Nanotechnology Day 2021: A Large-Scale Celebration for Small-Scale Technologies

Low-temperature, ultra-high-vacuum, combined atomic force microscope / scanning tunneling microscope at UCLA.

Atomic force microscope.

Inventors of the scanning tunneling microscope, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, who won a Nobel Prize for their technology.

A transmission electron microscope from the 1970s.

The first scanning electron microscope.

Glass-coated tin nanoparticles, with the potential to be used in thermal energy-storage applications. Nanomaterials help researchers address challenges associated with strength, temperature regulation, advanced heat-transfer, and more.

Chemically modified ceramics show promise for high-energy-density capacitors with the potential to store electrical energy longer. The team seeks to modify the nanostructure of the ceramics to improve energy density and efficiency and service lifetimes.

A team from the University of Notre Dame is using low-temperature plasma sintering to improve the energy-conversion efficiency of 3D-printed thermoelectric materials selected with a combination of high-throughput experimentation and artificial intelligence machine learning.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on 3D-printed graphene aerogels for energy-storage applications.

When manufactured at nanoscale with electric current, nanocarbon-metal composites have remarkable electronic properties that could lead to breakthroughs in our electricity use. But first, manufacturers' must develop technologies to scale-up affordably to the size of transmission cables and other conducting applications. Manufacturing these materials in the U.S. would enhance competitiveness for companies in diverse applications, from integrated electric-storage systems to microelectronics thermal management. This image shows graphene nanoribbons (GNR) in aluminum grain.

A powder-coated particle shows defects, including a pore in the center and a satellite on the outsider left. Manufacturing spherical, defect-free powders is key to producing final parts with enhanced properties through powder additive manufacturing.

UCLA is developing a low-temperature, ultra-high-vacuum atomic force and scanning tunneling microscope to target individual atoms in order to create a defect-free material.

High-resolution transmission electron microscopy image of nanoscale oxide inclusion in thermoelectric material. Thermoelectric materials create a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Hence, they can be designed to directly convert temperature differences to electric. The materials depicted here will be additively manufactured into energy storage and other devices via laser-powder bed fusion AM process.

Composite image from transmission electron microscopy and chemical mapping of an additively manufactured alloy, designed to determine which elements and the amounts needed for the desired properties.

Super-resolution light microscopy can be used to study DNA origami devices. The upper image shows a schematic and the lower image shows the DNA origami.

3D render of a stepper motor based on the “DNA origami” design principle, along with a transmission electron microscopy image showing the building of slider and the rail, two sub-units of the motor.

A new alloy for 3D printing, which exhibits exceptional properties at elevated temperatures from microstructures formed during printing.

A 518-nanometer-thick water-filtration membrane.

The one-electron transistor. Transistors are building blocks for all microelectronics.

Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program participant Yu Kambe is commercializing a Quantum Dot ink to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient, tricolor micro-displays for virtual and augmented-reality devices.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) uses hydrogen lithography to create a one-nanometer line to validate digital, microelectronic device ideas. The sharp right angles depicted here literally enable a knife-edge potential well to trap electrons, enabling a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of electronic transistors for “edge computing.”

New manufacturing methods allow atoms to be deposited one layer at a time. In this image, a single layer of atoms covers the “trenches” shown in silicon, a material commonly used in conventional electronics components.

Nanoscale-device measurements depicted here, combined with machine-learning and artificial intelligence at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will enable researchers to develop integrated, microelectronic systems that are 10 times more energy efficient than today’s best systems. SLAC’s breakthrough technology will allow circuits to be manufactured in 3D, using techniques (e.g., atomic-layer deposition, AI-guided non-equilibrium flash annealing process) to make next-generation computing platforms (e.g., with unprecedented ferroelectric HfO2-ZrO2 thin film on-chip capacitors) that overcome Moore's law and the energy-efficiency limitations of today’s computer architecture.

The unique properties of carbon nanotubes (dark stripes) make them applicable for highly energy-efficient semiconductor technology and electronic devices.

By selectively precipitating metallic-carbon nanotubes and leaving semiconducting-carbon nanotubes dispersed in solution, Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program participant William Fitzhugh is developing an approach for low-cost supply chains for manufacturing next-generation nanoelectronics.

Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program participant Chad Husko of Iris Light Technologies in the Chain Reaction Innovations program at Argonne National Laboratory is using nanomaterials to make smaller, more efficient lasers for advanced photonics. Researchers are working to link photonics to electronics to improve speed and efficiency.

Coating a catalyst with a nanostructured copper-based dilute alloy can potentially increase energy and material efficiency by converting CO2 to high-demand chemicals and transportation fuels. The pine cone shape seen here increases the surface area of the copper alloy for more atom-to-atom interactions.

Nanoparticles are very good catalysts because they have a high ratio of surface to mass. This image shows metal nanoparticles grown on carbon.

Researchers visualize amazing things while working with nanotechnology. Each dot in this image represents atoms; the brighter clusters are metal particles.