Materials Science Toys on Display

BoringNitride writes "Nanotech tool vendors hawked their wares to innovative engineers at the spring meeting of the Materials Research Society this week at San Francisco's Moscone Center. Wired took a break from presentations on molecular motors and the mechanical properties of human skin to take a walk across the showroom floor. They captured close-ups of some of the most precise molecule-building and measurement tools in the world."

Comments

Homebrew nanotechnology projects

[the_kanzure]

Check this out:
* STM/AFM machines for $100 - use a very finely pointed wire to scan across a surface at tens of thousands of atoms per second (raster scanning) to visualize the super small. Hear anything about nanolithography? Hop to it.
* STM-based DNA sequencing [nanopores?]. Rumor has it that ZS Genetics is going to be doing this by the end of 2008.
* DIY graphene transistors -- this was the subject of a recent article. Might be better than semiconductor nanocrystal synthesis (like Kovio). You can do this a few ways, such as punching holes in graphene (very dense pencil marks), or scanning probe lithography, chemical etchants like in si fabbing, etc.
* Have I missed anything?

Off-topic: other alternate transistors like LiquiFET, etc.