Self-assembling 3D Nanostructures

Roland Piquepaille writes "Chips holding 10 terabits of data? Copper as strong as steel? Ceramics tough enough to be used in car engines? All this will be true in five years, thanks to two new methods to create self-assembling 3D nanostructures. These methods used pulsed laser deposition to create layers of nanodots organized in a matrix. These arrays of nanodots are consistent in shape and size -- 7 nanometers with nickel for example. But the real beauty of these methods is that they can be applied to almost any material, like nickel for data storage or aluminum oxide for ceramics. These methods also reduce drastically imperfections, leading to future superstrong materials. Read more here for other details and an image of a single nickel nanocrystal, or nanodot."

Comments

Mithril blades

[Space cowboy]

So that's it then - the elves had nanotech. It all makes sense now. Looks like steel, feels like steel, but cuts like sinclair molecule chain :-)

I do remember the UK Science minister at the time (Lord Sainsbury, I think it was) who said "Nanotechnology is going to be really BIG". He didn't quite get it, did he... Oh well, science is anathema to most politicians in the UK :-(

Simon

A bit like whats going on at MIT

[Slashbot Hive-Mind]

last I heard, MIT was working on something like this. Just a rumor - can anyone verify?

Spam

[soyuz_2]

Roland Piquepaille is a blogspammer, every day for over a week now, we've had his rehashings of old stories posted on the frontpage. Don't click on the first and the last link in the story.

Re:Spam

[Tim C]

The OP means that this guy gets a number of stories posted every week, all containing links to (amongst other things) his blog.

That's rubbing a fair few people here up the wrong way, and personally I'm not surprised. Slashdot gets so many submissions from so many people, that to have so many accepted by the same person seems a little odd, especially given he always promotes his own site in them. Starts to feel like advertising...

Re:Spam

[GileadGreene]

Trust me, it's been going on for way more than the last week. Somehow Piquepaille has managed to average 1 story every 2-3 days for the past 6 months or more. I don't know how he does it. Kickbacks to the /. editors maybe?

Ceramics

[tuxter]

I haven't RTFA, but ceramics are already used in certain motorcycle engines.

But how does it kill people?

[MacFury]

I guess you could make stronger bullets...How else could it be used to kill people? I'd like to see this technology get funded.

Pffft

[frankthechicken]

I used to have self assembling lego/mechano structures, thanks to my father's need to 'help' me whenever I got a new set.

Already slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Google cache

greatest invention since the lightbulb

[Jotham]

Why is it that every time I read about a scientific breakthrough, journalists always promise that it could lead to... *drumroll*... an improved lightbulb?

I wonder if Einstein had this problem.
E=mc^2... helps us understand the relationship between energy and matter... which could lead to...

Can we use it for the space elivator project?

[bluFox]

The space elivator project needs materials strong enough to with stand the tension of its own weight, and we already have carbon nano fibers that provide 60-70% of the strength needed to make it a reality. If this new technique can get us to the magic strength, we are probably in the threashhold of a new era.

Ok, after reading the article

[nounderscores]

At the moment, "self assembling" means that we don't have to push the nanodots together after we make them. That's all. You still need to ablate a carefully prepared target with a laser to etch the structures we want.

Personally, I'm excited about their solid state lighting idea.

from the article The most interesting application may be the development of energy-efficient, low-cost, solid-state lighting. By creating a matrix of layers of varying sizes of nanodots embedded in a transparent medium such as aluminum oxide, Narayan can create a chip that glows with white light. Solid-state lighting would use about one-fifth the energy of standard fluorescent lighting and last for approximately 50 years.



Looks like my LCD monitor is about to become obsolete: there's no reason why these solid state can't be made the size of a pixel and tied to active matrix display electronics. Maybe the us military might be able to replace their $30,000+ individual soldier helmet monocles which are currently using 5000 hour MTBF organic led technology with durable, bright and efficient nano-leds and save taxpayer money while we're at it.