14 DAY TRIAL // Nanotechnology is currently one of the most investigated areas of science, but yet experts could not tap its full potential until now, due primarily to the fact that they did not know the rules of how to arrange nanoparticles in new materials in an efficient manner. That obstacle has now been removed.
Researchers managed to develop a new approach for establishing the rules related to constructing a certain class of nanomaterials in such a way that they perform a certain function. That function can of course be changed, as in tailored for specific applications.
According to analysts, those studying nanotechnology needed to take examples from how nature arranges atoms into molecules and more complex structures, in order to understand what they needed to accomplish so that they gain the same ability with artificial materials.
Details of the new approach to accomplishing this objective were published in the October 14 issue of the top journal Science. Another statement on the achievement was released by the Northwestern University, whose researchers carried out the necessary work.
Funds for this investigation were – for the most part – provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The organization recognizes the potential that nanotechnology has for transforming medicine, technology, engineering, research, and society itself.
The lead author of the Science paper was the Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences George B. Rathmann professor of chemistry, Chad Mirkin. He also teaches medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering at the university.
In addition, Mirkin is the director of the Northwestern University's International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), and a member of the US President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
“This discovery is the largely the result of high-risk, high reward funding of basic research, in NSF's Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center,” NSF senior nanotechnology adviser Mihail C. Roco says.
“In our 2003 National Nanotechnology Initiative report, we identified the efficient creation of nanomaterials with prescribed properties and functions as key to broad applicability of nanotechnology,” adds the expert, who is also a key architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
“With this discovery, Mirkin and his team have met that challenge for a large set of materials,” Roco adds. He holds an appointment as the founding chair of the US National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology.
“The future is indeed bright for revolutionary new materials and systems and what they will bring to our daily life and to our economic livelihood--from innovative disease treatments, new information methods and more efficient energy conversion storage and use to the companies and jobs created in the process,” he concludes.