News Topic - Pink
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Gallery: From Tiny Machines to Security, the Future of Nano-Fabrication
: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comLOS ANGELES -- As nanomachines move beyond just prototypes, a potential industry of microscopic mass production awaits its own Henry Ford to make it a reality. In anticipation of this demand, researchers at a nanotech lab at UCLA are mass-producing billions of customizable microparticles using a machine normally found in the microchip fabrication industry. Lead by Dr. Thomas Mason, the team has created microscale letters to illustrate the possibilities of this new process."The idea is to make a powerful statement about a new class of materials that exist. Solid particles that have human-designed shapes. We can design millions of different kinds of shapes, highly uniform, highly precise," explains Mason.Mason's ultimate goal is to quickly create large quantities of parts for complicated nanomachines. These parts would include nanogears, nanoengines and other small-scale parts that are currently created one at a time in an assembly line fashion. Click through the gallery to go behind the scenes of microfabrication.Left: Billions of microscale letters on a silicon wafer reflect light like a diffraction grating.: Photo: Thomas G. Mason and Carlos J. Hernandez Zoomed in, one can see the microscale alphabet soup and the potential for information and codes embedded in various substances. Though each letter is a few microns across, this new mass production technique will be able to produce objects on the scale of nanometers with upgraded equipment. : Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis is the unglamorous beginning of nanoletter production. The white box at left is the spin coater, which applies the nanoletter polymer on a silicon wafer (see first slide), like the kind used to make microprocessors. First, a drop of the polymer is placed on a silicon wafer. Then the wafer spins and the centrifugal force spreads the liquid evenly over the silicon.The polymer is photosensitive and hardens under exposure to ultraviolet light. In the next steps, the UV light takes on the shape of the desired micro-object and exposes that exact design in the polymer. The unexposed polymer washes away, leaving the hardened shapes, in this case letters, behind -- almost like cutting cookies from a sheet of dough.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis lamp enclosure emits strong UV light. The light bounces through a series of mirrors into the machine that exposes the nanoletters, called a stepper (shown in next slide).: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comUCLA nanotech professor Dr. Thomas G. Mason explains the basic operation of the stepper -- so named because it steps, or repeats, an image multiple times over the silicon wafer. The machine prints a microscopic version of the image at each step by shining UV light onto the photosensitive polymer, like the way positive film is exposed.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comInside the stepper sits a 200-pound lens encased in stainless steel (center) which very accurately imprints a shrunken image onto the polymer. This lens is ground to an extremely high level of precision to avoid introducing errors into the image being exposed.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comA robotic assembly inside the stepper grabs the silicon wafers and exposes it one section at a time. It exposes an entire wafer in roughly one minute, creating billions of micro-objects. : Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThe stepper rests on a pneumatic dampening system (black cylinders with blue tops) to virtually eliminate vibrations. Just as you don’t want your camera shaking when you take a photo, you don’t want your stepper shaking when you make billions of nanoletters.A positioning platform (middle, illuminated in pink) precisely moves the wafers between exposures.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis scrapped stepper system sits outside the clean room. It's now used for spare parts, just like that old car on cinder blocks in your front yard.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comMason and Kun Zhao don gloves before entering the clean room where the Ultratech XLS stepper resides. Dust particles can ruin the nano and microscale patterns the stepper images on the silicon substrate.
Wired News – Jul 19, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comLOS ANGELES -- As nanomachines move beyond just prototypes, a potential industry of microscopic mass production awaits its own Henry Ford to make it a reality. In anticipation of this demand, researchers at a nanotech lab at UCLA are mass-producing billions of customizable microparticles using a machine normally found in the microchip fabrication industry. Lead by Dr. Thomas Mason, the team has created microscale letters to illustrate the possibilities of this new process."The idea is to make a powerful statement about a new class of materials that exist. Solid particles that have human-designed shapes. We can design millions of different kinds of shapes, highly uniform, highly precise," explains Mason.Mason's ultimate goal is to quickly create large quantities of parts for complicated nanomachines. These parts would include nanogears, nanoengines and other small-scale parts that are currently created one at a time in an assembly line fashion. Click through the gallery to go behind the scenes of microfabrication.Left: Billions of microscale letters on a silicon wafer reflect light like a diffraction grating.: Photo: Thomas G. Mason and Carlos J. Hernandez Zoomed in, one can see the microscale alphabet soup and the potential for information and codes embedded in various substances. Though each letter is a few microns across, this new mass production technique will be able to produce objects on the scale of nanometers with upgraded equipment. : Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis is the unglamorous beginning of nanoletter production. The white box at left is the spin coater, which applies the nanoletter polymer on a silicon wafer (see first slide), like the kind used to make microprocessors. First, a drop of the polymer is placed on a silicon wafer. Then the wafer spins and the centrifugal force spreads the liquid evenly over the silicon.The polymer is photosensitive and hardens under exposure to ultraviolet light. In the next steps, the UV light takes on the shape of the desired micro-object and exposes that exact design in the polymer. The unexposed polymer washes away, leaving the hardened shapes, in this case letters, behind -- almost like cutting cookies from a sheet of dough.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis lamp enclosure emits strong UV light. The light bounces through a series of mirrors into the machine that exposes the nanoletters, called a stepper (shown in next slide).: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comUCLA nanotech professor Dr. Thomas G. Mason explains the basic operation of the stepper -- so named because it steps, or repeats, an image multiple times over the silicon wafer. The machine prints a microscopic version of the image at each step by shining UV light onto the photosensitive polymer, like the way positive film is exposed.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comInside the stepper sits a 200-pound lens encased in stainless steel (center) which very accurately imprints a shrunken image onto the polymer. This lens is ground to an extremely high level of precision to avoid introducing errors into the image being exposed.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comA robotic assembly inside the stepper grabs the silicon wafers and exposes it one section at a time. It exposes an entire wafer in roughly one minute, creating billions of micro-objects. : Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThe stepper rests on a pneumatic dampening system (black cylinders with blue tops) to virtually eliminate vibrations. Just as you don’t want your camera shaking when you take a photo, you don’t want your stepper shaking when you make billions of nanoletters.A positioning platform (middle, illuminated in pink) precisely moves the wafers between exposures.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comThis scrapped stepper system sits outside the clean room. It's now used for spare parts, just like that old car on cinder blocks in your front yard.: Photo: Dave Bullock/Wired.comMason and Kun Zhao don gloves before entering the clean room where the Ultratech XLS stepper resides. Dust particles can ruin the nano and microscale patterns the stepper images on the silicon substrate.
Wired News – Jul 19, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
Pink Propane Truck Turning Heads in Rexburg
You may have caught a glimpse of pink running around your neighborhood in the last month. "At first it's an adjustment because a lot of people are staring at you," said Truck Manager, Jordan Nef. "Then once they read what the cause is, people have been very supportive."
LocalNews8.com – Jul 19, 2008 12:44 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Idaho: Idaho Falls
You may have caught a glimpse of pink running around your neighborhood in the last month. "At first it's an adjustment because a lot of people are staring at you," said Truck Manager, Jordan Nef. "Then once they read what the cause is, people have been very supportive."
LocalNews8.com – Jul 19, 2008 12:44 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Idaho: Idaho Falls
Pete Wentz Thinks Pink, Denies Buying BlueIs papa-to-be Pete Wentz thinking pink?Probably, since his band performed at the Victoria's Secret Pinkapalooza event yesterday at the Santa Monica Pier.And...
E! Online – Jul 18, 2008 7:29 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment
Sorority Leads March for Change
Wearing a pink and green T-shirt, Anne Sims rode down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol in her motorized scooter as her Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters marched with her.
Washington Post – Jul 18, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Top Stories: Education
Wearing a pink and green T-shirt, Anne Sims rode down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol in her motorized scooter as her Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters marched with her.
Washington Post – Jul 18, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Top Stories: Education
Valley firefighters dress in pink, hit the road for cancer
A breast cancer survivor herself, Governor Janet Napolitano was on hand for support in Phoenix.
ABC15.com – Jul 18, 2008 12:22 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Arizona: Phoenix
A breast cancer survivor herself, Governor Janet Napolitano was on hand for support in Phoenix.
ABC15.com – Jul 18, 2008 12:22 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Arizona: Phoenix
AKA Sorority Presents Colorful Picture
This week thousands of African-American women dressed in pink and green are in Washington to celebrate the centenary of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the nation's oldest black sorority. The group is known for it commitment to community service.
NPR.org – Jul 17, 2008 8:00 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in U.S. News
This week thousands of African-American women dressed in pink and green are in Washington to celebrate the centenary of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the nation's oldest black sorority. The group is known for it commitment to community service.
NPR.org – Jul 17, 2008 8:00 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in U.S. News
Thousands Join in Sorority March on Capitol
Pennsylvania Avenue was a sea of bright pink and green this morning as more than 30,000 people, most of them women of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, marched to the Capitol steps to call attention to the need for education, health care and employment.
Washington Post – Jul 17, 2008 6:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: District of Columbia: Washington
Pennsylvania Avenue was a sea of bright pink and green this morning as more than 30,000 people, most of them women of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, marched to the Capitol steps to call attention to the need for education, health care and employment.
Washington Post – Jul 17, 2008 6:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: District of Columbia: Washington
Queen Of The Summer
She's done it again!Katy Perry's monster single, I Kissed A Girl, is the #1 song in America.The tune has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in a row now!Hot on Katy's pink heels, though, is Rihanna. Her song, Take A Bow, takes the runner-up slot to come in at #2 this week.The girls [...]
PerezHilton.com – Jul 17, 2008 4:30 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Celebrity Gossip
She's done it again!Katy Perry's monster single, I Kissed A Girl, is the #1 song in America.The tune has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in a row now!Hot on Katy's pink heels, though, is Rihanna. Her song, Take A Bow, takes the runner-up slot to come in at #2 this week.The girls [...]
PerezHilton.com – Jul 17, 2008 4:30 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Celebrity Gossip
Family prepares to remember Mya
The tragically brief life of 9-year-old Mya Lyons will be celebrated Saturday with bunches of roses -- pink, of course -- at a funeral at a Southwest Side church. A service is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Monument of Faith Evangelical Church, 2750 W. Columbus Ave., Mya's aunt, Nicole Barnes, said Wednesday.
Chicago Sun Times – Jul 17, 2008 09:52 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Illinois: Chicago
The tragically brief life of 9-year-old Mya Lyons will be celebrated Saturday with bunches of roses -- pink, of course -- at a funeral at a Southwest Side church. A service is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Monument of Faith Evangelical Church, 2750 W. Columbus Ave., Mya's aunt, Nicole Barnes, said Wednesday.
Chicago Sun Times – Jul 17, 2008 09:52 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Illinois: Chicago
Arizona governor signs pink fire truck headed across US
The truck will spend 64 days on the road, stopping in 32 cities gathering donations to help women with breast cancer who are un- or under-insured.
ABC15.com – Jul 17, 2008 08:42 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Arizona: Phoenix
The truck will spend 64 days on the road, stopping in 32 cities gathering donations to help women with breast cancer who are un- or under-insured.
ABC15.com – Jul 17, 2008 08:42 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Local: Arizona: Phoenix