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Progress to smart fluids for self assembling computer chips
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Imagine a computer chip that can assemble itself. According to Eric M. Furst, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Delaware, engineers and scientists are closer to making this and other scalable forms of nanotechnology a reality as a result of new milestones in using nanoparticles as building blocks in functional materials.
The research team’s explored the use of colloids, microscopic particles that are mere hundredths the diameter of a human hair, to better understand how nano-“building blocks” can be directed to “self-assemble” into specific structures.
The research team studied paramagnetic colloids while periodically applying an external magnetic field at different intervals. With just the right frequency and field strength, the team was able to watch the particles transition from a random, solid like material into highly organized crystalline structures or lattices.
PNAS – Multi-scale kinetics of a field-directed colloidal phase transition (6 pages)
See more and subscribe to NextBigFuture at 2012-09-19 07:27:09 Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/09/progress-to-smart-fluids-for-self.html
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Skynet