NanoBlog

Geek.com has a short article describing How a CPU is made in 10 steps starting from sand and ending with a complete CPU.

Intechopen has posed new text books on nanotechnology. Topics include nanofibers, lithography, graphene, carbon nanotubes, nanocomposities, nanowires, and nanocrystals.

NanoCom is a European Union organization dedicated to speeding up the commercialization of nanotechnology. NanoCom is hosting an Investor forum on May 23, 2012. The proposal submission deadline ins December 8, 2011. The forum will be held at the Swiss Nano Convention. The commercialization effort is supported by the NanoFutures web site which operates as a platform to facilitate coordination of nanotechnology innovation.

The Congressional Nanotechnology held a caucus on November 15, 2011 on nanotech and jobs. You an download the presentations from

• Hilary Flynn, Lux Research
• Doug Jamison, Chief Executive Office, Harris & Harris; and
• Robert D. 'Skip' Rung, President and Executive Director, Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

Fortunately, nanotechology is creating jobs.

It appears that creating transistors with a high-k dielectric and a metal gate is very difficult and has led to delays at many foundries according to Deepak Sekar's blog Why is High-k/Metal Gate so Hard?. Deepak describes many of the issues associated with the two methods for fabricating HKMG devices.

I'm surprised and shocked that quantum mechanics will play such a strong roll in our future. The Oct 24/31, 2011 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology has a special feature article on Imaging/Innovating the Future. Aviation Week assembled scientist and researchers, and asked them to provide an assessment of the future of technology for aerospace and related fields. Quantum mechanics was cited as a key technology for the industry by more than one researcher. One research sees technology that interacts with space-time likely in the next 20 years. There are many other insights into future technology including hypersonic flight, additive manufacturing, sensing, navigation, exoplanets, metamaterials, photonics, plasma aerodynamics, and interstellar space travel.

I was looking at some of the subjects of the past ACS Nano podcasts and noticed that ACS Nano has posted a number of virtual issues including:

• virtual issue on plasmonics
• virtual on toxicology
• virtual issue on drug delivery.

ACS Nano posts a podcast each month highlighting advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Professor Eric Lochner at Florida State University has posted a number of blogs on measuring the nanoscale. These blogs include:

• X-ray Diffraction
• Scanning Electron Microscopy
• X-ray Photo-electron Spectroscopy
• Ellipsometry
• SQUID Magnetometry
• Profilometry
• Scanning Probe Microscopy

The Stanford Center for Professional Development winter semester is now open. The deadline to register is Jan 4, 2012. The winter course list has been posted. There are a number of free previews. The courses are held on campus and posted on-line for remote students to view approximately 2 hours after the calls is held.