The idea is not new,but the delicate sensing system needed to detect the vibration and measure its frequency is new.European researchers have built a new device that can do just that. It may ultimately allow scientists to study the progress of chemical reactions, molecule by molecule.The new devise is a delicate sensing system needed to detect the vibration and measure its frequency.
                          
                               Real-life image (inset) of a carbon nanotube.
  
         Some nanotubes turn out to be semiconductors, depending on how the graphene sheet is wound, and it is these that offer the solution that CARDEQ has developed.It may then become possible to observe the radioactive decay of a single nucleus and to study other types of quantum mechanical phenomena.

 [Source: sciencedaily]

 When I'm searching the internet for nanotechnology related news,I find this news,this will pave a datatransfer speed revolution,so just publishing it.
    
  GridFTP, a protocol developed by researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, has been used to transfer unprecedented amounts of data over the Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), which provides a reliable, high-performance communications infrastructure to facilitate large-scale, collaborative science endeavors.

The Argonne-developed system proved key to enabling research groups at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in California to move large data sets between the facilities at a rate of 200 megabytes per second. The deployment of GridFTP at the two computing facilities is part of a major project to optimize wide-area network data transfers between sites hosting DOE leadership-class computers.

 [Source: Argonne]

 Northwestern University chemist Samuel Stupp has used nanotechnology - specifically molecules called peptide amphiphiles - to help heal heart damage in mice. The scientists induced heart attacks in the mice, then injected them with the peptide amphiphiles (modified to bond with a protein called heparin). The nanofibers collected at the site of the injury and helped speed the body's natural healing, according to researchers. Within a month, the injured mice were virtually on par with the healthy mice. The procedure seems to have also helped healing in rabbits, though obviously whether a similar procedure would be significant in aiding human healing will require more testing.

  Carbon nanotubes are the strongest material in the world. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory tried to combine the best of both worlds by creating a composite nanostructure.

Synthesis

   They wanted to grow tiny carbon tubes with tiny diamonds.But the results were not as expected. Instead, the experiment altered the surface area of the nanotubes, creating wing-like extensions. Even though the result wasn't what the experimenters were looking for, these modified surfaces may push nanotubes further into the world of practical and applied materials and systems. It also provides insight into how to synthesize an emerging class of material called ''nanocarbons,'' which consist of different allotropes -- the same elements with different molecular structures -- of carbon combined at the nanoscale to yield new materials with unique properties.

The carbon atoms that make up nanotubes and fullerenes are bonded like graphite in sheets that resemble ''chicken wire.'' When the sheets are rolled into a ball they make fullerenes -- the soccer-ball-shaped carbon molecules, different from both graphite and diamond. If the sheets are rolled into a seamless cylinder, they create carbon nanotubes.The unique properties of these nanotubes, including their strength, electrical properties and conducting capabilities, make them useful in electronic and mechanical applications. And they are small -- only one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair.

Applications

 Carbon nanotubes have been used for structural reinforcement and in lithium-ion batteries and television screen displays, but Argonne scientist John Carlisle said they are still in the prototype stage.

  A chemical method can unzip multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) along their lengths to produce ribbonlike strips of graphene, according to researchers in Mexico.These graphene nanoribbons, which are elongated one-atom-thick strips of carbon, exhibit tantalizing mechanical and electronic properties. The materials are under study for applications ranging from hydrogen storage and battery electrodes to polymer nanocomposites and sensors.

Synthesis

Abraham G. Cano-Márquez, Fernando J. Rodríguez-Macías, and Yadira I. Vega-Cantú, all of the Institute for Scientific & Technological Research, in San Luis Potosi, and coworkers report that treating MWNTs with lithium and ammonia results in the insertion of ammonia-solvated lithium ions between the nanotubes' concentric graphene sheets. That step ruptures the multiwalled structures by prying apart the layers, which are further separated by way of hydrochloric acid and heat treatments.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) show great promise as components of nanoscale electronic devices, but most commercial applications have been stymied by the difficulty in isolating nanotubes of identical chirality from a synthetic mixture.

  Now, Xiaomin Tu and Ming Zheng of DuPont Central Research & Development, together with Suresh Manohar and Anand Jagota of Lehigh University, have shown that the unique molecular properties of DNA can be exploited to sort SWNTs (Nature 2009, 460, 250).

                                     
    [A DNA sequence consisting of ATTT repeats forms a barrel-shaped structure around a single type of chiral carbon nanotube.]

   Single walled nanotubes synthesis produces a mixture of nanotubes with nonuniform diameters and chiralities and, therefore, heterogeneous physicochemical properties. Having previously shown that a particular DNA sequence could form an ordered structure on SWNTs, Zheng and colleagues reasoned that they might be able to find a DNA sequence to purify each type of SWNT in a synthetic mixture. The problem was identifying the correct DNA molecules among an unfeasibly large number (1018) of possible 30-nucleotide sequences.

 To reduce the DNA library to a more manageable size of 350 oligonucleotides, the researchers devised a sequence-pattern-expansion scheme that considered all possible DNA sequences composed of mono-, di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats. They added each DNA oligonucleotide to a random mixture of SWNTs. Then, they used ion-exchange chromatography to separate the 350 solutions into fractions, which they analyzed spectroscopically for the presence of specific DNA-SWNT hybrids.

  [Source: ACS]

 Route to cycloparaphenylenes could lead to a new way to make carbon nanotubes.

A NOVEL REACTION that could be generally useful for aromatic synthesis has made possible the assembly of a long-sought family of compounds: the cycloparaphenylenes, which are strings of benzenes joined in a ring-around-the-rosy style. The compounds could prove useful for constructing carbon nanotubes, which hold promise for electronics, advanced biosensors, and other applications.

---

  FUNDAMENTAL UNIT
Cycloparaphenylenes (a), made by Bertozzi and coworkers in 9-, 12-, and 18-benzene-ring sizes, are basic building blocks (highlighted bonds) of armchair carbon nanotubes (b).
                                     
      (a) Cycloparaphenylenes                 (b)Armchair carbon nanotubes

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Synthesis

"It's a landmark synthesis" because of its brevity, elegance, creativity, and high product yields, comments Graham J. Bodwell of Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John's, who specializes in conjugated "belt" compound synthesis.

 Ramesh Jasti, chemistry professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Carolyn R. Bertozzi, and coworkers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Molecular Foundry and the University of California, Berkeley, carried out the new synthesis. They succeeded by creating rings of benzenes and cyclohexadienes and then using a new aromatization reaction they developed to convert the cyclohexadienes to benzenes.

The aromatization reaction works under low-temperature conditions and generates high yields of pure products; it is an important achievement in itself. Previously, aromatizations of highly strained compounds led to undesirable rearrangements or formation of complex mixtures.

 [Source: ACS]

    A doughnut-shaped molecule synthesized by Berkeley Lab scientists could enable the targeted development of carbon nanotubes, which hold promise for faster electronic devices and other advanced technologies.
                                    
                                            Nanohoop
        Berkeley Lab scientists synthesized a compound for the first time could help to push nanotechnology out of the lab and into faster electronic devices, more powerful sensors, and other advanced technologies.The scientists developed a hoop-shaped chain of benzene molecules that had eluded synthesis, despite numerous efforts, since it was theorized more than 70 years ago.

         The much-anticipated debut of the compound, called cycloparaphenylene, couldn’t be better timed. It comes as scientists are working to improve the way carbon nanotubes are produced, and the newly synthesized nanohoop happens to be the shortest segment of a carbon nanotube. Scientists could use the segment to grow much longer carbon nanotubes in a controlled way, with each nanotube identical to the next.

Synthesis

           To synthesize the elusive cycloparaphenylene, the team developed a relatively simple, low-temperature way to bend a string of benzene rings — which normally resist bending — into a hoop. The result is a structure that is as unusual as it is potentially useful. It should be flat, but it’s circular. And it’s poised to improve the way one of most promising stars in nanotechnology is produced.Carbon nanotubes are hollow wires of pure carbon about 50,000 times narrower than a human hair.

        They can be semiconducting or metallic depending on how they’re structured. Their unique properties could usher in a new era of faster and smaller computers, or tiny sensors powerful enough to detect a single molecule.But carbon nanotubes haven’t made inroads into the electronics industry and other sectors because they’re difficult to make in large quantities. They’re currently produced in batches, with only a handful of nanotubes in each batch possessing the desired characteristics.

         This shotgun approach works fine in the lab, but it’s too inefficient for commercial applications.Cycloparaphenylene offers a more targeted approach. The family of compounds forms the smallest carbon hoop structure with a set diameter and set orientation of benzene molecules, which are the two variables that determine a nanotube’s electronic properties.Because of this, cycloparaphenylene molecules could be used as seeds or templates to grow large batches of carbon nanotubes with just the right specifications.

This combination of precision and high yield will be needed if carbon nanotubes are to make the jump from the lab to the commercial sector. In order for carbon nanotubes to replace silicon wafers in electronics, for example, they’ll need to be just as unblemished as silicon wafers, and just as easy to make in large numbers.

Purdue University researchers have created magnetically responsive gold nanostars that may offer a new approach to biomedical imaging.
                            
                Research team members stand with equipment used for gyromagnetic imaging of gold nanostars.
       
          The nanostars gyrate when exposed to a rotating magnetic field and can scatter light to produce a pulsating or "twinkling" effect. This twinkling allows them to stand out more clearly from noisy backgrounds like those found in biological tissue. Alexander Wei, a professor of chemistry, and Kenneth Ritchie, an associate professor of physics, led the team that created the new gyromagnetic imaging method.

 Purdue university researchers align nanotubes to improve artificial joints.Researchers have shown that artificial joints might be improved by making the implants out of tiny carbon tubes and filaments that are all aligned in the same direction, mimicking the alignment of collagen fibers and natural ceramic crystals in real bones. The researchers already have shown in a series of experiments that bone cells in Petri dishes attach better to materials that possess smaller surface bumps than are found on conventional materials used to make artificial joints. The smaller features also stimulate the growth of more new bone tissue, which is critical for the proper attachment of artificial joints once they are implanted.
                                
                                         Arrays of nanofibers

       Now, the Purdue researchers have shown even more enhanced cell adhesion and growth when so-called "nanotubes" and nanofibers are aligned in the same direction. This orientation is similar to the way collagen and natural ceramic crystals, called hydroxyapatite, are aligned in bone, said Thomas Webster, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue.

 [Source: Prude]

 UCLA chemists report new method for producing carbon nanoscrolls, an alternative to nanotubes.A room-temperature chemical method for producing a new form of carbon called carbon nanoscrolls.
                                      
         Nanoscrolls are closely related to the carbon nanotubes.Nanoscrolls have significant advantages over them,which may have numerous industrial applications.Nanotubes are pure carbon sheets in a tubular form, capped at each end. Viculis and Mack's carbon nanoscrolls are also pure carbon but the sheets are curled up, without the caps on the ends, potentially allowing access to significant additional surface area. While nanotubes are normally made at high temperatures, nanoscrolls can be produced at room temperature.
[Source :Scienceblog]

    Here is a hot news for nano researchers and scientisits.Global nanoelectronics market may reach $409.6 billion by 2015-according to New research report by GIA.
Nanoelectronics is expected to exercise a considerable influence on
semiconductors, displays, memory and storage devices, and communication
devices.GIA exopects that nanoelectronics based devices will become
more reliable, interactive, cost effective, and would be capable of
surviving under extreme weather conditions and pollution. Integration
of molecular biology and nanoelectronics creates avenues for developing
hybrid devices that would find utilization in a wide range of
biological and medical application.

    
Rice University's Andrew Barron and his group, working with labs in Italy, Germany and Greece, have identified specific molecules that could block the means by which the deadly virus spreads by taking away its ability to bind with other proteins.The groups reported their findings in a paper published on the American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling web site.Their method of modeling ways to attack HIV may not be unique, but their collaboration is. Research groups from five institutions -- two in Greece, one in Germany, one in Italy and Barron's group at Rice -- came together through e-mail contacts and conversations over many months, each working on facets of the problem. "Not all the groups have ever met in person," Barron said.
                                      
Most remarkable, he said, is that their research to date has been completely unfunded.Using simulations to narrow down a collection of fullerenes to find the good ones is "the least time-consuming low-cost procedure for efficient, rational drug design," the team wrote.

 [Source : Azonano]

    
  Carbon Design Innovations, Inc. announced the availability of two new atomic force microscope (AFM) probes types with carbon nanotube (CNT) tips. The CCHAR (carbon core high-aspect ratio) and CCHR (carbon core highresolution) CNT probes offer quantum improvements for AFM imaging, substantially improving results, reducing overall cost of operation and opening new avenues for research.
                             
   Carbon Design Innovations, Inc. has a patent pending process for the deterministic manufacture of carbon nanotube (CNT) devices. Based on this breakthrough process, the company is able to produce CNT AFM probes that are perfectly straight and precisely aligned, allowing them to be set at desired angles to the surface.

 [Source: Azonano]

  A team of researchers led by Wolfgang Tremel at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have now developed a new technique for producing tin disulfide nanotubes. According to the report published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the scientists have found a way of 'growing' SnS2 tubules from a metal droplet.

Synthesis
   They first used the vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) process, a technique more commonly used to produce semicon-ductor nanowires. Bismuth powder is combined with tin disulfide nanoflakes, and the mixture is heated in a tube furnace under an argon gas flow. The product of the reaction is deposited at the cooler end.

 Nanodroplets of bismuth are formed in the furnace, and these act as local collec-tion points for tin. In this manner, the reaction partners accumulate in the metal droplets, providing the raw material from which nanotubes can be grown. Tremel explains: "In this process, the metal droplets are retained in the form of spheres at the end of the tubes, while the nanotubes grow out of them like hairs from follicles. And thanks to the catalytic effect provided by the metal droplets, it is possible to grow nanotubes even at relatively low temperatures."

Using the new technique, the team has been able to produce perfect nanotubes with diameters in a range of 30 - 40 nm and lengths of 100 - 500 nm consisting of several layers of SnS2.
 [Source : azonano ]

    
 A team of researchers from DuPont and Lehigh University has reported a breakthrough in the quest to produce carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that are suitable for use in electronics, medicine and other applications.
Source : azonano

       Over the past month, three new research papers have highlighted the potential of nanotubes as weapons against cancer.A group headed by James R. Baker, Jr., M.D., University of Michigan, describes its success in linking single-molecule nanoparticles known as dendrimers to the surface of multiwalled carbon nanotubes. The resulting combination nanomaterial is highly stable, readily disperses in water, and is biocompatible.The dendrimers that Dr. Baker’s group uses function as targeting agents that deliver the nanotubes specifically to tumor cells that overexpress high-affinity folic acid receptors. Although other research teams also have developed methods for targeting nanotubes to tumors, this approach holds particular promise because dendrimers also can be modified to carry drugs and imaging agents as well as targeting agents.

More >>> National Cancer Institute Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnerships

    
CNano Technology (CNano), founded in 2007,producing a wide range of applications based on extremely pure carbon nanotubes, announced that it has successfully scaled up its manufacturing technology to reach the world's largest production capacity of 500 tons per year for multiple wall carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotube products are already in evaluation with selected customers in several markets that include electronics, automotive and energy storage.

    Scientists at the University of Delaware say they have developed a new hydrogen storage method-carbonized chicken feather fibers; that can hold vast amounts of hydrogen.
“Carbonized chicken feather fibers have the potential to dramatically improve upon existing methods of hydrogen storage and perhaps pave the way for the practical development of a truly hydrogen-based energy economy,” says Richard P. Wool, professor of chemical engineering and director of the University's Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources (ACRES) program.

  The research was presented by Erman Senoz, a graduate student in UD's Department of Chemical Engineering.Chicken feather fibers are mostly composed of keratin, a natural protein that forms strong, hollow tubes. When heated, this protein creates crosslinks, which strengthen its structure, and becomes more porous, increasing its surface area. The net result is carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, two other materials being studied for their hydrogen storage potential, Wool says. Plus, they're cheap.Using carbonized chicken feathers would only add about $200 to the price of a car, according to Wool. By comparison, making a 20-gallon hydrogen fuel tank that uses carbon nanotubes could cost $5.5 million; one that uses metal hydrides could cost up to $30,000, Wool says.

Sciencedaily reported about Silicon Nanotubes For Hydrogen Storage In Fuel Cell Vehicles in Apr. 24, 2008. In the study, Cao's group used powerful molecular modeling tools to compare the hydrogen storage capacities of newly developed silicon nanotubes to carbon nanotubes. They found that, in theory, silicon nanotubes can absorb hydrogen molecules more efficiently than carbon nanotubes under normal fuel cell operating conditions. The calculations pave the way for tests to determine whether silicon nanotubes can meet government standards for hydrogen storage, the scientists note.

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