Berkeley Researchers Make Thermoelectric Breakthrough in Nanowires
Ascribe Newswire, 1/10/2008

Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley. The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE's hydrogen fuel cell-powered "Freedom CAR," and personal powerjackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell phones and other electronic devices. More

Avoiding a Fatal Attraction
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 12/19/2007

Before high-throughput multi-step manufacturing of nanoscale devices can be realized, it will be necessary to achieve reproducible alignment and registration between the template containing the nanoscale elements and the substrate onto which those elements are to be transferred. Researchers in the Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN, Boston), sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF, Arlington, Va.), are working on methods to reproducibly align these two surfaces. More

RPI Researchers Claim Darkest Man-Made CNT
M2 Presswire, 1/22/2008

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University have created the darkest material ever made by man. The material, a thin coating comprised of low-density arrays of loosely vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs), absorbs more than 99.9% of light, and one day could be used to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of solar energy conversion, infrared sensors and other devices. More

Researcher Sells Nanotechnology to Hanwha
Cho Jin-seo, Staff Reporter — Korea Times, 1/10/2008

A Seoul National University team is selling its nanoparticle production technology to Hanwha Chemical for 4.3 billion won (US$4.6M). The team, led by Hyeon Taeg-hwan, a professor of the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, said that it will sign a contract with Hanwha to transfer its know-how and grant an exclusive license to commercialize it. More

MIRAI Researchers Deposit Low-Resistance CNTs
Kenji Tsuda, Asia Contributing Editor — Semiconductor International, 1/3/2008

The Japanese semiconductor research consortium MIRAI announced that its researchers have successfully formed low-resistance carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in vias with a diameter of 160 nm. More

'Nanoflashlights' Spotlight Strained Silicon
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 12/11/2007

"Engineering the strain across a silicon transistor channel 35 nm across is no mean feat," stated Robert Geer, associate professor of nanoscience at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (Albany, N.Y.). While companies like IBM (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.), AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) do this routinely, yet to be solved is how to quickly and reliably measure strain in a nanoscale transistor. A way of doing this is by cutting a piece of it and using a TEM to measure the distance between individual silicon atoms. More

Metrology Drives Nanotech Progress
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 12/1/2007

All aspects of nanotechnology, whether working with MEMS or carbon nanotubes, require a high degree of metrology to enable manufacturing processes and device integration. More

Opening Doors at the Atomic Level
Ruth DeJule, Contributing Editor — Semiconductor International, 12/1/2007

Working to achieve atomic-level understanding and control of the electronic properties of interfaces means exploring new materials and finding the diagnostics to better manipulate electron and spin transport, said David Muller, a professor in the department of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) and team leader at the Cornell Center for Material Research (CCMR). More

Nanowire Process Leaves Lab for Industry
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 11/28/2007

Nanowires are far from being a commodity product; someone wanting them cannot just order them from a chemical company catalog. This may be changed by a process originating from research carried out by Professor Brian Korgel in the chemical engineering department of the University of Texas at Austin, which is now being commercialized by Piñon Technologies (Austin, Texas). More

Nanomaterial Integration Lacks Fundamental Developments
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 11/20/2007

The integration path of nanomaterials is full of uncertainties, as nanotechnology companies often fail to communicate their value to end customers, panelists said at the NanoCon International conference, held late last year in Santa Clara, Calif. Hilary Lackritz, senior staff engineer and program manager of the Advanced Technology Center, Materials and Structures at Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Palo Alto, Calif.), said that her biggest challenge with nanotech suppliers is their lack of understanding of the space industry's requirements. "Companies tell us they have a great technology," she said. "When asked what problem it will solve, they just say that they have a great technology." More

Nanotechnology Facing Patent Labyrinth
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor — Semiconductor International, 11/19/2007

Nanotechnology is advancing at a dizzying rate, but profitable commercialization is being hindered by looming legal issues, as uneven worldwide patent enforcement is forcing companies to resort to trade secrets to protect their hard-won nanotechnology innovations. More