Nanotubes can solder themselves, markedly improving device performance

Nanotubes can solder themselves, markedly improving device performance

Researchers grow liquid crystal 'flowers' that can be used as lenses

In continuation of my update on liquid crystals

The researchers' ongoing work with liquid crystals is an example of a growing field of nanotechnology known as "directed assembly," in which scientists and engineers aim to manufacture structures on the smallest scales without having to individually manipulate each component. Rather, they set out precisely defined starting conditions and let the physics and chemistry that govern those components do the rest.

The starting conditions in the researchers previous experiments were templates consisting of tiny posts. In one of their studies, they showed that changing the size, shape or spacing of these posts would result in corresponding changes in the patterns of defects on the surface of the liquid crystal resting on top of them. In another experiment, they showed they could make a "hula hoop" of defects around individual posts, which would then act as a second template for a ring of defects at the surface.

In their latest work, the researchers used a much simpler cue.

"Before we were growing these liquid crystals on something like a trellis, a template with precisely ordered features," Kamien said. "Here, we're just planting a seed."

The seed, in this case, were silica beads -- essentially, polished grains of sand. Planted at the top of a pool of liquid crystal flower-like patterns of defects grow around each bead.

The key difference between the template in this experiment and ones in the research team's earlier work was the shape of the interface between the template and the liquid crystal.

In their experiment that generated grid patterns of defects, those patterns stemmed from cues generated by the templates' microposts. Domains of elastic energy originated on the flat tops and edges of these posts and travelled up the liquid crystal's layers, culminating in defects. Using a bead instead of a post, as the researchers did in their latest experiment, makes it so that the interface is no longer flat.

"Not only is the interface at an angle, it's an angle that keeps changing," Kamien said. "The way the liquid crystal responds to that is that it makes these petal-like shapes at smaller and smaller sizes, trying to match the angle of the bead until everything is flat."

Surface tension on the bead also makes it so these petals are arranged in a tiered, convex fashion. And because the liquid crystal can interact with light, the entire assembly can function as a lens, focusing light to a point underneath the bead.

"It's like an insect's compound eye, or the mirrors on the biggest telescopes," said Kamien. "As we learn more about these systems, we're going to be able to make these kinds of lenses to order and use them to direct light."

Researchers grow liquid crystal 'flowers' that can be used as lenses

Ref : http://prx.aps.org/abstract/PRX/v3/i4/e041026

Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: "Graphene-based nano-antennas may enable networks of tiny machines"

With antennas made from conventional materials like copper, communication between low-power nanomachines would be virtually impossible. But by taking advantage of the unique electronic properties of the material known as graphene, researchers now believe they're on track to connect devices powered by small amounts of scavenged energy.

Based on a honeycomb network of carbon atoms, graphene could generate a type of electronic surface wave that would allow antennas just one micron long and 10 to 100 nanometers wide to do the work of much larger antennas. While operating graphene nano-antennas have yet to be demonstrated, the researchers say their modeling and simulations show that nano-networks using the new approach are feasible with the alternative material.

"We are exploiting the peculiar propagation of electrons in graphene to make a very small antenna that can radiate at much lower frequencies than classical metallic antennas of the same size," said Ian Akyildiz, a Ken Byers Chair professor in Telecommunications in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We believe that this is just the beginning of a new networking and communications paradigm based on the use of graphene."

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the research is scheduled to be reported in the journal IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (IEEE JSAC). In addition to the nanoscale antennas, the researchers are also working on graphene-based nanoscale transceivers and the transmission protocols that would be necessary for communication between nanomachines.

The communications challenge is that at the micron scale, metallic antennas would have to operate at frequencies of hundreds of terahertz. While those frequencies might offer advantages in communication speed, their range would be limited by propagation losses to just a few micrometers. And they'd require lots of power – more power than nanomachines are likely to have.

Akyildiz has studied nanonetworks since the late 1990s, and had concluded that traditional electromagnetic communication between these machines might not be possible. But then he and his Ph.D. student, Josep Jornet - who graduated in August 2013 and is now an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo - began reading about the amazing properties of graphene. They were especially interested in how electrons behave in single-layer sheets of the material.

"When electrons in graphene are excited by an incoming electromagnetic wave, for instance, they start moving back and forth," explained Akyildiz. "Because of the unique properties of the graphene, this global oscillation of electrical charge results in a confined electromagnetic wave on top of the graphene layer."

Known technically as a surface plasmon polariton (SPP) wave, the effect will allow the nano-antennas to operate at the low end of the terahertz frequency range, between 0.1 and 10 terahertz - instead of at 150 terahertz required by traditional copper antennas at nanoscale sizes. For transmitting, the SPP waves can be created by injecting electrons into the dielectric layer beneath the graphene sheet.

Materials such as gold, silver and other noble metals also can support the propagation of SPP waves, but only at much higher frequencies than graphene. Conventional materials such as copper don't support the waves.

By allowing electromagnetic propagation at lower terahertz frequencies, the SPP waves require less power - putting them within range of what might be feasible for nanomachines operated by energy harvesting technology pioneered by Zhong Lin Wang, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Materials Science and Engineering.

"With this antenna, we can cut the frequency by two orders of magnitude and cut the power needs by four orders of magnitude," said Jornet. "Using this antenna, we believe the energy-harvesting techniques developed by Dr. Wang would give us enough power to create a communications link between nanomachines."

The nanomachines in the network that Akyildiz and Jornet envision would include several integrated components. In addition to the energy-harvesting nanogenerators, there would be nanoscale sensing, processing and memory, technologies that are under development by other groups. The nanoscale antenna and transceiver work being done at Georgia Tech would allow the devices to communicate the information they sense and process to the outside world.

"Each one of these components would have a nanoscale measurement, but in total we would have a machine measuring a few micrometers," said Jornet. "There would be lots of tradeoffs in energy use and size”.

Beyond giving nanomachines the ability to communicate, hundreds or thousands of graphene antenna-transceiver sets might be combined to help full-size cellular phones and Internet based laptops communicate faster.

"The terahertz band can boost current data rates in wireless networks by more than two orders of magnitude," Akyildiz noted. "The data rates in current cellular systems are up to one gigabit-per-second in LTE advanced networks or 10 gigabits-per-second in the so-called millimeter wave or 60 gigahertz systems. We expect data rates on the order of terabits-per-second in the terahertz band."

The unique properties of graphene, Akyildiz says, are critical to this antenna - and other future electronic devices.

"
The researchers have so far evaluated numerous nano-antenna designs using modeling and simulation techniques in their laboratory. The next step will be to actually fabricate a graphene nano-antenna and operate it using a transceiver also based on graphene.

Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: "Graphene-based nano-antennas may enable networks of tiny machines"

Bioinspired self-repairing slippery surfaces with pressure-stable omniphobicity : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

To address the challenges like limited oleophobicity, researchers have reported a strategy to create self-healing, slippery liquid-infused porous surface(s) (SLIPS) with exceptional liquid- and ice-repellency, pressure stability and enhanced optical transparency.  Researchers claim  that the properties are insensitive to the precise geometry of the underlying substrate, making their approach applicable to various inexpensive, low-surface-energy structured materials (such as porous Teflon membrane). Researchers envision that the  slippery surfaces will be useful in fluid handling and transportation, optical sensing, medicine, and as self-cleaning and anti-fouling materials operating in extreme environments.

Bioinspired self-repairing slippery surfaces with pressure-stable omniphobicity : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

Researchers design a new catalyst to produce hydrogen from water and sunlight — Sala de Premsa - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

The scientists behind the project have fused the optical properties of three dimensionalphotonic crystals (inverse opals of titanium dioxide, TiO2) and 2-3 nm gold nanoparticles to develop a highly active catalyst powder. The research paper has been published in Scientific Reports, the open-access journal of Nature.

This new photocatalyst produces more hydrogen than others developed so far by harnessing the properties of both photonic crystals and nanoparticles of a metal. According to Jordi Llorca, a researcher at the UPC's Institute of Energy Technology, the process involves "tuning" the two materials to amplify the effect. "You have to choose the right photonic crystal and the right nanoparticles", he adds.

  

In any photocatalyst made from gold nanoparticles and titanium dioxide crystals using ultraviolet light, which is only a small part of solar radiation (less than 3%), the process is the same: light excites the TiO2 electrons and promotes them to the conduction band, leaving holes on the other side. The electrons interact with the gold nanoparticles and are captured by them. According to the scientists, the novelty in this case is the use of a 3D photonic crystal that captures the visible part of the solar spectrum, precisely at the energy level at which the gold nanoparticles "resonate". As a result, it's possible to take advantage of the visible part of the solar spectrum rather than just the ultraviolet part. This translates into a significant boost in the performance of the process.

The new catalyst has great potential for application in industrial processes. According to researcher Jordi Llorca, making the move from the laboratory to an industrial plant would mean designing a reactor to operate outdoors in the sun, and using a solar collector to capture more sunlight.

A conventional plant for the production of hydrogen from natural gas generates about 300 tons of hydrogen a day. With the new catalyst developed at the UPC, researchers have managed to produce 0.025 litres of hydrogen in one hour using one gram of catalyst. Assuming eight hours of sunlight a day, the scientists estimate that an area measuring 10 x 10 km would be needed to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale.

More

Researchers design a new catalyst to produce hydrogen from water and sunlight — Sala de Premsa - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)

Nanotech drug smugglers

Sergey Shityakov and Carola Förster of the University of Würzburg, Germany, explain that the protein, P-glycoprotein, acts as a gatekeeper, flushing out potentially harmful chemicals that enter the body as well as the naturally-occurring products of metabolism. The protein thus plays a vital role in the health of the cell. Unfortunately, it is a strong modulator of chemical traffic across the cell membrane that it can also prevent therapeutic agents from working properly, flushing them out as if they were simply harmful compounds. This process underpins the emergence of multidrug resistance in several diseases, including various forms of cancer.

Shityakov and Förster have revealed recently that if there were a way to mask the presence of the therapeutic agent, later the gatekeeper would not see them as "unwanted molecular entities" to be eradicated, and therefore, these drugs might be able to carry out their job unhindered and so overcome drug resistance. However, some of the chemical substances have turned to the realm of nanotechnology, and in particular, tiny capsules of carbon atoms known as fullerenes and the related molecules, the carbon nanotubes. The latter synthetic materials are not recognized by P-glycoprotein and so can penetrate lipid membranes moving freely in and out of cells.

The team has investigated whether it might be possible to carry drug molecules inside these nanocapsules so that they are unimpeded by interactions with P-glycoprotein or other receptors. They used high-power computational techniques to demonstrate that carbon nanotubes are not able to "dock" with the gatekeeper protein. Moreover, their analysis of the binding energy needed to push a nanotube into P-glycoprotein shows that the process is unfavourable and so rather than "docking" with this gatekeeper protein these peculiar materials are repelled by it to maintain the interior of the cell and so have the potential to act as a molecular drug smuggler.

Ref : http://www.inderscience.com/offer.php?id=56801

Nanotech drug smugglers

Nanotechnology researchers prove two-step method for potential pancreatic cancer treatment

The dual-wave nanotherapy method employed by Drs. Nel and Meng in their research uses two different kinds of microscopic particles (nanoparticles) intravenously injected in a rapid sequence into the vein of the tumor-bearing mouse. The first wave of nanoparticles carries a substance that removes the pericytes' vascular gates to access the pancreatic cancer cells and the second wave carries the chemotherapy drug that kills the cancer cells.

Drs. Nel and Meng and their colleagues Dr. Jeffrey Zink, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and Dr. Jeffrey Brinker, University of New Mexico professor of chemical and nuclear engineering, sought to contain chemotherapy in nanoparticles that could more directly target pancreatic cancer cells, but they needed to find a way for those nanoparticles to get through the sites of vascular obstruction caused by the pericytes, which restricts access to the cancer cells. Through experimentation they discovered they could interfere with a cellular signaling pathway (the communication mechanism between cells) that governs the pericyte attraction to the tumor blood vessels. By making nanoparticles that effectively bind a high load of the signaling pathway inhibitor, they developed a first wave of nanoparticles that separates the pericytes from the endothelial cells (on the blood vessel). This opens the vascular gate for the next wave of nanoparticles, which carry the chemotherapeutic agent to the cancer cells inside the tumor.

To test this two-wave nanotherapy, the researchers used immuno-compromised mice that were used to grow human pancreatic tumors (called xenografts) under the mouse skin. With the two-wave method, the xenograft tumors had a significantly higher rate of shrinkage compared to those exposed to chemotherapy given the standard way as a free drug or carried in nanoparticles without first wave treatment.

"This two-wave nanotherapy is an existing example of how we seek to improve the delivery of chemotherapy drugs to their intended targets using nanotechnology to provide an engineered approach," said Nel, chief of the division of nanomedicine. "It shows how the physical and chemical principles of nanotechnology can be integrated with the biological sciences to help cancer patients by increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy while also reducing side effects and toxicity. This two-wave treatment approach can also address biological impediments in nanotherapies for other types of cancer."

Ref : http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn404083m

Nanotechnology researchers prove two-step method for potential pancreatic cancer treatment

Better batteries through biology? Modified viruses boost battery performance

MIT researchers have found a way to boost lithium-air battery performance, with the help of modified viruses. 

MIT researchers have found that adding genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires -- wires that are about the width of a red blood cell, and which can serve as one of a battery's electrodes -- could help solve some of these problems.

The new work is described in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, co-authored by graduate student Dahyun Oh, professors Angela Belcher and Yang Shao-Horn, and three others. The key to their work was to increase the surface area of the wire, thus increasing the area where electrochemical activity takes place during charging or discharging of the battery.

The researchers produced an array of nanowires, each about 80 nanometers across, using a genetically modified virus called M13, which can capture molecules of metals from water and bind them into structural shapes. In this case, wires of manganese oxide -- a "favorite material" for a lithium-air battery's cathode, Belcher says -- were actually made by the viruses. But unlike wires "grown" through conventional chemical methods, these virus-built nanowires have a rough, spiky surface, which dramatically increases their surface area.

Belcher, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy and an affiliate of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, explains that this process of biosynthesis is "really similar to how an abalone grows its shell" -- in that case, by collecting calcium from seawater and depositing it into a solid, linked structure.

The increase in surface area produced by this method can provide "a big advantage," Belcher says, in lithium-air batteries' rate of charging and discharging. But the process also has other potential advantages, she says: Unlike conventional fabrication methods, which involve energy-intensive high temperatures and hazardous chemicals, this process can be carried out at room temperature using a water-based process.

Also, rather than isolated wires, the viruses naturally produce a three-dimensional structure of cross-linked wires, which provides greater stability for an electrode.

Ref : http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131113/ncomms3756/full/ncomms3756.html

Better batteries through biology? Modified viruses boost battery performance

All aboard the nanotrain network: Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA

Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA, have been developed by scientists at Oxford University and Warwick University.

The system can construct its own network of tracks spanning tens of micrometres in length, transport cargo across the network and even dismantle the tracks.

The work is published in Nature Nanotechnology and was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Researchers were inspired by the melanophore, used by fish cells to control their colour. Tracks in the network all come from a central point, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Motor proteins transport pigment around the network, either concentrating it in the centre or spreading it throughout the network. Concentrating pigment in the centre makes the cells lighter, as the surrounding space is left empty and transparent.

The system developed by the Oxford University team is very similar, and is built from DNA and a motor protein called kinesin. Powered by ATP fuel, kinesins move along the micro-tracks carrying control modules made from short strands of DNA. 'Assembler' nanobots are made with two kinesin proteins, allowing them to move tracks around to assemble the network, whereas the 'shuttles' only need one kinesin protein to travel along the tracks.

'DNA is an excellent building block for constructing synthetic molecular systems, as we can program it to do whatever we need,' said Adam Wollman, who conducted the research at Oxford University's Department of Physics. 'We design the chemical structures of the DNA strands to control how they interact with each other. The shuttles can be used to either carry cargo or deliver signals to tell other shuttles what to do.

'We first use assemblers to arrange the track into 'spokes', triggered by the introduction of ATP. We then send in shuttles with fluorescent green cargo which spread out across the track, covering it evenly. When we add more ATP, the shuttles all cluster in the centre of the track where the spokes meet. Next, we send signal shuttles along the tracks to tell the cargo-carrying shuttles to release the fluorescent cargo into the environment, where it disperses. We can also send shuttles programmed with 'dismantle' signals to the central hub, telling the tracks to break up.'

This demonstration used fluorescent green dyes as cargo, but the same methods could be applied to other compounds. As well as colour changes, spoke-like track systems could be used to speed up chemical reactions by bringing the necessary compounds together at the central hub. More broadly, using DNA to control motor proteins could enable the development of more sophisticated self-assembling systems for a wide variety of applications.

Ref : http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2013.230.html

All aboard the nanotrain network: Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA

Carbon nanotube jungles created to better detect molecules

Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich have developed a new method of using nanotubes to detect molecules at extremely low concentrations enabling trace detection of biological threats, explosives and drugs.

The joint research team, led by LLNL Engineer Tiziana Bond and ETH Scientist Hyung Gyu Park, are using spaghetti-like, gold-hafnium-coated carbon nanotubes (CNT) to amplify the detection capabilities in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

SERS is a surface-sensitive technique that enhances the inelastic scattering of photons by molecules adsorbed on rough metal surfaces or by nanostructures.

Bond and her collaborators are using metal-coated nanotubes bunched together like a jungle canopy to amplify the signals of both the incident and Raman scattered light by exciting local electron plasmons.

Their real breakthrough, however, is discovering the use of an intermediate dielectric coating (hafnium) to block the quenching of the free electrons in the metal by the CNTs, allowing the nanotubes to function uninhibited. By preserving the electrons and enhancing the light through the use of nanotube jungles, the team is able to significantly increase the SERS' detection sensitivities in CNTs structures.

The hafnium coating enables the bunching of gold nanotubes that creates a thick canopy full of sensitive spots for detection. The nanotubes enable incident light to be trapped and focused at the numerous contact points and crevices, allowing the Raman-scattered light to pass through. This enables portable Raman devices to detect and identify specific airborne substances randomly.

"This is a very important discovery in our efforts to improve the use of SERS devices," Bond said. "We gained this valuable knowledge through multidisciplinary basic research and approaching the problem with a rational design."

Bond and Park hope their engineered material will eventually be used in portable devices to conduct on-site analysis of chemical impurities such as environmental pollutants or pharmaceutical residues in water. Other applications include the real-time point-of-care monitoring of physiological levels for the biomedical industry and fast screening of drugs and toxins for law enforcement.

"We are in the process of filing a patent for our new discovery," Bond said.

Ref : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201300571/abstract

Carbon nanotube jungles created to better detect molecules

Nanotechnology – The major frontier area of science and technology………

We can define nanoscience as the study of phenomena and manipulation of materials at atomic, molecular and macromolecular scales, where properties differ significantly from those at a larger scale; and nanotechnologies as the design, characterization, production and application of structures, devices and systems by controlling shape and size at the nanometer scale. Definition, the design, characterization, production, and application of structures, devices, and systems by controlled manipulation of size and shape at the nanometer scale (atomic, molecular, and macromolecular scale) that produces structures, devices, and systems with at least one novel/superior characteristic or property.

History :…….

•      Carbon Nanotubes (first observed by  Sumio Iijima in 1991.).
•    Inorganic nanotubes and inorganic fullerene-like materials based on layered compounds such as molybdenum disulphide were discovered shortly after CNTs.
•     Nanowires are ultrafine wires or linear arrays of dots, formed by self-assembly (e.g., semiconductor nanowires made of silicon).
•    Biopolymers -  variability and site recognition of biopolymers, such as DNA molecules. 
•     Nanotechnologists claim that the combination of one-dimensional nanostructures consisting of biopolymers and inorganic compounds opens up a number of scientific and technological opportunities.

Reasons for the difference in the properties : (at the nanoscale) First, nanomaterials have a relatively larger surface area when compared to the same mass of material produced in a larger form. This can make materials more chemically reactive (in some cases materials that are inert in their larger form are reactive when produced in their nanoscale form), and affect their strength or electrical properties.  Second, quantum effects can begin to dominate the behavior of matter at the nanoscale - particularly at the lower end - affecting the optical, electrical and magnetic behavior of materials. Materials can be produced that are nanoscale in one dimension (for example, very thin surface coatings), in two dimensions (for example, nanowires and nanotubes) or in all three dimensions (for example, nanoparticles).

Current applications of nanoscale materials include very thin coatings used, for example, in electronics and active surfaces (for example, self-cleaning windows). In most applications the nanoscale components will be fixed or embedded but in some, such as those used in cosmetics and in some pilot environmental remediation applications, free nanoparticles are used. The ability to machine materials to very high precision and accuracy (better than 100nm) is leading to considerable benefits in a wide range of industrial sectors, for example in the production of components for the information and communication technology, automotive and aerospace industries.

Current Applications (success achieved to some extent):

• Sunscreens and Cosmetics (nano sized titanium dioxide and zinc oxide-which absorb and reflect ultraviolet (UV) rays and yet are transparent to visible light).
• Composites (carbon black used as a filler to reinforce car tyres).
• Clays  (nano-sized flakes of clay- use in car bumpers).
• Coatings and Surfaces (e.g., self-cleaning window : coated with  highly activated titanium dioxide, engineered to be highly hydrophobic (water repellent) and antibacterial, and coatings based on nanoparticulate oxides that catalytically destroy chemical agents.)
• Tougher and Harder Cutting Tools [tungsten carbide, tantalum carbide and titanium carbide, are more wear and erosion-resistant, and last longer than their conventional (large-grained) counterparts].

Future of Nanotechnology: Although present ones represent incremental developments, surfaces with enhanced properties should find applications throughout the chemicals and energy sectors. The benefits could surpass the obvious economic and resource savings achieved by higher activity and greater selectivity in reactors and separation processes, to enabling small-scale distributed processing (making chemicals as close as possible to the point of use). There is already a move in the chemical industry towards this. Another use could be the small-scale, on-site production of high value chemicals such as pharmaceuticals. Two dimensional nanomaterials such as tubes and wires have generated considerable interest among the scientific community in recent years. In particular, their novel electrical and mechanical properties are the subject of intense research.

•      Paints.
•   Remediation  (potential of nanoparticles to react with pollutants in soil and groundwater and transform them into harmless compounds).
•    Fuel Cells (potential use of nano-engineered membranes to intensify catalytic processes could enable higher-efficiency, small-scale fuel cells).
•      Displays (next generation of light-emitting phosphors- nanocrystalline zinc selenide, zinc sulphide, cadmium sulphide and lead telluride synthesized by sol–gel techniques).
•      Batteries (Nickel–metal hydride batteries made of nanocrystalline nickel and metal hydrides are envisioned to require less frequent recharging and to last longer because of their large grain boundary /surface  area).
•     Fuel Additives  (addition of nanoparticulate ceria (cerium oxide) to diesel fuel to improve fuel economy by reducing the degradation of fuel consumption over time).
•     Catalysts (uniformity in the size and chemical structure of the catalyst, which in turn leads to greater catalytic activity and the production of fewer byproducts).
•    Research is also being undertaken in many fields such as a) Carbon Nanotube Composites, b) Lubricants,  c) Magnetic Materials, d) Medical Implants,  e) Machinable Ceramics, f) Water Purification, g) Military Battle Suits, h). Drug delivery, i)Vaccines,  j)Biomedical Applications-biosensors, k)stain resistant textiles, l) CNT reinforced tennis rackets and baseball bats, m) Low-cost printing technique for a new generation of complex, flexible sensors.

To conclude I would say, nanotechnology is the major frontier area of science and technology and   if developed into an advanced technology, will be indistinguishable from the magic. Where does the magic come from? magic's in the learning (quoting Dar Williams).. so let us learn, invent and explore “nanotechnology”……..