11-04 :: April/May 2011

nanotimes News in Brief

chers then generate an inverse tool that they use as a die. A die like this can then be used to launch mass production of the lenses: simply take a glass substrate, apply liquid polymer, press the die down into it and expose the polymer layer to UV light. In a process similar to the dentist’s method of using UV light to harden fillings, here, too, the polymer hardens in the shape the die has printed into it. What remains are tiny lenses on the glass substrate. “Because we can mass-produce the lenses, they’re really pretty low-cost,” Wippermann adds.

Researchers have already produced a first proto- type and will be showcasing it at the LASER World of PHOTONICS trade fair in Munich, from May 23-26. Boasting an image size of 36 x 24 mm², this microscope can capture matchbox-sized objects in a single pass. It will be at least another one to two years before the device can go into series produc- tion, according to the researcher. The spectrum of applications is diverse: with this technology, even documents can be examined for authenticity.

STM image (50 x 50 nm2 http://www.iof.fraunhofer.de ) of organic molecules. Coloring indicates variable spin orientation. © CFN

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as they allow for the production of very small and highly efficient magnetic field sensors for read heads in hard disks or for non-volatile memories in order to further increase reading speed and data density.

For the first time, a team of scientists from German KIT and the Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg (IPCMS) have now suc- ceeded in combining the concepts of spin electro- nics and molecular electronics in a single compo- nent consisting of a single molecule. Components based on this principle have a special potential,

Use of organic molecules as electronic components is being investigated extensively at the moment. Miniaturization is associated with the problem of the information being encoded with the help of the charge of the electron (current on or off). However, this requires a relatively high amount of energy. In spin electronics, the information is encoded in the intrinsic rotation of the electron, the spin. The advantage is that the spin is maintained even when