These Super-Tiny Products Could Transform the Future

April 24, 2006

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Ed Blaguszewski 413/545-0444

BOSTON – What exactly do the researchers and their partners in the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM) hope to make? How about data storage devices, less expensive and more powerful computer chips, and gels that mimic cartilage and replace worn-out knee joints?

At the scale of nanometers—one billionth of a meter—materials can behave differently than they do at a more ordinary size, and scientists are learning to exploit the properties that emerge when things get super-tiny. They expect to yield numerous innovations in fields as diverse as electronics, health care and energy.

CHM, based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will concentrate on three areas of research: nanoelectronics, bionanotechnology, and nanomaterials and processing.

The nanoelectronics group will focus on electronic, magnetic and photonic devices, such as nano-engineered insulating materials for ultra-tiny circuit wires that promise faster, smaller computer chips to reduce computing costs for businesses and consumers. Ultra-dense data storage media will be developed using hierarchical nanofabrication methods to meet the future needs of an information-based society. Smart sensors, built to detect minute quantities of a substance, eventually could serve as sentries, sniffing out toxins released into a public space. Solar cells that are more efficient, less fragile and less expensive than silicon will reduce the cost of clean energy.

The bionanotechnology group will create a range of materials for biomedical applications. Investigations include nanoparticles designed to target tumors that could be sent into the body to seek and destroy cancerous cells. Stiff, self-organizing gels that mimic cartilage will be developed as potential replacements for worn-out knee joints or hips. These same gels may eventually serve as scaffolding for damaged or diseased organs.

The nanoscale materials and processes group develops new approaches to controlling structure, composition and function at the nanoscale that are fast enough, cheap enough and reliable enough to be commercialized in the near future. These advances in fundamental science will feed the nanoelectronics and nanobiotechnology groups with the building blocks and tools for nanostructures and devices.

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