Tag Archives: quantum dots

Graphene, IBM’s first graphene-based integrated circuit, and the European Union’s pathfinder programme in information technologies

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A flat layer of carbon atoms packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb arrangement, graphene is being touted as a miracle (it seems)  material which will enable new kinds of electronic products. Recently, there have been a number of news items and articles featuring graphene research.

Here’s my roundup of the latest and greatest graphene news. I’m starting with an application that is the closest to commercialization: IBM recently announced the creation of the first graphene-based integrated circuit. From the Bob Yirka article dated June 10, 2011 on physorg.com,

Taking a giant step forward in the creation and production of graphene based integrated circuits, IBM has announced in Science, the fabrication of a graphene based integrated circuit [IC] on a single chip. The demonstration chip, known as a radio frequency “mixer” is capable of producing frequencies up to 10 GHz, and demonstrates that it is possible to overcome the adhesion problems that have stymied researchers efforts in creating graphene based IC’s that can be used in analog applications such as cell phones or more likely military communications.

The graphene circuits were started by growing a two or three layer graphene film on a silicon surface which was then heated to 1400°C. The graphene IC was then fabricated by employing top gated, dual fingered graphene FET’s (field-effect transistors) which were then integrated with inductors. The active channels were made by spin-coating the wafer with a thin polymer and then applying a layer of hydrogen silsequioxane. The channels were then carved by e-beam lithography. Next, the excess graphene was removed with an oxygen plasma laser, and then the whole works was cleaned with acetone. The result is an integrated circuit that is less than 1mm2 in total size.

Meanwhile, there’s a graphene research project in contention for a major research prize in Europe. Worth 1B Euros, the European Union’s 2011 pathfinder programme (Future and Emerging Technologies [Fet11]) in information technology) will select two from six pilot actions currently under way to be awarded a Flagship Initiative prize.  From the Fet11 flagships project page,

FET Flagships are large-scale, science-driven and mission oriented initiatives that aim to achieve a visionary technological goal. The scale of ambition is over 10 years of coordinated effort, and a budget of up to one billion Euro for each Flagship. They initiatives are coordinated between national and EU programmes and present global dimensions to foster European leadership and excellence in frontier research.

To prepare the launch of the FET Flagships, 6 Pilot Actions are funded for a 12-month period starting in May 2011. In the second half of 2012 two of the Pilots will be selected and launched as full FET Flagship Initiatives in 2013.

Here’s the description of the Graphene Science and technology for ICT and beyond pilot action,

Graphene, a new substance from the world of atomic and molecular scale manipulation of matter, could be the wonder material of the 21st century. Discovering just how important this material will be for Information and Communication Technologies is the long term focus of the Flagship Initiative, simply called, GRAPHENE. This aims to explore revolutionary potentials, in terms of both conventional as well as radically new fields of Information and Communication Technologies applications.

Bringing together multiple disciplines and addressing research across a whole range of issues, from fundamental understandings of material properties to Graphene production, the Flagship will provide the platform for establishing European scientific and technological leadership in the application of Graphene to Information and Communication Technologies. The proposed research includes coverage of electronics, spintronics, photonics, plasmonics and mechanics, all based on Graphene.

[Project Team:]

Andrea Ferrari, Cambridge University, UK
Jari Kinaret, Chalmers University, Sweden
Vladimir Falko, Lancaster University, UK
Jani Kivioja, NOKIA, Finland [emphases mine]

Not so coincidentally (given one member of the team is associated with Nokia and another is associated with Cambridge University), the Nokia Research Centre jointly with Cambridge University issued a May 4, 2011 news release (I highlighted it in my May 6, 2011 posting [scroll down past the theatre project information]) about the Morph concept (a rigid, flexible, and stretchable phone/blood pressure cuff/calculator/and  other electronic devices in one product) which they have been publicizing for years now. The news release concerned itself with how graphene would enable the researchers to take the Morph from idea to actuality. The webpage for the Graphene Pilot Action is here.

There’s something breathtaking when there is no guarantee of success about the willingness to invest up to 1B Euros in a project that spans 10 years. We’ll have to wait until 2013 before learning whether the graphene project will be one of the two selected as Flagship Initiatives.

I must say the timing for the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics which went to two scientists (Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov) for their groundbreaking work with graphene sems interesting (featured in my Oct. 7, 2010 posting) in light of this graphene activity.

The rest of these graphene items are about research that could lay the groundwork for future commercialization.

Friday, June 13, 2011 there was a news item about foaming graphene on Nanowerk (from the news item),

Hui-Ming Cheng and co-workers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Metal Research at Shenyang have now devised a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method for turning graphene sheets into porous three-dimensional ‘foams’ with extremely high conductivity (“Three-dimensional flexible and conductive interconnected graphene networks grown by chemical vapour deposition” [published in Nature Materials 10, 424–428 (2011) doi:10.1038/nmat3001 Published online 10 April 2011]). By permeating this foam with a siloxane-based polymer, the researchers have produced a composite that can be twisted, stretched and bent without harming its electrical or mechanical properties.

Here’s an image from the Nature Publishing Group (NPG) of both the vapour and the bendable, twistable, stretchable composite (downloaded from the news item on Nanowerk where you can find a larger version of the image),

A scanning electron microscopy image of the net-like structure of graphene foam (left), and a photograph of a highly conductive elastic conductor produced from the foam. (© 2011 NPG)

The ‘elastic’ conductor (image to the right) reminds me of the ‘paper’ phone which I wrote about May 8, 2011 and May 12, 2011. (It’s a project where teams from Queen’s University [in Ontario] and Arizona State University are working to create flexible screens that give you telephony, music playing and other capabilities  much like the Morph concept.)

Researchers in Singapore have developed a graphene quantum dot using a C60 (a buckminster fullerene). From the June 13, 2011 news item (Graphene: from spheres to perfect dots) on Nanowerk,

An electron trapped in a space of just a few nanometers across behaves very differently to one that is free. Structures that confine electrons in all three dimensions can produce some useful optical and electronic effects. Known as quantum dots, such structures are being widely investigated for use in new types of optical and electronics technologies, but because they are so small it is difficult to fabricate quantum dots reproducibly in terms of shape and size. Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and A*STAR have now developed a technique that enables graphene quantum dots of a known size to be created repeatedly and quickly (“Transforming C60 molecules into graphene quantum dots” [published in Nature Nanotechnology 6, 247–252 (2011) doi:10.1038/nnano.2011.30 Published online 20 March 2011]).

This final bit is about a nano PacMan that allows for more precise patterning from a June 13, 2011 article written by Michael Berger,

A widely discussed method for the patterning of graphene is the channelling of graphite by metal nanoparticles in oxidizing or reducing environments (see for instance: “Nanotechnology PacMan cuts straight graphene edges”).

“All previous studies of channelling behavior have been limited by the need to perform the experiment ex situ, i.e. comparing single ‘before’ and ‘after’ images,” Peter Bøggild, an associate professor at DTU [Danish Technical University] Nanotech, explains to Nanowerk. “In these and other ex situ experiments the dynamic behavior must be inferred from the length of channels and heating time after completion of the experiment, with the rate of formation of the channel assumed to be consistent over the course of the experiment.”

In new work, reported in the June 9, 2011 advance online edition of Nano Letters (“Discrete dynamics of nanoparticle channelling in suspended graphene” [published in Nano Letters, Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/nl200928k, Publication Date (Web): June 9, 2011]), Bøggild and his team report the nanoscale observation of this channelling process by silver nanoparticles in an oxygen atmosphere in-situ on suspended mono- and bilayer graphene in an environmental transmission electron microscope, enabling direct concurrent observation of the process, impossible in ex-situ experiments.

Personally, I love the youtube video I’ve included here largely because it features blobs (as many of these videos do) where they’ve added music and titles (many of these videos do not) so you can better appreciate the excitement,

From the article by Michael Berger,

As a result of watching this process occur live in a transmission electron microscope, the researchers say they have seen many details that were hidden before, and video really brings the “nano pacman” behavior to life …

There’s a reason why they’re so interested in cutting graphene,

“With a deeper understanding of the fine details we hope to one day use this nanoscale channelling behavior to directly cut desired patterns out of suspended graphene sheets, with a resolution and accuracy that isn’t achievable with any other technique,” says Bøggild. “A critical advantage here is that the graphene crystal structure guides the patterning, and in our case all of the cut edges of the graphene are ‘zigzag’ edges.”

So there you have it. IBM creates the first integrated graphene-based circuit, there’s the prospect of a huge cash prize for a 10-year project on graphene so they could produce the long awaited Morph concept and other graphene-based electronics products while a number of research teams around the world continue teasing out its secrets with graphene ‘foam’ projects, graphene quantum dots, and nano PacMen who cut graphene’s zigzag edges with precision.

ETA June 16, 2011: For those interested in the business end of things, i.e. market value of graphene-based products, Cameron Chai features a report, Graphene: Technologies, Applications, and Markets, in his June 16, 2011 news item on Azonano.

California’s call for information about nanomaterials

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A little late but better than never, the US state of California has issued a call for information focused on analytical test methods, i.e., lab procedures for testing, nano silver, nano zero valent iron, nano titanium dioxide, nano zinc oxide, nano cerium oxide, and quantum dots. The deadline for a response is Dec. 21, 2011, one year from the date of the request. From the Dec. 27, 2010 news item on Nanowerk,

DTSC [Department of Toxic Substances Control] has conducted a search of known public sources for analytical test methods for these six nanomaterials. We have compiled our research in this bibliography. DTSC has also contacted and consulted with manufacturers, researchers, environmental laboratory experts, other governments, and stakeholders regarding analytical test methods for these nanomaterials in these matrices. We convened public workshops and symposia on nanotechnology and, in particular, these six nanomaterials.

From our research, consultations, and workshops, we have determined that little or no information on analytical test methods for these nanomaterials in the human body or the environment now exists. To better understand the behavior, fate and transport of the se six nanomaterials, appropriate analytical test methods are needed for manufacturers, for contract and reference laboratories, and for regulatory agencies.

You can get more information about the call from the DTSC site including a list of companies that received the ‘call for information’ letter.

Cadmium nanomaterials and biomagnification in the food chain

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Given the recent uproar over cadmium in our local (British Columbia) oysters, this new study about nanoparticles formed from cadmium selenide and their possible absorption into the aquatic food chain caught my attention. From the Dec. 20, 2010 news item on physorg.com,

“We already knew that the bacteria were internalizing these nanoparticles from our previous study,” Holden [Patricia] said. “And we also knew that Ed (Orias) and Rebecca (Werlin) were working with a protozoan called Tetrahymena and nanoparticles. So we approached them and asked if they would be interested in a collaboration to evaluate how the protozoan predator is affected by the accumulated nanoparticles inside a bacterial prey.” Orias and Werlin credit their interest in nanoparticle toxicity to earlier funding from and participation in the University of California Toxic Substance Research & Training Program.

The scientists repeated the growth of the bacteria with quantum dots in the new study and and coupled it to a trophic transfer study –– the study of the transfer of a compound from a lower to a higher level in a food chain by predation. “We looked at the difference to the predator as it was growing at the expense of different prey types –– ‘control’ prey without any metals, prey that had been grown with a dissolved cadmium salt, and prey that had been grown with cadmium selenide quantum dots,” Holden said.

What they found was that the concentration of cadmium increased in the transfer from bacteria to protozoa and, in the process of increasing concentration, the nanoparticles were substantially intact, with very little degradation. “We were able to measure the ratio of the cadmium to the selenium in particles that were inside the protozoa and see that it was substantially the same as in the original nanoparticles that had been used to feed the bacteria,” Orias said.

The fact that the ratio of cadmium and selenide was preserved throughout the course of the study indicates that the nanoparticles were themselves biomagnified. “Biomagnification –– the increase in concentration of cadmium as the tracer for nanoparticles from prey into predator –– this is the first time this has been reported for nanomaterials in an aquatic environment, and furthermore involving microscopic life forms, which comprise the base of all food webs,” Holden said.

The scientists involved with the study are also associated with the University of California Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN).

As for the local oyster/cadmium situation (from a Dec. 14, 2010 article by Larry Pynn, Postmedia News on Canada.com),

Bendell [Leah Bendell, professor specializing in ecotoxicology at Simon Fraser University, BC] said the Canadian consumption advice barely meets international standards and does not take into account that cadmium levels are higher in “hot spots” in popular B.C. oyster-growing areas such as Baynes Sound near Denman Island, Desolation Sound north of Powell River, and Effingham Inlet at Barkley Sound.

…

One study in 2000 found B.C. oysters reached levels as high as 4.9 parts per million, while a 2004-05 study found levels of up to 3.57 parts per million. A workshop sponsored by Simon Fraser University in May estimated current cadmium levels in B.C. oysters at one to four parts per million.

Europe does not allow the importation of oysters containing more than one part per million of cadmium; Hong Kong’s limit is two parts per million.

The BC Centre for Disease Control states that “levels of cadmium are much lower in oysters elsewhere in the world.”

They are advising local oyster lovers to exercise moderation with regard to eating them.

As for biomagnification and cadmium nanoparticles, here’s what the lead scientist suggested,

“In this context, one might argue that if you could ‘design out’ whatever property of the quantum dots causes them to enter bacteria, then we could avoid this potential consequence,” Holden said. “That would be a positive way of viewing a study like this. Now scientists can look back and say, ‘How do we prevent this from happening?’ ” [emphasis mine]

Rare earths, China, and Nanosys

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There’s been some discussion recently about rare earths in the light of tensions between China and Japan. Here’s a brief description of rare earths for anyone who’s not certain what they are, from the Wikipedia essay on rare earths,

… rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides.

Despite their name, rare earth elements (with the exception of the highly unstable promethium) are relatively plentiful in the Earth’s crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million (similar to copper). However, because of their geochemical properties, rare earth elements are not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms, generally called rare earth minerals. It was the very scarcity of these minerals (previously called “earths”) that led to the term “rare earth”

Here’s what started the tensions (from the NY Times article by Keith Bradsher),

Chinese customs officials abruptly halted the processing of paperwork for shipments bound for Japan on Sept. 21 [2010]. The shipments were halted during an acrimonious dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler that rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels two weeks earlier near islands long controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

Here’s why they’re so important,

Rare earths are vital to the production of a wide range of industrial products, including automobiles, glass, oil refining, computers, smartphones, wind turbines and flat-screen televisions. The military needs them for missiles, sonar systems and the range finders of tanks.

Here are some of the consequences of the ban,

Many factories in China assemble products that require high-tech components from Japan that use rare earths. Some of these factories, which employ large numbers of workers in China, have begun running low on components as Japanese suppliers ran short on some of the more obscure rare earths needed to manufacture them, two rare earth industry executives said.

Electronics industries have been affected, particularly camera manufacturers, leading to a desperate scramble for raw materials that has even included buying tons of obscure rare earth compounds from corporate stockpiles in Europe and airlifting them to Japan.

All 32 of the authorized rare earth exporters in China have refused to increase their shipments to other countries during the unannounced ban on shipments to Japan, making it difficult for Japanese traders to obtain supplies indirectly.

As a result of the blocked shipments, some rare earths now cost up to 10 times as much outside China as inside; the Chinese government has started a vigorous campaign to prevent this from leading to smuggling.

Brasher’s article is very interesting and I do recommend reading all of it.

There has been one other consequence to this concern over a dependency on China’s rare earths (excerpted from the Nov. 23, 2010 article by Ariel Schwartz on Fast Company),

There’s just one problem: The metals are only found in high concentrations in a few sites in China, the U.S., and Australia–and China has threatened to stop exporting its supply. But instead of expanding rare earth metal mines, what if we look for more sustainable replacements?

Enter Nanosys, a company that offers process-ready materials for the LED and energy-storage markets, among other things. Nanosys has been thinking about rare earth material shortages for years, which is why the company manufactures synthetic phosphors out of common materials–not the rare earth materials (i.e. yttrium) usually used in phosphors.

“We make a semiconductor phosphor that employs a nanomaterial called a quantum dot,” explains Nanosys CEO Jason Hartlove. “It’s made out of indium phosphide and phosphorous, and the synthesis process is all in the lab. There’s no heavy metal mining, no destructive mining practices.”

Nanosys’s QuantumRail LED backlighting device is made out of quantum dots, which can purportedly generate brighter and richer colors than their rare earth metal counterparts–all while delivering a higher efficiency and lower cost.

I don’t know how close they are to producing these quantum dots in industrial quantities but the appeal of a process that lessens dependency on resources that have to be mined and/or be used to apply political pressure is undeniable. If you’re interested, you can visit the Nanosys website here.

(They talk about ‘architected’ materials. I view that word with the same enthusiasm I have for ‘impactful’. These people should never be allowed to invent another word, ever again.)

McGill researchers achieve control of quantum dots

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Canadian researchers at McGill University (Montréal, Québec) have achieved engineering control of the piezoelectric effect in quantum dots. From the news release,

The generation of an electric field by the compression and expansion of solid materials is known as the piezoelectric effect, and it has a wide range of applications ranging from everyday items such as watches, motion sensors and precise positioning systems. Researchers at McGill University’s Department of Chemistry have now discovered how to control this effect in nanoscale semiconductors called “quantum dots,” enabling the development of incredibly tiny new products.

Although the word “quantum” is used in everyday language to connote something very large, it actually means the smallest amount by which certain physical quantities can change. A quantum dot has a diameter of only 10 to 50 atoms, or less than 10 nanometres. By comparison, the diameter of the DNA double-helix is 2 nanometres. The McGill researchers have discovered a way to make individual charges reside on the surface of the dot, which produces a large electric field within the dot. This electric field produces enormous piezoelectric forces causing large and rapid expansion and contraction of the dots within a trillionth of a second. Most importantly, the team is able to control the size of this vibration.

Cadmium Selenide quantum dots can be used in a wide range of technological applications. Solar power is one area that has been explored, but this new discovery has paved way for other nanoscale device applications for these dots. This discovery offers a way of controlling the speed and switching time of nanoelectronic devices, and possibly even developing nanoscale power supplies, whereby a small compression would produce a large voltage.

The research was published in Nano Letters (behind a paywall).

Nickel quantum dots and solar cells

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Replacing gold with nickel in quantum dot solar cells could reduce costs by 40% – 80%. Researchers at the University of Toronto have shown that it is possible to do this. From the news item on Azonano,

At first, nickel did not appear to do the job. “It was intermixing with our quantum dots, forming a compound that blocked the current flow from the device,” says Dr. Ratan Debnath, first author on the group’s paper [in the July 12, 2010 issue of Applied Physics Letters]. Adding just one nanometer of lithium fluoride between the nickel and the dots created a barrier that stopped the contamination, and the cell’s efficiency jumped back up to the expected level.

This is the latest of several recent solar-cell milestones by the Canadian researchers. “We have been able to increase dramatically the efficiency of our photovoltaics over the last several years and continue to hold the performance world records,” Professor [Ted] Sargent said.

In addition to making solar cells cheaper to produce, the group is working on increasing the cells’ power-conversion efficiency to 10% before attempting commercialization.

At last, Fast Company and IEEE’s Nanoclast brought together—by quantum computing

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Addy Dugdale at Fast Company has written an article about one of the latest advances toward quantum computing,

Quantum computing just got a little bit closer, after an Australian team of researchers unveiled a seven-atom transistor. Measuring just four billionths of a meter and embedded in a single silicon crystal, it acts as a switch on a chip and paves the way for faster processing in an even smaller package. The team, from the Centre of Quantum Technology at the University of New South Wales, did the tricky stuff by hand, which means that commercial versions of their breakthrough will be at least five years away.

The research is pretty exciting stuff and Dexter Johnson (Nanoclast at the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]) helps put the feat into perspective,

The quantum computer is one of those technologies that gets held out as some sort of Holy Grail and remains just as elusive with those who have claimed to have achieved it being regarded with a high degree of skepticism.

One avenue that has been pursued in realizing a solid-state quantum computer has been the use of quantum dots as the building block.

Quantum dots are a strange phenomenon. Spectrum [an IEEE publication] Editor, Eric Guizzo, described them nicely in the quantum computer application as …

So as not to copy Dexter’s entire post here, let’s just say quantum dots can make the process of calculating much faster. But there are problems with using quantum dots as was noted in my May 12, 2010 posting about research at McGill University,

Dr. Peter Grütter, McGill’s Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Education, Faculty of Science, explains that his research team has developed a cantilever force sensor that enables individual electrons to be removed and added to a quantum dot and the energy involved in the operation to be measured.

Being able to measure the energy at such infinitesimal levels is an important step in being able to develop an eventual replacement for the silicon chip in computers – the next generation of computing. Computers currently work with processors that contain transistors that are either in an on or off position – conductors and semi-conductors – while quantum computing would allow processors to work with multiple states, vastly increasing their speed while reducing their size even more.

One other important feature noted in the research from McGill is that several dots may be piled on top of each other in such a way that there appears to be only one dot. Measuring the energy would allow researchers to recognize that situation. Maybe the folks in Australia and at McGill could work together? Of course that won’t fix everything as Dexter points out after the lead Australian researcher, Michelle Y. Simmonds, notes the importance of her team’s work,

The research, which was initially published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, marks the first time that it has been possible to dictate the placement and behavior of single atoms within a transistor, according to Simmons.

“We’re basically controlling nature at the atomic scale,” Simmons is quoted as saying. “This is one of the key milestones in building a quantum computer.”

[back to Dexter]

Well, there are issues such as entanglement, the coupling between quibits, to be addressed, but it is a step towards quantum computers.

Darwin theme: Rap about Darwin & evolutionary biology and Darwinism in quantum dots

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You wouldn’t expect someone with this pedigree,

… Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham since July 2001. … is dually qualified as a scientist (PhD) and as a medic/clinical bacteriologist (MBBS, MRCPath), and benefits from Research-Council funding for both bioinformatics and laboratory-based molecular bacteriology projects. His interests focus on bacterial pathogenesis and the exploitation of sequence data, particularly genome sequence data.

to commission a piece of rap music but that’s just what Professor Mark Pallen did last year to honour Darwin’s anniversary (150 years since the publication of Darwin’s theory and 200 years isnce his birth). He contacted Baba Brinkman, a Vancouver, Canada -based rap artist, to commission a series of raps about Darwin and evolutionary biology. The project has become The Rap Guide to Evolution. You can find more about the work at Pasco Phronesis (thank you for the pointer) which also features a number of Brinkman’s videos. There’s also a Brinkman ‘evolutionary’ video on the CBC 3 (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) site. In that video, Brinkman spontaneously adds some lines to his rap. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to improvise while you’re presenting for any length of time but it’s not easy and Brinkman actually manages to do this while rhyming about evolutionary biology in front of an audience that’s somewhere between 200 and 500 people (I can’t be sure of the number).

There are some places I don’t expect to see any mention of the theory of evolution and quantum theory is one of those places. From the news item on physorg.com,

Physicists have found new evidence that supports the theory of quantum Darwinism, the idea that the transition from the quantum to the classical world occurs due to a quantum form of natural selection. By explaining how the classical world emerges from the quantum world, quantum Darwinism could shed light on one of the most challenging questions in physics of the past century.

The basis of almost any theoretical quantum-to-classical transition lies in the concept of decoherence. In the quantum world, many possible quantum states “collapse” into a single state due to interactions with the environment. To quantum Darwinists, decoherence is a selection process, and the final, stable state is called a “pointer state.” Although pointer states are quantum states, they are “fit enough” to be transmitted through the environment without collapsing and can then make copies of themselves that can be observed on the macroscopic scale. Although everything in our world is quantum at its core, our classical view of the universe is ultimately determined by these pointer states.

How researchers have used quantum dots  to provide evidence of quantum Darwinism and the link from quantum physics to classical physics is covered in the rest of the news item. The researchers’ study is published here,

A.M. Burke. “Periodic Scarred States in Open Quantum Dots as Evidence of Quantum Darwinism.” Physical Review Letters 104, 176801 (2010). Doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.176801

Quantum kind of day: metaphors, language and nanotechnology

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I had a bonanza day on the Nanowerk website yesterday as I picked up three items, all of which featured the word ‘quantum’ in the title and some kind of word play or metaphor.

From the news item, Quantum dots go with the flow,

Quantum dots may be small. But they usually don’t let anyone push them around. Now, however, JQI [Joint Quantum Institute] Fellow Edo Waks and colleagues have devised a self-adjusting remote-control system that can place a dot 6 nanometers long to within 45 nm of any desired location. That’s the equivalent of picking up golf balls around a living room and putting them on a coffee table – automatically, from 100 miles away.

There’s a lot of detail in this item which gives you more insight (although the golf ball analogy does that job very well) into just how difficult it is to move a quantum dot and some of the problems that had to be solved.

Next, A quantum leap for cryptography,

To create random number lists for encryption purposes, cryptographers usually use mathematical algorithms called ‘pseudo random number generators’. But these are never entirely ‘random’ as the creators cannot be certain that any sequence of numbers isn’t predictable in some way.

Now a team of experimental physicists has made a breakthrough in random number generation by applying the principles of quantum mechanics to produce a string of numbers that is truly random.

‘Classical physics simply does not permit genuine randomness in the strict sense,’ explained research team leader Chris Monroe from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland in the US. ‘That is, the outcome of any classical physical process can ultimately be determined with enough information about initial conditions. Only quantum processes can be truly random — and even then, we must trust the device is indeed quantum and has no remnant of classical physics in it.’

This is a drier piece (I suspect that’s due to the project itself) so the language or word play is in the headline. I immediately thought of a US tv series titled, Quantum Leap where, for five seasons, a scientist’s personality/intellect/spirit is leaping into people’s bodies, randomly through time. There are, according to Wikipedia, two other associations, a scientific phenomenon and a 1980s era computer. You can go here to pursue links for the other two associations. This is very clever in that you don’t need to have any associations to understand the base concept in the headline but having one or more association adds a level or more of engagement.

The final item, Scientists climb the quantum ladder,

An EU [European Union]-funded team of scientists from Cardiff University in the UK has successfully fired photons (light particles) into a small tower of semiconducting material. The work could eventually lead to the development of faster computers. …

The scientists, from the university’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said a photon collides with an electron confined in a smaller structure within the tower. Before the light particles re-emerge, they oscillate for a short time between the states of light and matter.

While I find this business of particles oscillating between two different states, light and matter, quite fascinating this particular language play is the least successful. I think most people will do what I did and miss the relationship between the ‘tower’ in the news item’s first paragraph and the ‘ladder’ in the headline. I cannot find any other attempt to play with either linguistic image elsewhere in the item.

Given that I’m  a writer I’m going to argue that analogies, metaphors, and word play are essential when trying to explain concepts to audiences that may not have your expertise and that audience can include other scientists. Here’s an earlier posting about some work by a cognitive psychologist, Kevin Dunbar, who investigates how scientists think and communicate.

Quantum dots possibly toxic? And a followup to the Canadian 2009 budget and Genome Canada

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After last week’s (and continuing into this week) excitement over Canadian scientists creating the smallest quantum dot ever, there’s an article about possible toxicity in Science Daily here. The gist of the article is that quantum dots which are used in solar cells, medical imaging devices, and elsewhere could decompose during use or after they’re disposed. In any event, the decomposed dots could release metals that are toxic when they are exposed to acidic and/or alkaline environments. According to the article, there’s no need to sound an alarm yet but it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the situation.

I made a comment abut mapping genomes when discussing the science funding cuts in the Canadian budget which featured Genome Canada’s complete disappearance [from the budget].  I referred to a comment by Denise Caruso (she was featured in a Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies webcast discussing synthetic biology here). I’ve reviewed the webcast and found that she wasn’t referring to genome mapping per se but was discussing something called the Encode Study which was four years long and funded by the Human Genome Project. It featured an international consortium of 80 organizations that were working together to create an encyclopedia of DNA elements. Here’s a rough transcription of her comments,

We have no idea what we’re talking about here. The genes don’t operate the way we thought they did. The genome is not a tidy collection of independent genes where the sequence of DNA does this [action] and always does this so we can put it on a shelf [and have it on a] parts inventory list. [The genes] operate within networks. What they [study participants] said was almost 180 degrees opposite to what we have believed for quite some time.

Rick Weiss who was interviewing her went on to describe how a genes that are seemingly unrelated signal each other in ways that we had not expected. Who knows how it all works in the environment i.e. when you get out of the lab?

So getting back to my original point, mapping is fine but it’s not the most primary goal. As per the webcast, it’s the relationships or networks that are important.

A quick note: the University of Virginia has a virtual lab that features information and podcasts about nano. You can go here to see it.