NEW KIT BRINGS THE NANOWRLD WITHIN EVERYONE’S REACH

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NEW KIT BRINGS THE NANOWRLD WITHIN EVERYONE’S REACH
05 May 2000 - University of Wisconsin-Madison

In the rarefied world of high-end physics and chemistry, homing in on and manipulating individual atoms like Legos, stacking, sorting, arranging, is no big deal.

This revolution in Lilliput, the ability to see and maneuver atoms one at a time, heralds a world where wondrous new materials, microscopic medical devices and custom-designed drugs will significantly enhance our quality of life.

But while scientists and engineers have a clear vision of the nanoworld, the now-accessible world of atoms, how are the rest of us going to learn about this radical and potentially far-reaching technology?

The answer, according to scientists from the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, may lie in a small kit containing a few simple hands-on demonstrations and the boiled-down knowledge of nanoscience encoded in an easy-to-understand picture book.

"What we're trying to do is communicate to people what nanoscience and nanotechnology are all about," says Arthur B. Ellis, UW-Madison chemistry professor and a developer of "Exploring the Nanoworld."

Using simple, inexpensive materials, including a light-emitting diode, a refrigerator magnet, a short section of fiber optic cable, a piece of "memory metal" wire, a diffraction slide and a hand lens, the kit provides a gateway to the nanoworld, a world a billion times smaller than anything humans typically encounter.

"We don't have direct experience with the nanoworld," says Ellis, "but it has so much potential as the basis for an emerging technology that people need to understand what it is."

Ellis developed the kit with George Lisensky of Beloit College, and Karen Nordell, S. Michael Condren and Diana Malone at UW-Madison.

The kit's components and the detailed, easy-to-read booklet describing the nanoworld lend hands-on insight into a technology that could change our world. For example, the influence of nanotech on LED technology, and some sense of atomic scale, is illustrated in the kit's booklet. It shows how the semiconductors at the heart of LEDs can be grown one atomic layer at a time and how, by varying the kinds of atoms used, LEDs can be made to glow in all the colors of the rainbow. The booklet also illustrates the increasing influence of these technologies on our lives by showing LEDs in use in everything from traffic lights to stadium-sized message boards.

The ability to orchestrate atomic positions holds the promise of amazing new materials as well. One existing example is "memory metal," an alloy composed of nickel and titanium atoms that, after being bent out of shape, can be restored to its original form by being exposed to heat. The key to understanding how memory metal works, says Ellis, lies in how the atoms in the metal use the energy in hot water or hot air to change positions.

Nanotech also promises to revolutionize medicine by permitting the modification of DNA molecules. It may also permit the manufacture of medical devices so small they could comfortably float in the bloodstream.

The booklet describes a variety of commercial products, surgical stents to keep blood vessels open, eyeglasses that spring back into shape after being bent, braces that keep uniform pressure on teeth, already in use.

http://www.wisc.edu

About: University of Wisconsin-Madison
In achievement and prestige, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been recognized as one of America’s great universities. A public, land-grant institution, UW-Madison offers a complete spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs and student activities. Many of its programs are hailed as world leaders in instruction, research and public service.

The university traces its roots to a clause in the Wisconsin Constitution, which decreed that the state should have a prominent public university. In 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin’s first governor, signed the act that formally created the university, and its first class, with 17 students, met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849.

From those humble beginnings, the university has grown into a large, diverse community, with about 40,000 students enrolled each year. These students represent every state in the nation, as well as countries from around the globe, making for a truly international population.

UW-Madison is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Wisconsin System, a statewide network of 13 comprehensive universities, 13 freshman-sophomore transfer colleges and an extension service. One of two doctorate-granting universities in the system, UW-Madison’s specific mission is to provide "a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help insure the survival of this and future generations and improve the quality of life for all."

The university achieves these ends through innovative programs of research, teaching and public service. Throughout its history, UW-Madison has sought to bring the power of learning into the daily lives of its students through innovations such as residential learning communities and service-learning opportunities. Students also participate freely in research, which has led to life-improving inventions from more fuel-efficient engines to cutting-edge genetic therapies.

Students, faculty and staff are motivated by a tradition known as the "Wisconsin Idea," described by UW President Charles Van Hise in 1904 as the compelling need to carry "the beneficent influence of the university ... to every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university’s work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students and the state’s industries and government.

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