MEMS at work...

[zrski]

Ik vind dit echt uitermate gaaf... Ik denk dat het I.E. forum de beste plek is om dit succesvolle experiment te plaatsen.

 

De content komt van de nieuwsbrief "the harrow technology report"

 

 

MEMS At Work.

 

 

 

No, this isn't a misspelled exposi of that famous Australian band

(http://www.legacyrecordings.com/menatwork/), nor is the first picture

(below) very good (since it was captured from a live video feed -

(http://mems.sandia.gov/scripts/memscam.asp). But you might excuse the

picture quality when you realize that the fuzzy objects are a WORKING

gear train (a small gear in the upper-right, meshing with a much larger

gear below it) running on nothing but electrostatic force, and whose

teeth are each the size of a single red blood cell!!

 

[image - http://mems.sandia.gov/scripts/memscam.asp]

 

This comparative "still" photomicrograph of just the upper "small gear"

makes things all too clear:

 

[image - http://mems.sandia.gov/scripts/index.asp]

 

"Imagine a machine so small that it is imperceptible to the human

eye. Imagine working machines with gears no bigger than a grain of

pollen. Imagine these machines being batch fabricated tens of

thousands at a time, at a cost of only a few pennies each. Imagine

a realm where the world of design is turned upside down, and the

seemingly impossible suddenly becomes easy. A place where gravity

and inertia are no longer important, but the effects of atomic

forces and surface science dominate. Welcome to the microdomain, a

world now occupied by an explosive new technology known as MEMS

(MicroElectroMechanical Systems) or, more simply, micromachines."

 

Years-old quote from Sandia National Labs,

http://www.sandia.gov/mstc/technologies/micromachines/vision.html .

 

 

Well, imagine no more! Because as described in a Sandia National Labs

demonstration of their latest technology, these pictures have captured

the soul of a working "microengine" whose components are so light (and

hence have so little inertia) that they can spin at over a half-million

RPM! (You can watch it work, LIVE, in the video stream at -

http://mems.sandia.gov/scripts/memscam.asp .)

 

Oh -- and these gears have demonstrated an endurance record of over 7

Billion revolutions! (This is the equivalent of your car engine taking

five round trips -- to the moon.)

 

Is there a practical application for this micromotor? Perhaps not yet.

But "yet" is the operative word, since most initial laboratory

prototypes simply prove a point, which then leads to practical

inventions. And considering that elements of this machine are at the

scale of living human cells, I suspect that the convergence of NBIC

(Nanotechnology, Biology & medicine, Information sciences, and Cognitive

sciences) might be very interesting, indeed. (For example, I wonder if

doctors might be interested in a machine to filter blood at the cellular

level, or perhaps to PUMP blood cells around, or...)

 

Again, Don't Blink!

 

 

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Het vermelden van de signup URL van deze nieuwsbrief vind ik eigenlijk wel de moeite waard... Dus hier is die: http://www.theharrowgroup.com/signup.asp

[Ronald Kleverlaan]

Is zeker een goede stap. Hoe zit het tegenwoordig verder met de nanotechnologie? Dit zou de "volgende innovatiegolf, met meer impact dan internet zijn" (Net zoals BioTechnologie, hoewel dat ook overlap kan hebben). Wat zijn de huidige ontwikkelingen? Wat kan wel/wat nog niet? Zijn we al werkelijk in het nano-tijdperk, of eerst nog via het "micro-tijdperk"?

 

Ronald