Tuesday, 3rd July 2007 (3590 views)

Physicists from the University of Pennsylvania are utilising gold sheets in a new method of crafting some of the smallest metal nanostructures ever formed.

Employing transmission electron beam ablation lithography to carve nanostructures from thin sheets of metals including gold, silver and aluminium, the research has implications for the next generation of electronics and sensors.

"Many different approaches have been undertaken to fabricate the small structures needed to probe the phenomena that take place at the nanoscale, but the most widely used and versatile techniques are limited to tens of nanometers," said Marija Drndiae, professor of physics at Penn University.

"Reliably and consistently fabricating devices at the sub-10-nanometer scale from the top down is generally still challenging, but our technique offers a route to this regime."

The scientists suggest that the findings could lead to a quicker method of DNA sequencing that threads strands through an electronic nanoport to facilitate the reading of a species' genetic code.

Dr Andrew Maynard, chief scientist for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, recently commented that nanotechnology could "make the world a better place" if subject to a federal risk research policy.

 

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