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A nano-abacus is a nano-sized abacus that performs basic arithmetic computations using various forms of nanotechnology including photonics and lateral mechanical stimulation of molecular motion with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip by repulsion. The nano-abacus has the potential to be used in a variety of nanotechnological inventions such as the nano-computer.
The first nano-abacus was developed on November 13, 1997 by physicist James Gimzewski at an IBM research laboratory in Zürich, Switzerland. Gimzewski's initial idea for the device was inspired by the Japanese soroban. [1] [2] The creation of the nano-abacus was sponsored by the Swiss Federal Office of Education and Science within the European Strategic Program for Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT) of the European Union as part of IBM's "PRONANO" (processing on the nanometer scale) project. [3]
Gimzewski's nano-abacus consists of stable rows containing ten molecules acting as railings. The beads are made up of buckminsterfullerene constrained by one-atom-high ridges on a copper sheet and are pushed around by the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope at room temperature to create a calculation and allow it be viewed when operated in imaging mode. [3]
Gimzewski, along with physicists Maria Teresa Cuberes and Reto R. Schlittler, found that their device was capable of controllably repositioning C60 molecules with a scanning tunneling microscope tip along Cu(111) mono-atomic steps at room temperature. [4]
A similar nanoscopic optical abacus was developed in 2017 by a team of international researchers led by Professor C. David Wright from the University of Exeter. The team's chip-scale all-optical abacus uses picosecond light pulses to perform arithmetic computations. The device has proved successful in calculating with multi-digit numbers using equivalent photonic phase-change cells. [5] [6]
A microscope is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisible to the eye unless aided by a microscope.
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing properties of matter. This definition of nanotechnology includes all types of research and technologies that deal with these special properties. It is common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to research and applications whose common trait is scale. An earlier understanding of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabricating macroscale products, now referred to as molecular nanotechnology.
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of scanning probe microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. STM senses the surface by using an extremely sharp conducting tip that can distinguish features smaller than 0.1 nm with a 0.01 nm (10 pm) depth resolution. This means that individual atoms can routinely be imaged and manipulated. Most scanning tunneling microscopes are built for use in ultra-high vacuum at temperatures approaching absolute zero, but variants exist for studies in air, water and other environments, and for temperatures over 1000 °C.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning force microscopy (SFM) is a very-high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy (SPM), with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the optical diffraction limit.
Mechanosynthesis is a term for hypothetical chemical syntheses in which reaction outcomes are determined by the use of mechanical constraints to direct reactive molecules to specific molecular sites. There are presently no non-biological chemical syntheses which achieve this aim. Some atomic placement has been achieved with scanning tunnelling microscopes.
Sir Mark Edward Welland, is a British physicist who is a professor of nanotechnology at the University of Cambridge and head of the Nanoscience Centre. He has been a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, since 1986 and started his career in nanotechnology at IBM Research, where he was part of the team that developed one of the first scanning tunnelling microscopes. He was served as the Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge and took up office from 2016 to 2023.
James Kazimierz Gimzewski is a Scottish physicist of Polish descent who pioneered research on electrical contacts with single atoms and molecules and light emission using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM).
NanoArt is a novel art discipline related to science and technology. It depicts natural or synthetic structures with features sized at the nanometer scale, which are observed by electron or scanning probe microscopy techniques in scientific laboratories. The recorded two or three dimensional images and movies are processed for artistic appeal and presented to the general audience.
Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) or scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) is a microscopy technique for nanostructure investigation that breaks the far field resolution limit by exploiting the properties of evanescent waves. In SNOM, the excitation laser light is focused through an aperture with a diameter smaller than the excitation wavelength, resulting in an evanescent field on the far side of the aperture. When the sample is scanned at a small distance below the aperture, the optical resolution of transmitted or reflected light is limited only by the diameter of the aperture. In particular, lateral resolution of 6 nm and vertical resolution of 2–5 nm have been demonstrated.
Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, and nanotechnology. It often involves dielectric structures such as nanoantennas, or metallic components, which can transport and focus light via surface plasmon polaritons.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to nanotechnology:
Molecular scale electronics, also called single-molecule electronics, is a branch of nanotechnology that uses single molecules, or nanoscale collections of single molecules, as electronic components. Because single molecules constitute the smallest stable structures imaginable, this miniaturization is the ultimate goal for shrinking electrical circuits.
Local oxidation nanolithography (LON) is a tip-based nanofabrication method. It is based on the spatial confinement on an oxidation reaction under the sharp tip of an atomic force microscope.
Photoconductive atomic force microscopy (PC-AFM) is a variant of atomic force microscopy that measures photoconductivity in addition to surface forces.
Donald M. Eigler is an American physicist associated with the IBM Almaden Research Center, who is noted for his achievements in nanotechnology.
A Boy and His Atom is a 2013 stop-motion animated short film released on YouTube by IBM Research. One minute in length, it was made by moving carbon monoxide molecules with a scanning tunneling microscope, a device that magnifies them 100 million times. These two-atom molecules were moved to create images, which were then saved as individual frames to make the film. The movie was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Smallest Stop-Motion Film in 2013.
Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) is a variant of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) that combines scanning probe microscopy with Raman spectroscopy. High spatial resolution chemical imaging is possible via TERS, with routine demonstrations of nanometer spatial resolution under ambient laboratory conditions, or better at ultralow temperatures and high pressure.
A probe tip is an instrument used in scanning probe microscopes (SPMs) to scan the surface of a sample and make nano-scale images of surfaces and structures. The probe tip is mounted on the end of a cantilever and can be as sharp as a single atom. In microscopy, probe tip geometry and the composition of both the tip and the surface being probed directly affect resolution and imaging quality. Tip size and shape are extremely important in monitoring and detecting interactions between surfaces. SPMs can precisely measure electrostatic forces, magnetic forces, chemical bonding, Van der Waals forces, and capillary forces. SPMs can also reveal the morphology and topography of a surface.
Multi-tip scanning tunneling microscopy extends scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) from imaging to dedicated electrical measurements at the nanoscale like a ″multimeter at the nanoscale″. In materials science, nanoscience, and nanotechnology, it is desirable to measure electrical properties at a particular position of the sample. For this purpose, multi-tip STMs in which several tips are operated independently have been developed. Apart from imaging the sample, the tips of a multi-tip STM are used to form contacts to the sample at desired locations and to perform local electrical measurements.
This glossary of nanotechnology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to nanotechnology, its sub-disciplines, and related fields.
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