Zyvex Atomically Precise Manufacturing effort has $15 million in funding

Zyvex's Atomically Precise Manufacturing effort has $15 million in funding.

The project is part of the Atomically Precise Manufacturing Consortium led by Zyvex Labs LLC, a molecular nanotechnology company based in Richardson, Texas. The project includes a mixture of funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and cost sharing from the team members.

“Increasing the precision of manufacturing has driven both technology and science for the past couple of centuries and what we are doing is just an extension of that drive,” said John Randall, vice president of Zyvex Labs, the prime contractor for the research project. “What is revolutionary is having digital control over where we add atoms to a robust solid material. The unique expertise of Professors, Wallace, Chabal and Cho will be key to our success in this program.”

In addition to UT Dallas and Zyvex, the research team includes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of North Texas, the University of Central Florida, the University of Texas at Austin, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, General Dynamics, Molecular Imprints Inc. and Integrated Circuit Scanning Probe Instruments.

Funded for $1.8 million over the next four-and-a-half years, the UT Dallas team also includes Yves Chabal, head of the Jonsson School’s new Materials Science and Engineering Department and holder of the Texas Instruments Distinguished University Chair in Nanoelectronics, and K.J. Cho, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and physics.

The Atomically Precised Manufacturing Project currently consists of three coordinated efforts: Micro Automation, Molecularly Precise Tools, and Patterned Atomic Layer Epitaxy.

Zyvex presented their APM plan at the Productive Nanosystems: Launching the Technology Roadmap a conference held by the Society of Mechanical Engineering

Atomic layer deposition builds amorphous materials; atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) builds crystalline materials. Start with a protected (passivated) surface: every available bond has a hydrogen atom. If you deprotect the surface, removing the hydrogen, then you can deposit a layer of atoms. If you choose the right precursor gas, you add only one monolayer which is protected as it's added. Then you can deprotect and add exactly one more layer of atoms. There are a number of precursor gases available. There are literally hundreds of systems to grow things with atomic precision in one dimension.

Now, if you combine this with the ability to deprotect the surface in selected locations... With a scanning tunneling microscope, you can remove single hydrogen atoms with atomic precision. If you do this layer by layer, you can build 3D structures. Prof. Joe Lyding at University of Illinois has done repeated desorption/deposition.

Known as atomically precise manufacturing, the technique is expected to enable a wide variety of devices and products, including:

-Ultra-low-power semiconductors for cellphones and other wireless communications.
Sensors with ultra-high sensitivity.
-Data encryption orders of magnitude more secure than existing technology.
-Optical elements that enable unprecedented performance in computing and communications.
-Customized surfaces that would have an array of applications in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.
-Nanoscale genomics arrays that would enable a person’s complete genetic sequence to be read in less than two hours.

FURTHER READING
Zyvex's research activities

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All molecular DNA Nanotechnology construction

A group at the California Institute of Technology, led by biomolecular engineer Niles Pierce, has created a DNA-based fabricator. This is a huge development in being able to program the reactions in biochemistry.

This is a system that allows the team to specify a piece of DNA with a desired shape and function, and then execute a molecular program to assemble it in a test tube. As an example, they used their system to construct a piece of DNA that walks along another strip of DNA. The researchers behind the approach predict that biochemical programming "languages" inspired by their work could let bioengineers create any number of desired molecular products and processes.

At the heart of the group's system are hairpin-shaped strands of DNA each about 10 nanometers long with three specific binding sites called "toeholds".

These hairpins can snap together in specific ways. When a hairpin is closed, for example, two out of its three binding sites are unavailable. But, if a suitable strand of DNA docks with it, the hairpin springs open.

A reaction between two DNA strands can also free up the exposed site on an attached hairpin, causing it to close once more.

In computer terms, the hairpins act as interconnected logic gates. "This elementary unit has one input port and two output ports," says Pierce. "And they can interact – the input port of one can receive an input from the output port of another."

The group has also developed a graphical way to represent the state of these molecular building blocks and the step-by-step interactions between them. These "reaction graphs" allow them to map out the assembly and disassembly steps needed to produce a desired sequence of reactions.

The necessary reactions are then translated into specific sequences of complementary DNA base pairs with the requisite binding characteristics. Finally, the program runs in a test tube that contains the specified mix of molecules.

Still, he says, a few years ago audience members laughed when he said he wanted to create a compiler to automate the process of encoding desired functions into DNA sequences. "Our field has now progressed to the point where the real question is not whether it can be done, but how far it can be pushed."

Some of Pierce's peers believe this kind of systematic biomolecular programming can be pushed very far indeed.

"It's great work," says computer scientist Erik Winfree, who is also at based Caltech, but was not involved with the work. "What's remarkable is that it develops a general way of creating a very diverse set of chemical reaction pathways. It opens a lot of doors."

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More energy efficient molecular machines

From physorg.com, R. Dean Astumian, a Physics Professor at the University of Maine, has recently proposed a concept in which molecular machines can operate arbitrarily close to chemical equilibrium at every instant of the cycle, and still perform work at the rate of several micrometers per second against piconewton loads. The study, “Adiabatic operation of a molecular machine,” is published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Illustration of the possible transitions for a catenane structure that consists of one large ring with three stations for two small rings. The two small rings move around the large ring to bind at a station. Each binding state is favored by a different energetic condition, as indicated. ©2007 PNAS. Image credit: R. Dean Astumian

“The main significance is conceptual – it changes the way we think about molecular motors,” Astumian told PhysOrg.com. “Much emphasis has been put on the ‘non-equilibrium’ aspects of the system, but in fact this is not really important. The motion of the rings here arises due to a combination of topology that break spatial symmetry, and the slow external modulation that breaks time symmetry. It is also important to recognize that, in the molecular world, we can truly have motors that operate with nearly 100% efficiency.”

Astumian’s example of such a molecular machine is a three-ring “catenane” structure that serves as a rotating motor. The catenane, about 3 nanometers in diameter, consists of one large ring with two smaller rings linked to the large ring, like rings on a keychain. Three binding stations on the large ring provide locations where the two small rings can bind, depending on the interaction energy between ring and station.

Astumian gets the small rings to move clockwise from station to station around the large ring, a movement that results in mechanical cycling. Further, he achieves this movement without any heat gain or heat loss and without a change of entropy, but simply by thermal noise due to Brownian motion. This type of “adiabatic” system is arbitrarily close to equilibrium at every point of the cycle.

The key to making the small rings move from station to station is by periodically modulating the interaction energy. The rings will bind to the station that requires the lowest interaction energy. This modulation must be done slowly enough not to generate heat, but at a sufficient rate to produce significant work.


He also mentions that there might be more creative architectures where counter-clockwise motions don’t undo the clockwise motions. He likens this mechanism to a ratcheting screwdriver used to drive a screw. When the ratchet turns counter-clockwise to reset itself, it releases so that it doesn’t undo the forward turn of the screw. Although a molecular machine would use thermal noise instead of external torque, the concept is similar. In the molecular machine, one of the small rings could be fixed to prevent counterclockwise motion.

“I would say that the biggest challenge is to arrange the molecules on a surface so that the movement can be used to do work on the outside world,” Astumian said. He added that the chemical structures have already been synthesized by David Leigh at the University of Edinburgh, as the next step in the development of the machines.

this system requires a fine balance between modulating slowly enough so that the system is in chemical and mechanical equilibrium at every instant, but rapidly enough to perform substantial work.

“I plan to extend the theory to explain the mechanism of biological motors,” Astumian said.

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Commercializing Micro-Nanotechnology Products book

The new book from CRC Press features a chapter written by Zyvex founder Jim Von Ehr: “Zyvex Corporation: Providing Nanotechnology Solutions today.” The chapter discusses Zyvex’s Instruments and Materials product lines, our partners, processes, and corporate focus. It also contains a section on Zyvex’s vision for atomically precise manufacturing and the 2001 NIST-ATP grant for “Assemblers for Nanotechnology Applications and Manufacturing: Enabling the Nanotechnology Era.”

The book begins by detailing the steps required to turn an idea into a marketable product. The editors give examples of previously successful products and relate to their own experiences in development. Next, the text focuses on the importance of entrepreneurship and the required steps to finance and develop a marketing strategy. It contains various definitions of nanotechnology and how each relates to roadmap and production issues. Three detailed case studies from the leading MNT development and manufacturing companies describe how each venture started and progressed to become a market leader. These studies offer valuable insight into overcoming the challenges related to achieving financial backing and specifying the right product for development.

Chapter 1: The Path to Commercialization
Chapter 2: Entrepreneurships role in Commercializing Micro-nanotechnology products
Chapter 3: Roadmapping Nanotechnology
Chapter 4: Technology transfer of nanotechnology products from US Universities
Chapter 5: Commercialization strategies for Public research organizations
Chapter 6: Market Analysis and growth for Micro-nanotechnology products
Chapter 7: Oxonica PLC - A leading UK nanotechnology firm : Kevin Matthews
Chapter 8: Zyvex Corporation - providing nanotechnology solutions today: Jim Von Ehr
Chapter 9: microParts GmbH - History of a successful German Microsystems based business. Reiner Wechsung
Chapter 10: Shaping the Future
Oxonica is one of the leading international nanomaterials groups with products already launched into international markets. Oxonica’s business model is to focus on its strength in identifying market opportunities, securing intellectual property and introducing new technology to market. The company has four operating divisions: Oxonica Energy, Oxonica Healthcare, Oxonica Materials and Oxonica Security.

Oxonica has 60 staff. O2Q:London Stock Exchange. 1.4 Billion market capitalization. $20 million in revenue in 2006.

Commercialised products are:
Envirox™ Fuel Borne Catalyst – a fuel borne nanocatalyst for diesel engines which reduces fuel consumption with savings of 5-10% and reduces particulate emissions by up to 15%. The product has already been adopted by Stagecoach Group in the UK and is distributed by DMX Technology Corporation to petroleum companies in the Philippines for use in a premium diesel.

Optisol™ UV Absorber – a photostable UV absorber that provides enhanced and longer lasting protection against UVA in sun-care and anti-ageing products. Optisol™ also reduces the formation of free radicals produced from exposure to the sun and which are implicated in premature skin ageing. Boots Group plc is the first to incorporate Optisol™ in their new Soltan Facial Sun Defense Cream for 2005.

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Eight Molecular Manufacturing scenarios

Eight molecular manufacturing scenarios that I had some involvement in creating are online at nanowerk and at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

The one that I had the most involvement in is the "Positive Expectations" scenario It has the development of better and better fabbers/rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing that lead towards nanofactories.

For those who follow my blog, I feel that molecular manufacturing will be one pillar technology among many that will transform our technological future.

Key projects for the future:
Dwave's Quantum computers and if they don't work so well there are other quantum computer methods that are also coming. Quantum computers for molecular simulation will accelerate the development of molecular manufacturing.

Near atomic precision and not quite nanofactory nanotechnology. DNA nanotechnology, quantum dots, quantum wells, nanopatterning, synthetic biology are transforming medicine and many other applications.

Radical Life extension. SENS. If we also have full blown nanomedicine then improvement and change will be a lot faster.

Thermoelectric power. Up to double the efficiency of engines and energy systems. Uses quantum wells and nanoscale structures. It will transform transportation and clean up our technology by allowing us to eliminate coal and reduce oil usage.

Nuclear power. Fission and soon fusion (bussard, colliding beam, Z-pinch). 50% power uprates and new fission reactor technology (along with thermoelectric conversion) will rapidly clean up our power sources.

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New fast and cheap nanosoldering technique

Nanowerk reports on the work of Alex Zettl

"Our radically different approach of directly contacting nanostructures via nanosoldering is simple and relies on cheap, well-established technologies: optical microscopy and micromanipulation. We realized that we could produce sub 100 nm solder spikes, used to contact nanostructures, by a simple technique. Much as a glass-blower can pull out very thin filaments from molten glass, we were able to pull out very narrow solder spikes from a molten indium bead. By regulating the extraction speed and temperature gradient, the end of this spike had a radius of curvature as small as 50 nm. None of this is expensive to implement."

The Berkeley researchers are confident that their soldering technique is a highly attractive alternative for industry in fabrication processes where nanostructures need to be electrically contacted. Their process is not only simple, it also is only a fraction of the cost of state-of-the-art e-beam systems. All that is needed for nano-soldering is a good optical microscope and a micromanipulator – two instruments that can be bought for about $10,000. Compare that to a $4+ million EBL system, and consider that the lithography equipment supplied to the semiconductor industry runs an annual $5-8 billion, the potentially substantial cost savings for industry become obvious.

Girit is convinced that the soldering process could be totally automated for mass production. "A similar technique, called wirebonding, already exists to 'solder' to much larger structures" he says. "While this technique cannot be used to contact nanostructures themselves, it is widely used in the semiconductor industry as a way to electrically connect intermediaries, called 'bond pads', which are roughly tens of microns in size, to the outside world. In turn, the nanostructures are connected to the bond pads by standard lithographic techniques. Wirebonders could easily be adapted for nanosoldering, skipping the intermediate lithographic steps, saving time and money. In addition, automated wirebonders already exist, and so it is not difficult to imagine that our technique could be automated for mass production."

In their research paper the two Berkeley scientists demonstrate that solder contacts are a simple, efficient means of producing functional nanostructure devices based on graphene, nanotubes, or other materials. Not only the contacts are Ohmic, but also the resultant devices are clean and the device characteristics are consistent.
Possible application areas might be specifically the wirebonding industry to produce 'nano-wirebonders,' and more generally the semiconductor industry for various fabrication purposes.

FURTHER READING
The research paper on nanosoldering is here

This is the same research group that created a nanoradio

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Nanotube-producing bacteria show manufacturing promise

The research team believes this is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. It opens the door to the possibility of cheaper and more environmentally friendly manufacture of electronic materials


Genus Shewanella. The nanotube filaments produced by biological means could point toward semiconductor manufacturing processes with a smaller energy and environmental footprint. Image credit: Hor-Gil Hur, GIST

The photoactive arsenic-sulfide nanotubes produced by the bacteria behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties. The researchers report that these properties may also provide novel functionality for the next generation of semiconductors in nano- and opto-electronic devices.

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Foresight, Battelle, Waite Family Foundation and others have released the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

CORRECTION: The Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems has finally been released. Many groups were involved in the creation of the report. It was organized and led by Battelle with:

Technical Leadership team
K. Eric Drexler, Nanorex;
Alex Kawczak, Battelle Memorial Institute;
John Randall, Zyvex Labs

Project Management Team
Alex Kawczak, Battelle Memorial Institute;
K. Eric Drexler, Nanorex;
John Randall, Zyvex Labs;
Pearl Chin, Foresight Nanotech Institute;
Jim Von Ehr, Zyvex Labs

Editors
K. Eric Drexler, Nanorex;
John Randall, Zyvex Labs;
Stephanie Corchnoy, Synchrona;
Alex Kawczak, Battelle Memorial Institute;
Michael L. Steve, Battelle Memorial Institute

I have looked over the reports. They are useful and quite comprehensive.

Some of the newer nanopatterning methods need to be included.

Nanopantography is for splitting an ion beam into one billion beams repeating the same work.

A big impact application area is quantum wells and quantum dots for thermoelectric technology.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Part 1—The Road Map

* Introduction
* Atomic Precision: What, Why, and How?
* Atomically Precise Manufacturing
* Atomically Precise Components and Systems
* Modeling, Design, and Characterization
* Applications
* Agenda for Research and Call to Action

Part 2—Topics in Detail

* Components and Devices
* Systems and Frameworks
* Fabrication and Synthesis Methods
* Modeling, Design, and Characterization

Part 3—Working Group Proceedings [14.5 MB]

* Atomically Precise Fabrication
* Nanoscale Structures and Fabrication
* Motors and Movers
* Design, Modeling, and Characterization
* Applications

Technical reports are
Atomically Precise Fabrication
01 Atomically Precise Manufacturing Processes
02 Mechanosynthesis
03 Patterned ALE Path Phases
04 Numerically Controlled Molecular Epitaxy
05 Scanning Probe Diamondoid Mechanosynthesis [not Atomistic Modeling of Nanoscale Systems, this correction is from the author Robert Freitas]
06 Limitations of Bottom-Up Assembly
07 Nucleic Acid Engineering
08 DNA as an Aid to Self-Assembly
09 Self-Assembly
10 Protein Bioengineering Overview
11 Synthetic Chemistry
12 A Path to a Second Generation Nanotechnology
13 Atomically Precise Ceramic Structures
14 Enabling Nanoscience for Atomically-Precise Manufacturing of Functional Nanomaterials
Nanoscale Structures and Fabrication
15 Lithography and Applications of New Nanotechnology
16 Scaling Up to Large Production of Nanostructured Materials
17 Carbon Nanotubes
18 Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
19 Oligomer with Cavity for Carbon Nanotube Separation
20 Nanoparticle Synthesis
21 Metal Oxide Nanoparticles
Motors and Movers
22 Biological Molecular Motors for Nanodevices
23 Molecular Motors, Actuators, and Mechanical Devices
24 Chemotactic Machines
Design, Modeling, and Characterization
25 Atomistic Modeling of Nanoscale Systems
26 Productive Nanosystems: Multi-Scale Modeling and Simulation
27 Thoughts on Prospects for New Characterization Tools
28 Characterization/Instrumentation Capabilities for Nanostructured Materials
Applications
29 Nanomedicine Roadmap: New Technology and Clinical Applications
30 Applications for Positionally Controlled Atomically Precise Manufacturing Capability
31 Piezoelectrics and Piezo Applications
32 Fuel Cell Electrocatalysis: Challenges and Opportunities
33 Atomic Precision Materials Development in PEM Fuel Cells
34 Hydrogen Storage
35 The Potential of Atomically Precise Manufacturing in Solid State Lighting
36 Towards Gaining Control of Nanoscale Components and Organization of Organic
Photovoltaic Cells
37 Impact of Atomically Precise Manufacturing on Transparent Electrodes
38 Atomically Precise Fabrication for Photonics: Waveguides, Microcavities
39 Impact of Atomically Precise Manufacturing on Waveguide Applications

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More technical details on Dwave System's Quantum Computing

D-Wave Senior Scientist and condensed matter physicist Mohammad Amin gave a highly technical presentation at MIT. (54 slides in this power point presentation) Dwave recently demonstrated a 28 qubit computer. They are predicting that they will have 512 qubit and 1024 qubit quantum computer systems in 2008. If Dwave is successful then in 2009 it will begin to greatly accelerate the development of molecular nanotechnology which needs better molecular modeling.


Adiabatic quantum computer (AQC) required conditions


AQC Theory from 2001 requires an energy gap


AQC Theory predicts energy levels


Experimental measurements show energy levels consistent with quantum noise


Experimental measurements fit the theory


What the difference regions of quantum effects, mixed effects and classical effects would be


Interpreting several Measurements


The experimental results are indicating that Dwave is looking at quantum results

FURTHER READING
The point of view of Dwave skeptic Scott Aaronson

Amin and Berkley maintained that their 16-qubit device was indeed a quantum computer and their evidence was that simulations of its behavior that took quantum mechanics into account gave, they said, a better fit to the data than simulations that didn’t. On the other hand, they said they were not able to test directly for the presence of any quantum effect such as entanglement. (They agreed that entanglement was a non-negotiable requirement for quantum computing.)

Dwave CTO Geordie Rose replies in the comments

Finally, the variety of demos we’ve run (including sudoku, image matching, etc.) are not “crap”. They use a novel hybrid approach to integrating QCs into classical solvers. In hindsight it is pretty obvious that to make any QC useful it needs to be integrated with the best known classical techniques regardless of what quantum algorithm it’s embodying. And while I’ve said this 10^87 times I’ll say it again: what we’re doing is explicitly heuristic and has no global optimality guarantees. While you can use the system we’re building on decision problems it is natively an optimization solver for quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems

From another commenter:

How then does Dwave “solve” the image feature matching problem using just 28 bits, for images that are large and have many features (such as those that Dwave used in their SC demo)? Apparently they “cheat” and break the overall problem into many small maximum common subgraph problems (of a size that can be encoded in 28 bits). Each small MCS problem is “solved” on the QC, and then the solutions are somehow combined classically.

Like the soduku, solve the 3X3 squares iteravely then combine to a 9X9 solution.

It is not a cheat in that they are using the quantum system to its best ability by combining with our current best methods. To only solve problems with quantum systems is like having only allowing pencil and paper on tests when the real world has regular computers, wikipedia and Google.

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Transcript of my Foresight unconference talk is available

The transcript of my talk at the Foresight unconference is up

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Two proposals for mining the Ocean for $720 trillion worth of Uranium

The Japanese have been refining the processes for extracting Uranium from seawater for decades. The japanese have extracted 1 kg of uranium from seawater.

REDDIT
DIGG This article

If 2g-U/kg-adsorbent is submerged for 60 days at a time and used 6 times, the uranium cost is calculated to be 88,000 yen/kg-U, including the cost of adsorbent production, uranium collection, and uranium purification. When 6g-U/kg-adsorbent and 20 repetitions or more becomes possible, the uranium cost reduces to 15,000 yen. This price level is equivalent to that of the highest cost of the minable uranium. The lowest cost attainable now (2006) is 25,000 yen with 4g-U/kg-adsorbent used in the sea area of Okinawa, with 18 repetitionuses.

This is about $220 per kg (114 yen to 1 US Dollar in 2007) The price of Uranium is currently in the $150-190/kg range.


The japanese process is to use irradiated polymers and stick a braided net of it into the ocean and basically "fish" for 30-90 days for Uranium.

There is 4 to 4.6 billion tons of Uranium in seawater. At the $160/kg price, this would be equal to $720 trillion for 4.5 billion tons.


Here is some more detail on the preparation of the polymer

I would propose two ways that should be investigated to radically reduce the cost of removing metals from the ocean and for increasing to very large volumes.

1. Functionalize an algae bloom to concentrate Uranium
See the work of Matt Francis at Berkeley for functionalizing virus shells and microbes for anti-cancer or for solar power. Many others are trying to engineer microbes using synthetic biology.

The goal would be to increase the concentration of Uranium from 3 parts per billion to 300 parts per million. The higher concentration allows regular methods of Uranium mining to take over. It is an increase of 100,000 times.

Scoop up the algae that concentrated the uranium and process it.

There may be a need to cross the algae with extremophiles to toughen them up or there may be a need to pick another starting microbe.

Algae blooms can be very large. 60 kilometers in size and extend 12-15 meters or more below the surface

2. Nanomembrane Filtering
Nanomembrane filtering is starting to be used for desalinization of water at 100,000 gallons per day using a 6 inch diameter membrane.
If one could filter 1 billion gallons per day then there would be $1.92 million/day worth of Uranium. (3 mg per ton of water. 1 billion gallons is 4 million tons. 12,000 kg of Uranium in 1 billion gallons) Ten thousand of the 6 inch diameter nanomembrane enabled filtration pipes would be needed.


There are other rare metals in seawater. Lithium seems like a valuable target. Its price is in the $80/kg range and there is concern about having enough Lithium for lithium ion batteries. There is 56 times as much Lithium as Uranium in seawater. At $80/kg it would be a $14,000 trillion resource.

I believe that the nanoscale technologies of synthetic biology, nanomembranes and other current and near term nanotechnology lack the ability to create larger system structures. Therefore, it is best to use nanoscale technology for liquid or gas phase opportunities in the near term.

FURTHER READING:
Article in Foresight in 2006 on Gayle Pergamit and the Aqua Via company

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Intermediate systems from now to nanofactories

At nanotech-now.com, Jamais Cascio, CRN's new Director of Impacts Analysis, discusses factors that will describe the ecosystem for nanofactories.

The factors are:
1. Designs
2. Distribution methods for nanofactories
3. Distribution methods for products
4. Distribution methods for "toner"
5. Physical reliability
6. Physical safety
7. Health and safety evaluations
8. Knowledgeable users
9. Ways to avoid abuse
10. Political support
11. Economic support
12. Market acceptance

I think we can get an idea about the markets and ecosystem by looking at existing 2d and 3d systems. 3D systems already have machines for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing and full blown factory machines and robotic assembly. There are also the reprap project and 3D printers for desktops.

REDDIT

The next generation of 2D printers should be out next year in the form of memjet printers.

Wireless wall mounted printer

A wireless Wall-Mounted Printer That Doubles as a Picture Frame, and a Desktop Printer That Does the Same from furniture designer Ransmeier & Floyd.

The wall mounted printer patents are from the makers of memjet, a 60 ppm printing technology.

Silverbrook Research''s prototype Memjet inkjet printer outputting 60 pages per minute should be on sale in 2008. Memjet printers in 2008 will print at a blisteringly fast 60 ppm for documents and 30 ppm for photos and will start at about $200. They believe within five years (by 2013)they will have the capability to do color office documents at 120-150 ppm and full-page photos at 60-75ppm.

The $4995 3d Desktop printer will be available in 2008 as well.
The 3D desktop printer takes up 25 x 20 x 20-inch space, and weighs about 90-pounds, while the maximum size of printed objects is 5 x 5 x 5-inches, and Desktop Factory says per-cubic-inch printing costs will hover somewhere around $1. The Desktop Factory 3D printer builds robust, composite plastic parts that can be sanded and painted when desired. Their goal by 2011 is to have their 3D printer below $1000.

Instead of using a high end laser to draw the image we went with a simple halogen lamp. Instead of using a bed of powder in which to draw the image we used a drum just like in a copier or printer. The drum is coated with a thin layer of powder upon which we draw the image of the part, layer by layer, with our halogen lamp. Then we use heat and pressure to bond each of the layers as the object is built.

The current market leaders in 3d systems are Z Corp and Stratasys. There are over 5
million licenses in the CAD software environment in 2007 and growth continues at better than 20% per annum. AutoDesk and Solidworks are the leaders in CAD software. Alibre and Rhino make lower cost 3D CAD software. Google’s acquired of SketchUp, a 3D software company.

The projected growth in volume of cheap 3d desktop printers is:
1. sales of hundreds of units in 2008 to a plan of 3500 in 2009.
2. In 2010, a price point of roughly $2,000 and somewhere between 20,000 – 30,000 units.
3. In 2011, with a price below $1000 and enter the consumer space. They believe they will sell over a 100,000 units a year and have a business with a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue and a product /consumable margin that’s just north of 50%. Consumables will comprise almost 70% of the revenue at that point we will also
have a strong EBITDA margin that’s somewhere in the mid 20s.

If these targets can be met then perhaps 20% of CAD engineers and hobbysists would own and nearly all would have access to a 3D printer by 2015 and service bureaus (Kinkos) and stores (Walmart, Costco) could provide access to low and some high end machines. The cost of supplies would need to come down a lot as well from $1 per cubic inch. There would also need to be some common applications for consumers to need to make something frequently using a 3d printer. Some things that are inefficiently held in a wide range of inventory. Keys would be interesting but having common printers would make physical keys somewhat obsolete.

-Costume jewelry and design accessories could have some possibilities.
-parts for other products (headphones, plug in adapters etc...)
-interfaces and accessories for phones, laptops and other devices
-fashion modifications (skins etc...) for mass produced devices.
-toys

Eventually the range of materials and the costs could drop enough to displace regular manufacturing and distribution methods.

Other early areas of adoption will be in places where delivery of regular products is more costly. Polar, mountain, military and underwater expeditions.

Where is inventory to expensive ? Too many items in the catalog? Too hard to deliver?

Where are there new applications from rapid gratification? New design and fashion trends. More personalization.

Another big breakthrough would be to have fabrication systems at Walmart, costcos, Ikeas, Home Depots, auto shops, radio shack, best buy to displace significant inventory of parts and accessories.

A Zprinter310 plus, 450 and 510 printers from Zcorp have a 3d print speed of (prices $20,000-50,000 as of 2007):
Build Speed: 2 - 4 layers per minute
Layer Thickness: User selectable at the time of printing; 0.0035”-0.008” (.089-.203 mm)
So from about 6 minutes per centimeter to 1.3 minutes per centimeter of thickness

Stratasys makes units that are 1 to 2 refrigerators in size and use industrial thermoplastics.

It seems likely that 3d printers will also adopt multiple rows of MEMS nozzles (for those 3d systems that are using variants of inkjet printing). This will speed up the printing of layers.

There are several other technologies for rapid prototyping.

An analysis of intermediate points from now until nanofactories would be to look at order of magnitude improvements in speed and resolution. A combination of something 10 times faster and 10 times higher resolution would need 100 thinner layers in the same time.

Another area to look at projecting is existing atomically precise or nearly atomically precise manufacturing methods.
3d microfabrication
atomic layer deposition also known as Atomic layer epitaxy
Chemical vapor deposition
Self assembly

Those systems will be used to make better tool tips, small parts or building blocks which then feed into a system for putting those to use as parts or as components of system to bootstrap a more precise system.

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UK Ideas Factory funding approved through 2010

2.5 million pounds of funding for the UK Ideas Factory projects has been officially approved

The Ideas Factory online discussion was here

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New Silicon nanowire could power nanoscale devices

Charles Leiber and colleagues at Harvard University describe silicon nanowire they devised that can convert light into electrical energy. Virtually invisible to the naked eye, a single strand can crank out up to 200 picowatts. The nanowire is not made of metal but of silicon with three different types of conductivity arranged as layered shells.

Incoming light generates electrons in the outer shell, which are then swept into the second layer and the inner core along micropores.


The nanowire, which resembles a miniscule coaxial cable, is made of layers of silicon (Image: Nature)

Although the proof-of-concept device only converts about 3% of light into electricity, Lieber says it "allows us to study a fundamentally different geometry for photovoltaic cells, which may be attractive for improving the efficiency."

He also believes it may be possible to boost the nanowire's efficiency by getting rid of defects in the crystal. "Our goal is to get in the 15% [efficiency] range," Lieber says."

Lieber's new nanowire functions as a complete solar cell. At its core is a rod-shaped crystal of silicon, about 100 nanometres across, doped with boron. Layers of polycrystalline silicon are added to wrap it in a 50-nm-thick layer of undoped silicon and a 50-nm-thick outer coating of silicon doped with phosphorus.

UPDATE:
IEEE Spectrum discusses the new nanowires

Harry Atwater, a physicist at Caltech, called the Harvard research “an important first experimental step forward.” Atwater recently wrote a theoretical paper that suggested it may be possible to get the efficiency of such a nanowire above the 20 to 25 percent seen in highly ordered crystalline silicon. Lieber sees no reason that the efficiency can’t be improved to at least 10 or 15 percent. At that point, he says, the lower costs that his production process entails might make large arrays of nanowires competitive with macroscale solar cells.

MIT Technology review also has coverage on the solar nanowires

Since the materials are thin, the chances of an electron being trapped by a defect before escaping from one layer to the next are low, so it's possible to use cheaper materials with more defects.

Lieber has tested only small numbers of nanowire solar cells. For large-scale applications, the nanowires would need to be chemically grown in dense arrays. Atwater and Lewis recently took steps in this direction, publishing in the past month two papers in which they describe growing dense arrays of microscopic wires, but wires without the multiple layers that Lieber's have. Paired with a liquid electrolyte, the wires generated electricity from light. Since it may prove easier to manufacture solid-state solar cells such as Lieber's, however, Lewis and Atwater are working to produce arrays of wires with multiple layers.

Even with the potential advantage of cheaper materials, wire-based solar cells would probably need to be about 10 percent efficient if they were to compete with existing technology. The researchers' next steps include finding ways to make more dense arrays of wires to absorb more light and, in Lieber's case, to find ways to generate increased voltage from nanowire solar cells.

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Eric Drexler on the Productive Nanosystems TechnologyRoadmap

Drexler is the one who started the idea of molecular manufacturing back in the mid-1980's. The general focus of the Roadmap is on atomically precise technologies, not productive nanosystems.

It provides merit criteria and metrics for research today. When selecting between proposals, look for atomic precision. Look for size, range of materials, other criteria that we'll probably hear about later in the talk.

The Roadmap looks toward advanced manufacturing (what physics says should be possible), but focuses on accessible productive nanosystems (such as ribosome-like systems).

Near-term, there are several kinds of atomically precise things we can build. One is biopolymers: protein, DNA.

New topic: Advances in production technology. Type 1 advances build better products. In Type 2, the products include improvements to the production system, which can enable further improvements. So we really want better productive machines that can build better productive machines... This appears to be an argument for using nanosystems as the means of production of nanosystems.

Today, tools build tools build tools... traceable back to blacksmithing. The tool that extruded your breakfast bagel is a leaf on this tree. The advanced APM tree has a "Mark II Ribosome" low on the trunk, and "Macroscale APM" high on the trunk, with "Dollar-per-kilogram fab" among the leaves. People tend to assume that things high in the tree are proposals for next year, "which would be absurd."

The Roadmap talks about cross-linked organic structures. An idea that arose pretty late is mixed covalent-ionic bonding. Titanium dioxide, quartz. This may be closer than what's been looked at more closely.

The role of roadmapping: Developing the knowledge and confidence necessary for coordinated system development. So the Productive Nanosystems roadmap should show what's necessary, when, how to coordinate and schedule developments. Avoid chicken-and-egg problems that lead to slow incremental progress.

DNA currently costs dollars per milligram. There's no point in thinking about kilogram-scale structures... but there's a researcher who has an idea for making DNA at dollars per kilogram... but why should he do it when there's no market for kilograms of DNA? This is a real example: it seems that DNA might actually get vastly cheaper.

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Productive Nanosystem Zyvex talk

Chris Phoenix, CRN, is live blogging the event. John Randall, Zyvex: A completely different approach. Zyvex was founded to create atomically precise manufacturing on the way to productive nanosystems. In other words, building precise structures using big machines rather than nanoscale tools.

Atomic layer deposition builds amorphous materials; atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) builds crystalline materials. Start with a protected (passivated) surface: every available bond has a hydrogen atom. If you deprotect the surface, removing the hydrogen, then you can deposit a layer of atoms. If you choose the right precursor gas, you add only one monolayer which is protected as it's added. Then you can deprotect and add exactly one more layer of atoms. There are a number of precursor gases available. There are literally hundreds of systems to grow things with atomic precision in one dimension.

if you combine this with the ability to deprotect the surface in selected locations... With a scanning tunneling microscope, you can remove single hydrogen atoms with atomic precision. Several groups have demonstrated this. This is "the limit of a thin resist" - a monolayer of hydrogen.

Differences from mechanosynthesis:
1) Building blocks don't have to be captured by the tool tip.
2) The tool tip can be used to inspect both deprotection and assembly.
3) You can do large areas (fast) or atomic resolution, depending on mode.
4) This is a very general technique.
5) All you need is an atomic-resolution STM tip - don't need anything else with atomic resolution.

You need an atomically precise, invariant tip. ALIS has built such a tip. A reproducible atomic structure at the end of a tungsten wire.

They're trying to develop a dual-material process, silicon and germanium, so that you can make releasable structures. (They think they can deal with lattice mismatch.)

One possible product is a nano-imprint template. They expect atomically precise tools to be the most valuable product. They expect to enable productive nanosystem factories.

Question: Hydrogen migrates at normal temperatures. Is that compatible with the deposition technologies? A: We believe (after careful study) that the hydrogen is stable on a silicon surface, up to 200-300 degrees C. We think we can get epitaxy to work in that window. Cryogenic temperatures are not necessary. You do get motion on a single dimer, but no long-range motion.

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Productive Nanosystems conference first two talks

The Foresight Productive Nanosystems conference has started.

Chris Phoenix at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is liveblogging the event.

Here is his introductory article about the conference

The first speaker is Alex Kawczak, VP, Nanotechnology & BioProducts, Battelle, who talks about some aspects of the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

There are several Atomically Precise things in the Roadmap: Manufacturing, Atomically Precise Productive Nanosystems (APPN), Atomically Precise Technologies. Now he's talking about the nanotech market as a whole ($1 trillion by 2015), most of which is not atomically precise. He says atomic precision can improve nanotech.

Atomically Precise Structures are a definite arrangement of atoms. Self-assembled DNA, engineered proteins, nanotube segments, etc. But atomically precise technology will increase scale and complexity.

Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM) lets you build atomically precise structures under programmable control.

Atomically Precise Productive Nanosystems are functional nanosystems that implement APM. This is nano-building-nano - the high-impact stuff.

So this sounds like the roadmap defines a spectrum of AP technologies, working from self-assembly of engineered AP structures, up to nano building nano.

Two strategies in the roadmap: 1) Develop AP technologies for energy; 2) Develop AP technologies for medicine. Hm, no emphasis on productive nanosystems in that slide.

They're hoping that the Roadmap will help a broad range of industries to develop nano capabilities. They want to develop a broad technology base for APT, apply this to develop APM, APPNs, and spinoff APT applications. They want to "treat atomic precision as an essential criterion for research." So the roadmap encompasses self-assembly as well as APPN.

The roadmap recommends hybrid manufacturing technology approaches at several points.

So it sounds like the Roadmap does talk, at least some, about molecular manufacturing, which they call APPN. This could be a very interesting conference. And it looks like the Roadmap does explicitly endorse molecular manufacturing.

Post-talk comment from Jim Von Ehr (today's moderator): Comparison to semiconductor roadmap: That was developed after they'd been going for a while. Our roadmap is developed in advance, so it's a bit speculative; you'll be amazed at how many different things were pulled together.

Chris Schafmeister talked about Productive Nanosystems: Abiotic Biomimetic Roadmap

Productive nanosystem definition: "A closed loop of nanoscale components that make nanoscale components."

Schafmeister has built 14 building blocks - some of them, they can make tens of grams at a time. They've built one with a functional group and they're working on other functional groups - some not found in natural amino acids.

They attach a building block to a plastic bead, then add other building blocks one at a time. This is not self-assembly: it is programmed assembly. They want to build molecules containing 20-50 blocks. That's a lot of reaction steps! Once they've built a chain, they double-link it, making it rigid. They've synthesized over 100 molecules; most are very water-soluble; the most building blocks so far is 18.

He wants to "create many artificial catalysts that approach the capabilities of enzymes." No one has made an enzyme yet - he wants to make thousands of them, engineered. He wants to make 60,000 enzymes as rapidly as he can write 60,000 lines of code. This may be achievable because enzymes carry out catalysis (accelerating chemical reactions) by changing the mechanism of the reaction. It does this via functional groups arrayed around the substrate. "If we can position multiple functional groups in three-dimensional space in all the right places," then we may be able to implement enzymes. So if functional groups (found in databases) were positioned in space correctly, you'd have the enzyme

How long do the chemical operations take? A: Seconds, maybe minutes. Not hours. Right now, we do one per hour (10^17 molecular copies).

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Transcript of my talk Economics in a new Era is up

The transcript of my recent talk at the nanobio conference is up

The powerpoint for my presentation is available for download from the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

I have provided some clarification of a couple of points in my presentation which were reported at the Register (UK news site)

Further improvements to the pre-molecular manufacturing capabilities continue to be made with better nanoimprinting and progress towards synthetic life and $100 human genome sequencing possible in 5 years

Here is a review of the status of some of my past predictions of the future

I will next be speaking at the Foresight 2007 vision weekend, a Senior Associate gathering

I will be speaking about Convergence technologies Anticipating shortcuts, convergence (Molecular Manufacturing (MM), pre-MM and other technology) and high impact opportunities.

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Catalysts to stamp nanopatterns with 1 nanometer precision