedures be considered as part of the risk assessment

The World´s Smallest Pipettes: Capillary Action in Carbon Nanotubes

Encapsulated metal nanoparticles can be extracted from carbon nanotubes through reverse capillary action.

It helps plants to transport water from their roots to their leaves. It is the reason why a sponge can be used for cleaning. It allows for the separation of different substances by chromatographic techniques like thin layer chromatography. Capillarity is the fundament of many biological and physical processes. However, this phenomenon is relevant not only on the macroscopic scale; with an increasing interest in nanofluidic devices, the effects of capillarity on the nanoscale have become an important topic, too. Possible applications of nanofluidic devices include promising areas like the separation of biomolecules, single-molecule analysis, or drug-delivery systems, and it is crucial to understand if the balance of capillary forces on the nanoscale resembles the one in the bulk material. Kirsten Edgar et al. from Wellington, New Zealand, now demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to withdraw an encapsulated metal particle from a multi-walled carbon nanotube via reverse capillary action, a fact that could make carbon nanotubes suitable for the use as pipettes. 

Carbon nanotubes present an ideal material to study nanoscale capillarity – they are among the smallest capillaries currently known, and they can absorb particles of even non-wetting metals if the Laplace pressure of the free droplet exceeds its meniscus pressure in the nanotube. But then shouldn´t it also be possible to extract an encapsulated particle if, the other way around, its meniscus pressure is higher than its Laplace pressure? The New Zealand research group gave it a try with silver-filled multi-walled carbon nanotubes: They chopped the ends of the nanotubes off using a silver-assisted oxidation method by which, simultaneously, silver nanoparticles were produced. The opened nanotubes then absorbed those silver particles that were small enough while the larger particles remained dispersed in the sample randomly – and larger particles that abutted on the open end of a metal-filled nanotube actually started to extract the internal particle. This process could be observed via electron microscopy: Within two minutes, an encapsulated particle was released completely from the nanotube and absorbed by the large particle, leaving the walls of the nanotube partially collapsed.

Molecular dynamics simulations for a liquid silver particle supported the experimental observations: an encapsulated metal droplet will be released from a carbon nanotube if the external particle has at least twice the radius of the droplet. However, unlike in the experiment, the simulated droplet did not shrink in diameter during extraction and the nanotube walls remained unaffected, indicating that the dynamics of the experimental process might differ from those in the model. Still, the results from the simulations and the experiments confirm that the ratio of a particle´s Laplace pressure and meniscus pressure determine if it will be absorbed or released from a capillary, showing that carbon nanotubes indeed could be applied as nanopipettes one day.

The nanotechnology revolution is New York's 'moon shot' for the 21st century

Its from other source,

By Alain E. Kaloyeros, Contributing writer

This year marks half a century since President John F. Kennedy proclaimed a bold and ambitious dream with a deadline: a U.S. vision to land on the moon by the end of the decade.

Courtesy of CNSEResearcher wear "moon suits" to work in a cleanroom at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany. More than 250 U.S. and global corporate partners - including IBM, SEMATECH, GlobalFoundries, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials and ASML - are engaged in advanced research and development at the college's NanoTech Complex.

“It will not be one man going to the moon…” Kennedy told a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961. “...it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work together to put him there.”

Fifty years later, we are in the early stages of the “moon shot” of the 21st century: the nanotechnology revolution. Rather than pursuing a single dream, however, nanotechnology is advancing a host of exciting “dreams with a deadline” by enabling innovators to manage individual atoms and, as a result, catalyzing novel discoveries and exciting products that are transforming the industrial and social landscape.

Early applications are everywhere: breakthroughs that allow ultrafast communications around the corner and the world; game-changing treatments and cures for disease; groundbreaking innovations to enable clean and environmentally friendly energy; and enhanced protection for American citizens at home, and our soldiers abroad.

Alain E. Kaloyeros, Ph.D., is professor, senior vice president and chief executive officer of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at theState University at Albany. 

Just as importantly, the emergence of nanotechnology is creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for economic prosperity. Amid projections by Global Industry Analysts Inc. that nanotechnology will be a $2.4 trillion industry by 2015, it is the regions, states and countries that lead in this pioneering field that will reap its financial rewards.

It is in this arena that New York holds a global competitive advantage, by virtue of a groundbreaking and successful nanotechnology paradigm that embodies JFK’s view that “all of us must work together.” Public-private partnerships, combining government, academia and industry, are being deployed across New York to elevate education, accelerate innovation, create high-tech employment, and generate economic growth.

The first fruit of this strategy is the establishment of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, which has generated $7 billion in investment and turned every dollar of public funding into seven dollars of private investment. Employment at CNSE has risen from 72 in 2001 to over 2,500 today, leading the Capital Region’s designation by the Tech America Foundation as the nation’s third fastest-growing high-tech job market, and contributing to creation and retention of 12,500 nanotechnology jobs statewide.

That momentum is now spreading statewide, including in Central New York, through a groundbreaking partnership that unites Lockheed Martin Corp. and CenterState CEO with CNSE. Catalyzed by a New York State Assembly investment of $28 million, this $250 million initiative will bring a long-vacant, former General Electric laboratory at Electronics Park in Salina back to life as a cutting-edge nanotechnology research and development facility. The project will create 250 new jobs, help to retain over 2,000 more at Lockheed Martin, and spur new education and workforce training programs in the North Syracuse and Liverpool School Districts.

This is just the beginning. The strategic vision outlined in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's “New York Works” plan for economic revitalization, together with his resolute and resourceful leadership, represents a 21st century version of JFK’s clarion call for focused and relentless pursuit of global leadership.

So, too, does the visionary economic development blueprint and proactive support of the State Assembly, under the leadership of Speaker Sheldon Silver, through which CNSE was established as a hub for integrated education, innovation and economic outreach.

“Disneyland will never be completed,” Walt Disney once said. “It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Similarly, there is no end zone for nanotechnology, and unleashing its power will afford New York the opportunity to create economic prosperity for generations to come.

The Smallest Computing Systems

A team led by Charles Lieber, a professor of chemistry at Harvard, and Shamik Das, lead engineer in MITRE's nanosystems group, has designed and built a reprogrammable circuit out of nanowire transistors. Several tiles wired together would make the first scalable nanowire computer, says Lieber. Such a device could run inside microscopic, implantable biosensors, and ultra-low-power environmental or structural sensors, say the researchers.

Working wires: A scanning electron microscope image (top) shows a programmable nanowire circuit. This false-colored scanning electron microscope image (bottom) shows a nanowire processor tile superimposed on top of the architecture used to design the circuit. Credit: Lieber Group, Harvard University

For more than a decade, nanowires and nanotubes have promised to shrink computing to scales impossible to achieve with traditional semiconductor materials. But there have been doubts about the practicality of nanowires and nanotubes as actual computing systems. "There had been little progress in terms of increasing the complexity of circuits," says Lieber.

One big problem has been reproducing structures made from nanowires and nanotubes reliably. Each structure needs to be virtually identical to ensure that a circuit operates as intended. But now, says Lieber, some of those problems are being solved. His group, in particular, has developed ways to produce identical nanowires in bulk. Because of this, he and colleagues at MITRE have been able to design a nanowire circuit architecture that has the potential to scale up. The details are published in the current issue of Nature.Traditional chips are made using a so-called top-down approach in which a design is essentially exposed like a photograph onto a semiconductor wafer, and excess material is etched away. In contrast, a bottom-up approach is used to make the nanowire circuits. This means they can be deposited on various types of surfaces, and can be made more compact. "You want [sensor] systems that are physically small," says James Klemic, nanotechnology laboratory director at MITRE. "Right now, your only option is to use a chip that dwarfs the sensor."

To make the new nanowire circuit, researchers deposited lines of nanowires, made of a germanium core and silicon shell, on a substrate and crossed them with lines of metal electrodes to create a grid. The points where the nanowires and electrodes intersect act as a transistor that can be turned on and off independently. The researchers made a single tile, with an area of 960 square microns containing 496 functional transistors. It is designed to wire to other tiles so that the transistors, in aggregate, could act as complex logic gates for processing or memory.

The nanowire transistors maintain their state-on or off—regardless of whether the power is on. This gives it an instant-on capability, important for low-power sensors that might need to collect data only sporadically and also need to conserve power.

According to Das, the circuits could also be 10 times more power-efficient than circuits made of traditional materials. One reason is the nanowire's electrical properties, which don't allow electric current to leak, unlike traditional transistors. Another reason is that the circuit design uses capacitive connections instead of resistive ones, which are less efficient. "We don't burn a lot of power driving resistors," says Das.

"This is a significant milestone on several fronts," says André DeHon, professor of electrical and system engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Reprogrammable transistors made of nanowires are "the building block I was hoping for," he says.

The researchers' work represents "a leap forward in complexity and function of circuits built from the bottom up," says Zhong Lin Wang, professor of materials science and engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. It shows that the bottom-up method for manufacturing "can yield nanoprocessors and other integrated systems of the future," he says.

More work needs to be done to make nanowire processors practical for use in electronics systems, Lieber says. His group needs to demonstrate thousands of transistors on a tile—many times more than the current 496 transistors his group has so far achieved. In addition, they need to scale up to multiple tiles. The researchers are in the process of finding the best way to link a 16-tile system together. Lieber says that, realistically, manufacturing these circuits is still several years down the road.SOURCE:technologyreview.in

NANO TUBES

Nanotube:

"Conceptually, single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) can be considered to be formed by the rolling of a single layer of graphite (called a graphene layer) into a seamless cylinder. A multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) can similarly be considered to be a coaxial assembly of cylinders of SWCNTs, like a Russian doll, one within another; the separation between tubes is about equal to that between the layers in natural graphite. Hence, nanotubes are one-dimensional objects with a well-defined direction along the nanotube axis that is analogous to the in-plane directions of graphite."
—M. S. Dresselhaus, Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Copyright Prof. Vincent H. Crespi Department of Physics Pennsylvania State University.

A one dimensional fullerene (a convex cage of atoms with only hexagonal and/or pentagonal faces) with a cylindrical shape. Carbon nanotubes discovered in 1991 by Sumio Iijima resemble rolled up graphite, although they can not really be made that way. Depending on the direction that the tubes appear to have been rolled (quantified by the 'chiral vector'), they are known to act as conductors or semiconductors. Nanotubes are a proving to be useful as molecular components for nanotechnology. [Encyclopedia Nanotech]

Strictly speaking, any tube with nanoscale dimensions, but generally used to refer to carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of graphite rolled up to make a tube. A commonly mentioned non-carbon variety is made of boron nitride, another is silicon. These noncarbon nanotubes are most often referred to as nanowires. The dimensions are variable (down to 0.4 nm in diameter) and you can also get nanotubes within nanotubes, leading to a distinction between multi-walled and single-walled nanotubes. Apart from remarkable tensile strength, nanotubes exhibit varying electrical properties (depending on the way the graphite structure spirals around the tube, and other factors, such as doping), and can be superconducting, insulating, semiconducting or conducting (metallic). [CMP]

Nanotubes can be either electrically conductive or semiconductive, depending on their helicity, leading to nanoscale wires and electrical components. These one-dimensional fibers exhibit electrical conductivity as high as copper, thermal conductivity as high as diamond, strength 100 times greater than steel at one sixth the weight, and high strain to failure. NASA JSC - Carbon Nanotubes

A nanotube's chiral angle--the angle between the axis of its hexagonal pattern and the axis of the tube--determines whether the tube is metallic or semiconducting. Nanotubes Under Stress

A graphene sheet can be rolled more than one way, producing different types of carbon nanotubes. The three main types are armchair, zig-zag, and chiral. Examples

 Copyright Professor Charles M. Lieber Group
And an excellent description of Carbon Nanotube Tips for Atomic Force Microscopy

Carbon nanotubes possess many unique properties which make them ideal AFM probes. Their high aspect ratio provides faithful imaging of deep trenches, while good resolution is retained due to their nanometer-scale diameter. These geometrical factors also lead to reduced tip-sample adhesion, which allows gentler imaging. Nanotubes elastically buckle rather than break when deformed, which results in highly robust probes. They are electrically conductive, which allows their use in STM and EFM (electric force microscopy), and they can be modified at their ends with specific chemical or biological groups for high resolution functional imaging. Professor Charles M. Lieber Group

CNT exhibits extraordinary mechanical properties: the Young's modulus is over 1 Tera Pascal. It is stiff as diamond. The estimated tensile strength is 200 Giga Pascal. These properties are ideal for reinforced composites, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). Center for Nanotechnology | Gallery

Carbon Nanotube Transistors exploit the fact that nm- scale nanotubes (NT) are ready-made molecular wires and can be rendered into a conducting, semiconducting, or insulating state, which make them valuable for future nanocomputer design. ... Carbon nanotubes are quite popular now for their prospective electrical, thermal, and even selective-chemistry applications. Physics News 590, May 21, 2002

Many potential applications have been proposed for carbon nanotubes, including conductive and high-strength composites; energy storage and energy conversion devices; sensors; field emission displays and radiation sources; hydrogen storage media; and nanometer-sized semiconductor devices, probes, and interconnects. Some of these applications are now realized in products. Others are demonstrated in early to advanced devices, and one, hydrogen storage, is clouded by controversy. Nanotube cost, polydispersity in nanotube type, and limitations in processing and assembly methods are important barriers for some applications of single-walled nanotubes. Carbon Nanotubes—the Route Toward Applications Ray H. Baughman, Anvar A. Zakhidov, Walt A. de Heer

AKA: Multi-wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs), Single-wall Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNs), (5, 5) armchair nanotube, (9, 0) zigzag nanotube, and (10, 5) chiral nanotube. Also, single-wall carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNFETs). See Nanotubes, Nanocones, and Nanosheets: an applet that lets you control in 3D the components and form elements. [Steffen Weber, PhD. See his VRML gallery of Fullerenes]. Also carbon nanowalls.

carbon nanotube with metal-semiconductor junction

structure of a multi-walled nanotube

Click image to enlarge
Copyright Alain Rochefort Assistant Professor Engineering Physics Department,
Nanostructure Group, Center for Research on Computation and its Applications (CERCA).

---

Bucky Ball:

"It is the roundest and most symmetrical large molecule known to man. Buckministerfullerine continues to astonish with one amazing property after another. Named after American architect R. Buckminister Fuller who designed a geodesic dome with the same fundamental symmetry, C60 is the third major form of pure carbon; graphite and diamond are the other two." Bucky Balls - Andy Gion.

AKA: C60 molecules & buckminsterfullerene. Molecules made up of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a series of interlocking hexagons and pentagons, forming a structure that looks similar to a soccer ball [Steffen Weber, PhD.]. C60 is actually a "truncated icosahedron", consisting of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons. It was discovered in 1985 by Professor Sir Harry Kroto, and two Rice University professors, chemists Dr. Richard E. Smalley and Dr. Robert F. Curl Jr., [for which they were jointly awarded the 1996 Nobel Lauriate for chemistry] and is the only molecule composed of a single element to form a hollow spheroid [which gives the potential for filling it, and using it for novel drug-delivery systems. See Structure of a New Family of Buckyballs Created].

"The buckyball, being the roundest of round molecules, is also quite resistant to high speed collisions. In fact, the buckyball can withstand slamming into a stainless steel plate at 15,000 mph, merely bouncing back, unharmed. When compressed to 70 percent of its original size, the buckyball becomes more than twice as hard as its cousin, diamond." The Buckyball - Rodrigo de Almeida Siqueira.

AKA: Endohedral fullerenes, carbon cages. 

Click to enlarge Copyright Oliver Kreylos, Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC), University of California, Davis.

Click to enlarge Copyright Dr. Roger C. Wagner, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware.

Click to enlarge Copyright ORNL. See Materials by Computational Design and Atomistic Simulations. This figure presents a visualization of a nanohydraulic piston. The model consists of a Carbon nanotube (blue), Helium atoms (green), and a "Buckyball" molecule. It is used to explore the stability of the system.