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The University of Texas at Austin (US) has been selected to receive an $18.5 million grant over the next five years from the National Science Founda- tion (NSF) to create and lead a nanosystems engineering research center. Inside the nanomanufacturing tool for roll-to-roll nanosculpting on plastic substrates. The plastic substrate rolled on the tool consists of the primary film on which nanosculpting takes place to make flex electronic devices, pro- tected by a peelable thinner film as shown.
The Nanomanufacturing Systems for Mobile Computing and Mobile Energy Technologies (NASCENT) will develop innovative nanomanufacturing, nanosculpting and nanometrology systems that could lead to versatile mobile computing devices such as wearable sensors, foldable laptops and rollable batteries.
A University of Arkansas (US) physicist and his colleagues have examined the lower limits of novel materials called complex oxides and discovered that unlike conventional semiconductors the materials not only conduct electricity, but also develop unusual magnetic properties. “Contrary to what we have today in modern microelectronics devices based on silicon, here in a single quantum well, which is just four nanometers thick, we now have several functionalities in one device layer,” said J. Chakhalian, professor of physics and holder of the Charles and Clydene Scharlau Chair in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “Engineers can use this class of material to devise new multifunctional devices based on the electrons’ spin.”
The new structure is based on the concept of correlated charge carriers, like those found in rust, or iron oxide. In rust, if one electron does something, all of the other electrons “know” about it. This phenomenon, called correlated electrons, does not exist in silicon-based materials that run today’s computers, televisions, complex medical equipment, power cell phones and keep the electricity on in homes.
Jian Liu, M. Kareev, D. Meyers, B. Gray, P. Ryan, J. W. Freeland, and J. Chakhalian: Metal-Insulator Transition and Orbital Reconstruction in Mott-Type Quantum Wells Made of NdNiO3, In: Physical Review Letters, Volume 109, Issue 10, September 07, 2012, Article 107402 [5 pages], DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.107402: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.107402
An international, Harvard-led team of researchers have demonstrated a new type of light beam that propagates without spreading outwards, remaining very narrow and controlled along an unprecedented distance. This “needle beam,” as the team calls it, could greatly reduce signal loss for on-chip optical systems and may eventually assist the development of a more powerful class of microprocessors. Based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), US, and the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, CNRS, in France, the applied physicists both characterized and created this needle beam, which travels efficiently at the interface of gold and air.