Posts Tagged ‘CRANN’

2.5M Euros for Ireland’s John Boland and his memristive nanowires

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

The announcement makes no mention of the memristor or neuromorphic engineering but those are the areas in which  John Boland works and the reason for his 2.5M Euro research award. From the Ap. 3, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Professor John Boland, Director of CRANN, the SFI-funded [Science Foundation of Ireland] nanoscience institute based at Trinity College Dublin, and a Professor in the School of Chemistry has been awarded a €2.5 million research grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This is the second only Advanced ERC grant ever awarded in Physical Sciences in Ireland.

The Award will see Professor Boland and his team continue world-leading research into how nanowire networks can lead to a range of smart materials, sensors and digital memory applications. The research could result in computer networks that mimic the functions of the human brain and vastly improve on current computer capabilities such as facial recognition.

The University of Dublin’s Trinity College CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) April 3, 2013 news release, which originated the news item,  provides details about Boland’s proposed nanowire network,

Nanowires are spaghetti like structures, made of materials such as copper or silicon. They are just a few atoms thick and can be readily engineered into tangled networks of nanowires. Researchers worldwide are investigating the possibility that nanowires hold the future of energy production (solar cells) and could deliver the next generation of computers.

Professor Boland has discovered that exposing a random network of nanowires to stimuli like electricity, light and chemicals, generates chemical reaction at the junctions where the nanowires cross. By controlling the stimuli, it is possible to harness these reactions to manipulate the connectivity within the network. This could eventually allow computations that mimic the functions of the nerves in the human brain – particularly the development of associative memory functions which could lead to significant advances in areas such as facial recognition.

Commenting Professor John Boland said, “This funding from the European Research Council allows me to continue my work to deliver the next generation of computing, which differs from the traditional digital approach.  The human brain is neurologically advanced and exploits connectivity that is controlled by electrical and chemical signals. My research will create nanowire networks that have the potential to mimic aspects of the neurological functions of the human brain, which may revolutionise the performance of current day computers.   It could be truly ground-breaking.”

It’s only in the news release’s accompanying video that the memristor and neuromorphic engineering are mentioned,

I have written many times about the memristor, most recently in a Feb. 26, 2013 posting titled, How to use a memristor to create an artificial brain, where I noted a proposed ‘blueprint’ for an artificial brain. A contested concept, the memristor has attracted critical commentary as noted in a Mar. 19, 2013 comment added to the ‘blueprint’  post,

A Sceptic says:

….

Before talking about blueprints, one has to consider that the dynamic state equations describing so-called non-volatile memristors are in conflict with fundamentals of physics. These problems are discussed in:

“Fundamental Issues and Problems in the Realization of Memristors” by P. Meuffels and R. Soni (http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7319)

“On the physical properties of memristive, memcapacitive, and meminductive systems” by M. Di Ventra and Y. V. Pershin (http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.7063)

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Posted in electronics, nanotechnology | 1 Comment »

My carbon nanotube heart and patents

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

The stem cell scientists at the National University of Ireland (NUI) and Trinity College Dublin’s CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) aren’t making hearts out of carbon nanotubes but they are using the particles to stimulate stem cells into becoming heart-like.The Sept. 19, 2012 news item on Nanowerk provides context for this work,

Stem cell scientists have capitalised on the electrical properties of a widely used nanomaterial to develop cells which may allow the regeneration of cardiac cells. The breakthrough has been led by a team of scientists at the Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI) at the National University of Ireland Galway in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Ireland. Once damaged by heart attack, cardiac muscle has very little capacity for self-repair and at present there are no clinical treatments available to repair damaged cardiac muscle tissue.

Over the last 10 years, there has been tremendous interest in developing a cell-based therapy to address this problem. Since the use of a patient’s own heart cells is not a viable clinical option, many researchers are working to try to find an alternative source of cells that could be used for cardiac tissue repair.

The NUI Sept. 19, 2012 news release, which originated the news item, describes how carbon nanotubes have properties similar to certain heart cells and how the researchers decided to exploit that similarity,

The researchers recognised that carbon nanotubes, a widely used nanoparticle, is reactive to electrical stimulation. They then used these nanomaterials to create cells with the characteristics of cardiac progenitors, a special type of cell found in the heart, from adult stem cells.

“The electrical properties of the nanomaterial triggered a response in the mesenchymal (adult) stem cells, which we sourced from human bone marrow. In effect, they became electrified, which made them morph into more cardiac-like cells”, explains Valerie Barron of REMEDI at National University of Ireland Galway. “This is a totally new approach and provides a ready-source of tailored cells, which have the potential to be used as a new clinical therapy. Excitingly, this symbiotic strategy lays the foundation stone for other electroactive tissue repair applications, and can be readily exploited for other clinically challenging areas such as in the brain and the spinal cord.”

The team’s collaborator at CRANN, Professor Werner Blau made a comment I found a bit odd (from the NUI news release),

“It is great to see two decades of our pioneering nanocarbon research here at TCD come to fruition in a way that addresses a major global health problem. Hopefully many people around the world will ultimately benefit from it. Some of our carbon nanotube research has been patented by TCD and is being licensed to international companies in material science, electronics and health care,” said Professor Blau.

I’m not a big fan of the current patenting regimes which seem to  have been turned  into innovation-killing machines.  As for patenting medicines and medical devices, I recall that Frederick Banting and Charles Best who discovered insulin refused to patent the discovery as they believed it would constrain access.

I appreciate that businesses need to make money and scientists need money to do their work and so on but this blind rush to patent discoveries seems a little misguided to me and it might be a good time to consider new business and economic models.

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Posted in intellectual property, medicine, nanotechnology | No Comments »

Better beer in plastic bottles

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

This innovation in beer bottling was developed in Ireland and I’m pretty sure the Irish have themselves braced for the humourous comments sure to follow given the legends about the Irish and beer.

Here’s more about the nanotechnology-enabled plastic beer bottles from the Sept. 18, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Scientists at CRANN [Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices], the Science Foundation Ireland-funded nanoscience institute based at Trinity College Dublin, have partnered with world-leading brewing company SABMiller on a project to increase the shelf life of bottled beer in plastic bottles. The new deal will see SABMiller invest in the project over a two year period.

Professor Jonathan Coleman and his team in CRANN are using nanoscience research methods to develop a new material that will prolong the shelf-life of beer in plastic bottles. Current plastic bottles have a relatively short shelf life, as both oxygen and carbon dioxide can permeate the plastic and diminish the flavour.

The new material, when added to plastic bottles will make them extremely impervious, meaning that oxygen cannot enter and that the carbon dioxide cannot escape, thus preserving the taste and ‘fizz’.

The Sept. 18, 2012 CRANN news release does not include many more details about the technology,

The team will exfoliate nano-sheets of boron nitride, each with a thickness of approximately 50,000 times thinner than one human hair. These nano-sheets will be mixed with plastic, which will result in a material that is extremely impervious to gas molecules. The molecules will be unable to diffuse through the material and shelf life will be increased.

As well as increasing the shelf life of the beer itself, less material is required in production, reducing cost and environmental impact.

If you are lucky enough to have a subscription or have some other access to Science magazine, you can read more about Coleman’s and his team’s work on boron nitride and thin films. Here’s the citation and abstract for the article,

Two-Dimensional Nanosheets Produced by Liquid Exfoliation of Layered Materials by Jonathan N. Coleman, Mustafa Lotya, Arlene O’Neill, Shane D. Bergin, Paul J. King, Umar Khan,  Karen Young, Alexandre Gaucher, Sukanta De, Ronan J. Smith, Igor V. Shvets, Sunil K. Arora, George Stanton, Hye-Young Kim, Kangho Lee, Gyu Tae Kim, Georg S. Duesberg, Toby Hallam, John J. Boland, Jing Jing Wang, John F. Donegan, Jaime C. Grunlan, Gregory Moriarty, Aleksey Shmeliov, Rebecca J. Nicholls, James M. Perkins, Eleanor M. Grieveson, Koenraad Theuwissen, David W. McComb, Peter D. Nellist, and Valeria Nicolosi in Science 4 February 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6017 pp. 568-571 DOI: 10.1126/science.1194975

If they could be easily exfoliated, layered materials would become a diverse source of two-dimensional crystals whose properties would be useful in applications ranging from electronics to energy storage. We show that layered compounds such as MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, MoTe2, TaSe2, NbSe2, NiTe2, BN, and Bi2Te3 can be efficiently dispersed in common solvents and can be deposited as individual flakes or formed into films. Electron microscopy strongly suggests that the material is exfoliated into individual layers. By blending this material with suspensions of other nanomaterials or polymer solutions, we can prepare hybrid dispersions or composites, which can be cast into films. We show that WS2 and MoS2 effectively reinforce polymers, whereas WS2/carbon nanotube hybrid films have high conductivity, leading to promising thermoelectric properties.

This announcement comes during Ireland’s Nanoweek 2012 (Sept. 14 – 21, 2012) which I mentioned along with other nano-themed events currently taking place in Ireland in my Sept. 14, 2012 posting.

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Posted in food, nanotechnology | No Comments »

Transforming flat screens with P-type conductors at CRANN

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

I’m not sure about window-integrated flat screens as one of the applications for this technology breakthrough at Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices). I think there’s enough signage and video being beamed at me everywhere I go but all indications are that more and more surfaces are going to become display and/or communication devices and these researchers seem to have found a way to speed that process.

From the March 21, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

Researchers at CRANN, the Science Foundation Ireland funded nanoscience institute based in Trinity College Dublin (TCD), have discovered a new material that could transform the quality, lifespan and efficiency of flat screen computers, televisions and other devices (see paper in Applied Physics Letters: “Magnesium, nitrogen codoped Cr2O3: A p-type transparent conducting oxide”).

The research team was led by Prof Igor Shvets, a CRANN Principal Investigator who has successfully launched and sold two spin out companies from TCD and who is involved in the Spirit of Ireland energy project. A patent application protecting the new material was filed by TCD. Commenting on the research, Prof Igor Shvets said, “This is an exciting development with a range of applications and we are hopeful this initial research will attract commercial interest in order to explore its industrial use. The new material could lead to innovations such as window-integrated flat screens and to increase the efficiency of certain solar cells, thus significantly impacting on the take-up of solar cells, which can help us to reduce carbon emissions.” [emphasis mine]

The application for solar cells sounds a lot more appealing to me. CRANN issued a March 21, 2012 press release which included some technical details,

Devices that the new material could be used with such as solar cells, flat screen TVs, computer monitors, LEDs all utilise materials that can conduct electricity and at the same time are see-through.  These devices currently use transparent conducting oxides, which are a good compromise between electrical conductivity and optical transparency. They all have one fundamental limitation: they all conduct electricity through the movement of electrons. [emphasis mine] Such materials are referred to as n-type transparent conducting oxides. Electricity can also be conducted through as p-type materials.  Modern day electronics make use of n-type and p-type materials.  The lack of good quality p-type transparent conducting oxides, however, led the research team to develop a new material – a p-type transparent conducting oxide.

I wish I better understood the fundamental limitation of an n-type transparent conducting oxide and how the new p-type transparent conducting oxide addresses that limitation.

After reading the description of p-type materials, it seems to me that electrons also move in that material. From the Wikipedia essay on p-type materials,

The dopant atom accepts an electron, causing the loss of half of one bond from the neighboring atom and resulting in the formation of a “hole”. Each hole is associated with a nearby negatively charged dopant ion, and the semiconductor remains electrically neutral as a whole. However, once each hole has wandered away into the lattice, one proton in the atom at the hole’s location will be “exposed” and no longer cancelled by an electron. [emphasis mine] This atom will have 3 electrons and 1 hole surrounding a particular nucleus with 4 protons. For this reason a hole behaves as a positive charge. When a sufficiently large number of acceptor atoms are added, the holes greatly outnumber thermal excited electrons. Thus, holes are the majority carriers, while electrons become minority carriers in p-type materials.

Well, I am interpreting the “wandering away” bit as a type of movement so I find the descriptions just a bit confusing. As for the holes being the majority carrier in p-type materials, perhaps the electrons in the n-type materials are the majority carriers?

If there’s anyone out there who could help lift the veil of confusion, I would much appreciate it.

For those who don’t need as much handholding as I do, you can find out more about Shvets and his work here.

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International art/science script competition ceremony will be hosted by Trinity College Dublin’s nano centre and STAGE

Monday, January 16th, 2012

CRANN (Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices) at Trinity College Dublin has announced that it will be co-hosting the winner’s ceremony (and a reading of the winning script) for an international scriptwriting contest featuring science- and technology-inspired plays. From the Jan. 11, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

CRANN, the SFI [Science Foundation of Ireland] funded nanoscience centre based at Trinity College Dublin, today announced that it is bringing the STAGE International Script Competition to Ireland during Dublin City of Science 2012. The competition judges will include a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Nobel Laureate.

The STAGE International Script Competition is a unique collaboration between art and science that awards a prize of $10,000 for the best new play about science and technology. STAGE – Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration – began as an alliance between the Professional Artists Lab, a dynamic artistic laboratory, and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Through CRANN’s relationship with CNSI, Dublin has beaten off stiff international competition to bring STAGE to Ireland.

…

As the 2012 City of Science, Dublin will host a programme of science-related events and activities throughout the year. The city will host Europe’s largest science conference, the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012 from July 11-15, 2012, at which the winner of the 5th STAGE International Script Competition will first be announced to the public.

Later in the year, STAGE and CRANN will collaboratively host the award ceremony, at which the winning playwright will receive their STAGE Award from a science Nobel Laureate. In tandem with the ceremony, there will be a staged reading of the winning play, performed by professional Irish actors. Nancy Kawalek, Founder/Director of STAGE, will direct the reading.

Unfortunately, it’s too late for interested parties to submit their plays for this cycle (the 5th); submissions were closed as of Dec. 1, 2011.

The competition certainly seems to have attracted some high profile interest in past years (from the news item on Nanowerk),

Each cycle, the winner of the STAGE International Script Competition is chosen by a stellar panel of judges. Judges for the last cycle were Pulitzer Prize and Tony-Award winning playwright David Auburn; Tony, Olivier, and Obie Award-winning playwright John Guare; Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger; Nobel Laureate and KBE Sir Anthony Leggett; and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. In addition to Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, who has shown his support for STAGE by signing on as a judge ‘in perpetuity’, the judges for this 5th cycle of the competition will include two science Nobel Laureates and two additional distinguished writer-artists from the theatre world. The names of these jurors will be announced in early 2012.

The 3rd cycle winner was a play about Rosalind Franklin; I’ve long been interested in her story and  I mentioned it in a July 28, 2010 post about science-inspired knitting (there’s a ‘Rosalind’ scarf),

For anyone not familiar with Franklin (from the San Diego Super Computer Center at the University of Southern California web page),

There is probably no other woman scientist with as much controversy surrounding her life and work as Rosalind Franklin. Franklin was responsible for much of the research and discovery work that led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. The story of DNA is a tale of competition and intrigue, told one way in James Watson’s book The Double Helix, and quite another in Anne Sayre’s study, Rosalind Franklin and DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for the double-helix model of DNA in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death at age 37 from ovarian cancer.

Here’s a bit more about the 3rd cycle STAGE winner, Photograph 51, from the news item on Nanowerk,

A film version of third STAGE Competition winner Photograph 51 is being produced by Academy Award-nominated director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Academy Award-winning actress Rachel Weisz, and Ari Handel. Playwright Anna Ziegler will adapt her play for the screen. Photograph 51 was featured at the 2011 World Science Festival in New York City; the play has also enjoyed prestigious productions in New York City and Washington, D.C.

 

…

About the Play: What does a woman have to do to succeed in the world of science? It is 1953 and Dr. Rosalind Franklin, brilliant, passionate and ambitious, pours herself into her work at King’s College Lab in London. When fellow scientists Watson and Crick find out about her discoveries in the field of DNA, her work is suddenly not her own – and shortly thereafter they claim credit for a major breakthrough. A compelling drama about a woman’s sacrifice for professional success, Photograph 51 asks how we become who we become, and whether we have any power to change.

I checked the playwright’s, Anna Ziegler, website for more information about the upcoming movie and found this,

Anna has been awarded [April 2011] a Tribeca Film Festival / Sloan Grant to adapt her play PHOTOGRAPH 51 into a film. Rachel Weisz, Ari Handel, Audrey Rosenberg and Darren Aronofsky are producers.

You can find out more about STAGE and other winners of the competition here.

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Posted in nanotechnology, science communication | 1 Comment »

Pretty nanopicture from Ireland

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

'The Hive', taken by Dr David McGovern at Trinity's Nanoscience Institute, CRANN.

The Hive was named the Research Image of the Year for 2011 by the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI). From the Nov. 22, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

The SFI Research Image competition offers SFI-funded researchers the opportunity to submit digital images created during the course of their research. The winning image was taken by Dr. David McGovern under supervision by Professor John Boland, CRANN’s [Center for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices] Director and Principal Investigator from TCD’s [Trinity College of Dublin] School of Chemistry.

The image is of a porous surface of the polymer polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA).  From the Nov. 18,  2011 news release on the Trinity College website,

Porous polymers have the potential to deliver new biocompatible nanodevices or nanotemplates for medical applications and are of significance not only in the biomedical industry but also for materials science.  CRANN’s research on porous polymers, during which the image was taken, has the potential to enable a wide variety of applications including therapeutic devices such as in implants, sutures, prosthetic devices and for drug delivery and wound care.

The image was produced using the Zeiss Auriga Focused Ion Beam (FIB) in CRANN’s Advanced Microscopy Laboratory (AML). The Auriga FIB is the only system in Europe and has the narrowest beam width of any such instrument on the market, enabling image resolution of less than 3 nanometres, approximately 30,000 times smaller than the width of one human hair.

Congratulations Dr. McGovern.

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Irish nanoscience goes to school

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

The ‘Nano in My Life’ educational package for students in the senior or transitional year (TY) was launched today, Nov. 17, 2011, by Trinity College Dublin’s CRANN ( Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices). From the Nov. 17, 2011 news  item on Nanowerk,

The ‘Nano in My Life’ package, for the first time, will bring nanoscience – an area of research at which Ireland excels and which is a key enabler for innovation and economic growth – to the Irish classroom. It will encourage students to relate science subjects to innovative careers, with exciting and challenging applications. There are seven modules, each using a range of teaching and learning approaches, including video captured at CRANN, designed to engage students and encourage active learning.

Approximately 10% of Irish exports (€15 billion) are enabled by nanotechnology with tens of thousands of jobs in the ICT [Information and Communication Technology] and medical devices sectors dependent upon this research. Ireland is ranked 6th in the world for nanoscience research and 8th for materials science research (a branch of nanoscience), with CRANN enabling the majority of this research. Earlier in the week, Prof Jonathan Coleman, Principal Investigator at CRANN and Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics was announced as the ‘Science Foundation Ireland Researcher of the Year’ for 2011.

Commenting on the launch, Mary Colclough, CRANN’s Communications and Outreach Manager said, “There is a real need to introduce secondary school students to cutting-edge nanoscience research which is driving innovation, providing jobs for highly skilled graduates and is now forming an important part of studying science at third level. CRANN is at the cutting edge of nanoscience research, which has the potential to revolutionise a number of industries, so we feel it is important to open students’ eyes to the opportunities that will be available in the future and hopefully inspire the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.”

Teachers are being encouraged to apply for a package by contacting  nanoinmylife@tcd.ie. BTW, I was not aware of highly ranked Irish nanoscience research has become. Bravo!

There is also a Trinity College Dublin (TCD) YouTube channel which features a number Nano in My Life videos including this one,

I wonder when we’re going to see similar science education initiatives in Canada.

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Ireland’s nanotechnology scene

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

I missed this back when it was launched in August 2010: NanoNet Ireland. From the Jan. 17, 2011  news item on Techcentral.ie,

Organisations working with nanoscience from academia and industry have come together to form NanoNet, a single body designed to represent and promote awareness of nanotechnology.

Of €150 billion in goods and services exported by Ireland in 2008, it is estimated 10% were enabled by nanoscience and related nanotechnologies. By focusing on the area of nanotechnology there is the potential to grow this figure to 20% allowing Ireland to take a significant share of an estimated global market of €3 trillion in 2015.

NanoNet brings together the key stakeholders from [the] nano ecoysystem in Ireland which comprises academic institutions, multinational companies and indigenous Irish companies. Ireland has more than 500 companies, both multinational and indigenous, employing approximately 130,000 people in the ICT, medical devices and biopharmaceutical sectors. These companies utilise nanotechnology for continued product innovation and competitiveness.

…

NanoNet is made up of two major nano related consortia. INSPIRE, funded by the HEA, is comprised of internationally leading researchers across ten third level institutions and coordinated by CRANN (TCD), a Science Foundation Ireland funded Centre for Science and Engineering Technology. The recently announced Competence Centre for Applied Nanotechnology (CCAN), funded by Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Agency, includes both leading multi-national companies such as Intel, Analog Devices and Seagate and indigenous Irish companies such as Creganna, Aerogen, Audit Diagnostics and Proxybiomedical. CCAN, hosted by the Tyndall National Institute at UCC and CRANN, together with INSPIRE represents an impressive Nano-ecosystem for Ireland.

In the works for Jan. 31 – Feb. 1, 2011 is a Nanoweek Conference in Carton House, Co. Kildare. From NanoNet Ireland’s Nanoweek conference webpage,

Following the success of Nanoweek 2009 and the INSPIRE-09 National Scientific Meeting, NanoNet Ireland is pleased to announce the second Nanoweek Conference, to be held from the 31st January – 1st February 2011 in Carton House, Co. Kildare.

Nanotechnology is now impacting products and businesses in most major industry sectors. This event will bring together leading Irish and international nanoscience researchers and invited speakers with direct experience in building technology companies from world class nanotechnology research.

The conference will also allow researchers to identify and interact with other leading nanotechnology researchers from Irish research institutes, to meet with funding agency representatives, and to network with and present their work to potential industry partners.

Questions addressed

For researchers

What nanoscience areas are viewed as key for commercial success? Who is working in these areas in Ireland? I want to commercialise my research – what are the first steps I should take? What funding is available? What opportunities exist for collaboration? What expertise are companies seeking? What is the international view of nanoscience commercialisation? What is best practice in technology transfer? What changes have taken place in the funding landscape? – the funding agencies’ view?

For industry attendees

How can nanotechnology help my business? How can nanotechnology improve my competitiveness? How are companies currently using nanotechnology? What nanotechnology expertise is currently available in Ireland? How do I access it? How can I get financial support for the work?

For everyone

How have nanotechnology-enabled ideas been commercialised? Where are the market opportunities? What are the hurdles? What is the investor viewpoint?

Delegate Profiles

Product developers and designers from the medical device, diagnostics and ICT industries.

Manufacturing and quality engineers keen to learn how advanced characterisation tools can help troubleshoot product issues more efficiently.

Nanoscience researchers keen to understand the leading new nanoscience research topics, meet the researchers, understand the commercial possibilities and processes, and network with potential industry partners promote and develop commercial potential of their research.

Investment professionals seeking business opportunities from nanotechnology

I last posted about some of the nanotechnology initiatives in Ireland, Oct. 27, 2010.

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