#nanofabrication

[pddparthi]

Shrinking the World: Unveiling the Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Battle in Nanofabrication

Demystify top-down vs. bottom-up approaches in nanofabrication & explore the exciting potential of non-lithographic techniques shaping the future! Imagine shrinking yourself down to the size of a grain of rice and entering a world where materials behave differently, where properties like strength, conductivity, and reactivity change dramatically at the nanoscale. This is the fascinating realm of…

[symbiosisonlinepublishing]

𝐍𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬: Nanoscience focuses on understanding the properties and behavior of nanomaterials, which can exhibit unique properties due to their small size and high surface area.

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞: Nanoscience and nanotechnology draw from multiple disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and materials science, to explore phenomena at the nanoscale.

Visit @ https://symbiosisonlinepublishing.com/nanoscience-technology/

[lancelought]

Went clothes shopping today and it was so hard to find clothes that weren't made of like. Paper thin fabric. Of fucking nanofabric. A single sheet of molecules. Fucking thread count four ass fabric. Feels like it'll fall apart like crepe paper if you run it between your fingers ass fabric. Single ply toilet paper fabric. That shit. Why.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Nanosized blocks spontaneously assemble in water to create tiny floating checkerboards

Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work, published in Nature Communications, presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly. "It's a cool way to get materials to build themselves," said study co-senior author Andrea Tao, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the University of California San Diego. "You don't have to go into a nanofabrication lab and do all these complex and precise manipulations." Each nanocube is composed of a silver crystal with a mixture of hydrophobic (oily) and hydrophilic (water-loving) molecules attached to the surface. When a suspension of these nanocubes is introduced to a water surface, they arrange themselves such that they touch at their corner edges. This arrangement creates an alternating pattern of solid cubes and empty spaces, resulting in a checkerboard pattern.

Read more.

[databreachss]

(TW: BLOOD. Could be realistic? I don’t know how well I drew it)

~~~~~~~~~~~

LOADING FILE…

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…

DONE!

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[OPEN REMUS. CHR]

Name: Remus

Age: 19

Height: 5’10”

Additional info:

Remus grew up privileged within Virdis, with his twin brother Roman, and his parents. He was one of the two children of the owners of CROWN (Cybernetic Reimagining of Optimized Wearables and Nanotech)- a large-scale seller of nanofabric clothing, and everyday tech. At 17, he and his brother were given access to the company’s stock and information, expected to take over the business when their parents were gone. After learning the shady activities and partnerships with malevolent organizations, he and Roman escaped, starting a rebel group by the name of DATA BREACH, that would soon become the biggest, most dangerous threat to the corrupt government of Virdis.

…

[CLOSE REMUS.CHR]

~~~~~

Pretty much the same backstory as Roman, but I’ll do a more in depth post about these two soon!!

[cosmica-candy]

Chapter two: Baby feathers

READ HERE

Chapter 2 of Xylitol Nova cookies backstory with his son is now released! Please enjoy first few paragraphs under the cut!

It had been a few months now since Xylitol Nova Cookie had taken Electrolyte Cookie as his son, and in that time, they had spent likely only an hour or two apart from each other. Even now, as he walked through the halls of the engineering wing, he still had his child secured to his chest with a comfortable nanofabric harness, and a pouch at his side that contained anything that young Electrolyte could need.

He was possibly the most attentive father this side of the Galaxy, and all of his people, Cookies and Robots alike, knew it. He hummed joyfully to himself as he walked down the alloy flooring, waving and smiling to every Cookie and robot he saw.

Eventually, he found himself in the hanger bay for the new fleet of Ranger ships, to which he had been requested to oversee and assist in their welding and assembly. He had passed his beloved child over to Professor Xylitol Gray, whom gently bounced and cooed to Electrolyte as Nova oversaw the construction

As well as his child, he had also set his coat aside as well, leaving him in his tie and form-fitting black turtleneck, as he continued to work on assisting some of the Robots in making the correct welds. Suddenly, his work was interrupted when he heard a familiar cry ring out in the air. The one Electro always made when he was hungry! He smiled, as he glanced at a nearby digital clock.

“2:45pm Exact… Right on time as always, aren't you…”

Nova joked to himself, as he put down his tools, and walked over to Professor Gray, as she took a bottle from the pack that Nova had set aside, and prepared it for Electrolyte.

“Never thought you'd be such a great father, Sir..” Professor Gray said to Nova, as he refused to have the robot tend to Electro, instead picking him up, and caring for him himself.

"Of all the years we've known you, you never once made any indication of wanting to adopt, or start a family… If you could bother an old Cookie's curiosity.. What changed?" Professor Gray said curiosity.

Nova hesitated. Despite all the time he had spent raising his son, most people simply just offered congratulations, and didn't question his decisions. Gray might have been the first to possibly ask so outright…

Continue reading here

[para-imperium]

Interstellar Warfare

The large-scale multi-ship battles seen occasionally in interplanetary warfare are almost unheard of when the combatants are located in entirely different star systems. The main reason is simply the orders of magnitude difference in travel time and cost. Starships using reaction drives require many cubic kilometers of reaction mass just to get up to the speeds where ramscoops are effective, while gravity and warp drives require unfathomable amounts of energy and matter just to build.

Therefore, would-be interstellar invaders tend to adopt one of two strategies: The WMD approach is usually only effective against technologically inferior opponents, but if they pull it off a single starship can conquer a star. A G-Drive ship can dance around a fleet of reaction ships, slicing them to ribbons without even taking a hit, while even the least r-drive starship is a colossus compared to system ships. The power of their drives, combined with the purpose-built weapons that civilizations capable of building starships can design, means that almost any starship can lay waste to a defenseless star system in a matter of weeks.

Of course, if the invaders want to capture the biosphere intact (which most do, as it tends to be the most valuable part of a star system), they can’t simply throw nukes and c-bombs everywhere. Which means that the ship’s crew has to negotiate the tricky task of persuading the local governments to surrender with minimal devastation. Even if they succeed in this task, the resulting political arrangements tend not to last long. The elites and masses of such worlds tend to resent “quisling” leaders and efforts to depose them are soon to follow.

As such, worlds conquered by WMD use tend to acquire a growing number of radioactive craters as their overlords periodically reassert their rule, assuming the natives don’t somehow get hold of the technology required to shoot them down. This is less of an issue for nomadic “pirate” lords who only care about collecting their tribute and moving on, but for would-be emperors this is a bit of a hassle.

Hence the second approach: Subversion. This can also be accomplished by a single ship, but they tend to be more subtle in their methods. Using (comparatively) stealthy craft, agents are delivered to the system’s habitats where they infiltrate the population. These agents then make contact with the local discontents (there always are some) and attempt to recruit them.

To assist in this mission, agents are trained in a variety of disciplines ranging from hand-to-hand combat to megastructure engineering and meme hacking. They also tend to be equipped with the best nanofabricators that can fit in their ships, which can be large enough to build other spaceships or warmechs, in order to supply their fifth column with weapons, armor, and augmentations. These “gifts”, naturally, come with backdoors the agent can use to retain control. Remote-triggered explosives, gene-locks, even integral AI controls hardwired to obey direct orders from the agents.

Once the “revolution” seizes control they establish a government that passes outwardly as independent, but is in truth a puppet of their new “allies” from another star system. Their taxes are disguised as “trade” or “investments”, even “foreign aid.” Eventually the populace of such states figures out they’ve been conquered, but by then a substantial fraction of said populace has decided that they prefer living under their overlord’s thumb and the usual result is a civil war rather than complete secession.

House Ronkall’s paladins are particularly insidious. Their blood-bourne assemblers construct bionic augmentations in the infectee’s body, including an AI controller in their own brain that compels them to use their augs to fight criminal activity in their home polity. Helping endear themselves to the population, until the order to take over comes out. A single paladin can arrive on a planet butt-naked and infect a critical mass within just a couple short years.

[fazedlight]

6, 7, and 19

6. the word that appears the most in your current draft (wordcounter.net can tell you)

"Kara" - or "back", for a non-proper noun (improper noun?). This is a neat tool 👀

7. your preferred writing fonts

I am boring. My writing software defaults to Arial, so I use that. However Comic Sans and Papyrus are the best fonts. (I'm serious I love them.)

19. the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

I think I went a little nuts when researching the painting in Lex's cell in season 4.

There was also the long talk I had with my physics professor friend on quantum mechanics (Even Though You're Kryptonian), refreshing myself on nanofabrication (It's a Metallo Life), and digging into some archaeological fieldwork methodologies (The Medallion - and yes, the pun was intended).

I... didn't really use most of the information I found, but it was fun!!

Thanks for the asks!! 🎉

writer ask game

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Ultra-small spectrometer yields the power of a 1,000 times bigger device

Spectrometers are technology for reading light that date back to the era of famed 17th-century physicist Isaac Newton. They work by breaking down light waves into their different colors — or spectra — to provide information about the makeup of the objects being measured. 

UC Santa Cruz researchers are designing new ways to make spectrometers that are ultra-small but still very powerful, to be used for anything from detecting disease to observing stars in distant galaxies. Their inexpensive production cost makes them more accessible and customizable for specific applications. 

The team of researchers, led by an interdisciplinary collaboration between UC Santa Cruz Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Holger Schmidt and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Bundy, published the details of their device in a paper in APL Photonics, a premier journal in the field. 

The researchers demonstrate a novel, extremely high-performance spectrometer that can measure light with a 0.05 nanometers wavelength resolution. That’s about 1.6 million times smaller than the width of a human hair, and the same resolution that can be achieved on a device 1,000 times bigger.

“That's essentially as good as a big, standard, expensive spectrometer,” said Schmidt, the senior author on the paper and a long-time expert in developing chips for light detection. “That’s really pretty impressive and very competitive.”

Miniature devices

Miniaturizing spectrometers is an active area of research, as spectrometers are used in many fields but can be as big as a three-story building and extremely expensive. However, miniaturized spectrometers often do not perform as well as bigger instruments, or they are very difficult and expensive to manufacture because they require extremely precise nanofabrication. 

UC Santa Cruz researchers have created a device that is able to achieve high performance without such costly manufacturing. Their device is a miniature, high-powered waveguide which is mounted on a chip and used to guide light into a specific pattern, depending on its color. 

Information from the chip is fed into a machine learning algorithm that reads the patterns created by different wavelengths of light in order to reconstruct the image with extremely high accuracy and precision — an approach is called “reconstructive” spectrometry.

This technique produces accurate results because the machine learning algorithms don’t require highly precise input to be able to distinguish the light patterns, and can constantly improve upon their own performance and optimize themselves to the hardware. 

Because of this, the researchers can make the chips with relatively easy and inexpensive fabrication techniques, in a process that takes hours rather than weeks. The lightweight, compact chips for this project were designed at UCSC, and fabricated and optimized at Brigham Young University in partnership with Schmidt’s longtime collaborator Professor Aaron Hawkins and his undergraduate students. 

“Compared to more sophisticated chip design, this only requires one photolithography mask which makes the fabrication much easier and much faster,” Hawkins said. “Someone with some basic capabilities could reproduce this and create a similar device tuned to their own needs.”

Reading the stars

The researchers envision that this technology can be used for a wide range of applications, though their preliminary focus is to create powerful instruments for astronomy research. Because their devices are relatively inexpensive, astronomers could specialize them to their specific research interests, which is practically impossible on much larger instruments that cost millions of dollars. 

The research team is working to make the chips functional on the UC-operated Lick Observatory telescope, first to take in light from a star and later to study other astrological events. With such high accuracy on these devices, astronomers could start to understand phenomena such as the makeup of atmospheres on exoplanets, or probing the nature of dark matter in faint dwarf galaxies. The comparatively low cost of these devices would make it easier for scientists to optimize them for their specific research interests, something nearly impossible on traditional devices. 

Leveraging long standing expertise at UC Santa Cruz in adaptive optics systems for astronomy, the researchers are collaborating to figure out how to best capture the faint glimmers of light from distant stars and galaxies and feed it through into the miniaturized spectrometer.

“In astronomy, when you try to put something on a telescope and get light through it, you always discover new challenges — it’s much harder than just doing it in the lab. The beauty of this collaboration is that we actually have a telescope, and we can try deploying these devices on the telescope with a good adaptive optics system,” Bundy said.

Uses for health and beyond

Beyond astronomy, the research team shows in this paper that the tool is capable of fluorescence detection, which is a noninvasive imaging technique used for many medical applications, such as cancer screening and infectious disease detection. 

In the future, they plan to develop the technology for Raman scattering analysis. This is a technique that uses light scattering for the detection of any unique molecule, often used as a specialized test to look for a specific chemical substance, such as the presence of drugs in the human body or toxic pollutants in the environment. Because the system is so straightforward and does not require the use of heavy instrumentation or fluidics like other techniques, it would be convenient and robust for use in the field. 

The researchers also demonstrate that the compact waveguides can be placed alongside each other to enhance the performance of the system, as each chip can measure a different spectra and provide more information about whatever light it is observing. In the paper the researchers demonstrate the power of four waveguides working together, but Schmidt envisions that hundreds of chips could be used at once. 

This is the first device shown to be able to use multiple chips at once in this way. The researchers will continue to work to improve the sensitivity of the device to get even higher spectral resolution.

IMAGE: This simulation shows a top-down view of how different light patterns in red and green are generated when fed with input from a waveguide on the left. Credit Md Nafiz Amin

[symbiosisonlinepublishing]

𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞: Nanoparticles can be used to deliver drugs to specific parts of the body, to diagnose diseases, and to create new medical devices. 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲: Nanotechnology can be used to create new solar cells, batteries, and fuel cells. 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲: Nanotechnology can be used to create new computer chips, sensors, and displays.

Visit: https://symbiosisonlinepublishing.com/nanoscience-technology/

[bloodgulchblog]

Ok I'm sending a lot of asks lately and I can cool it if you want but I just realized. Rubicon mentioned the Mortal Reverie having (multiples of) a device called a "quantum printer", which can be used in some way to make complex technology like communications receivers. It's a cool tidbit but I can't find any other mention of quantum printers elsewhere, it's not on the wiki or anything

It's not a commonly mentioned piece of Halo lore, no. There's an ooooold reference to something like a space future 3d printer that apparently dates back to the i love bees arg (which is kinda sketchy lore ground by today's standard) though:

Basically, 3d printing technology wasn't a thing when Halo was invented and so it sounds like the kind of thing they're back-filling into the lore because the scifi should have it now. I kind of wish they wouldn't, Halo's vibe was already retrofuturistic when Halo CE came out, but I'm not in charge.

That said, the Covenant and Forerunners have had nanomachine assembly tech in their lore for years now so I guess fair's fair.

[garblixdligzoog]

[CONNECTED. LOCATION: SARRAGUS-6, ZERO'S CRATER.]

-nally found you on this planet. Tell me, what do you know about these... "Civilizations?"

All civilizations in the Universe have a tech rating called the "Civilization Tech Scale" or CTS. Ranging from 1 to 10.

CTS-1 is your basic underdeveloped civilization, weapons like bows and arrows, swords etc. from neolithic to medieval.

CTS-2 is steampower, electricity, etc. Gunpowder guns like flintlocks and muskets are the main weapons.

Aah, I miss the days of ships sailing around, I used to sink about 200 a day because I got bored...

CTS-3 is where earth is currently at. Electrical devices and vehicles are made. Mediocre space travel with costly rockets, primitive robotics. Nanobots are being researched for medical purposes.

CTS-4 is where robotics reach human-like movement, prosthetics are capable of moving more human-like as well. Primitive laser weapons are being worked on. Space travel is less costly with prototype spaceships.

Prototype...? Why does that sound familiar? Maybe it's something to do with Project NEO...

Project what?

Classified information, comrade.

CTS-5 Is where laser weaponry is somewhat understandable. Fully automated mechs are capable of war, though very costly. Space travel is still expensive, few spaceships are given to rich folk. Nanobots are medically available.

CTS-6 is when Space travel and Laser weaponry is perfected, and space travel is publicly available. Slow, but effective. FTL drives are being researched in this era. Power armor is being researched.

CTS-7 is where Gars is at. Basic forcefields, FTL drives and power armor are available. Robotics are perfected further for surgical precision. First aid kits are fitted with medicinal nanopaste for fast healing. Neurosurgery is now extended to nerves.

Gnarpians? Like that one ship we found in Roswell?

Ugh, why did you take the offer of running as a rep for S.P.E.C again?

Because an infiltrator destroyed Area 51 with a self-destructive ship. We had to move to Saath desert because of that.

Right... Let's continue.

CTS-8 is the natural limit for most if not all civilizations, where nanobots are both capable of construction and medicinal purposes. Planet-destroying weapons are possible, but very costly. Breaking the limit of this civilization tier is near-impossible. Very few civilizations are here.

CTS-9 is the penultimate technological advancement. People are starting to harness stars for power, understanding the fabric of the cosmos and learning to unravel it's secrets is being worked on, mass teleportation is readily available for fleets, nanofabrication has reached it's peak with food, water, basic needs. Most things that complicate simple tasks are obsolete. Consciousness can be uploaded to massive machines. Only one civilization was able to reach this state.

The Ancients or "Idonin", were wiped out for an unknown reason. Maybe Zaagra had something to do with it...

You keep mentioning this... "Zaagra". Who is he?

It's not on a need to know basis, Sergo. Like that project... Knee yolk?

CTS-10 is the peak of civilization and technology itself. Space and time are nothing to them, they have transcended beyond these coils and are considered gods among men. Hunger, thirst, bodily needs are a thing of the past. and they are capable of copying their own consciousness into small USB-like devices. And are capable of weaving new bodies for them to live in. As such, they are effectively immortal as long as they have backups of their own consciousness.

And that is basically it, Sergo. All you need to know about technological tiers. Gathering information on alien species is... Difficult. But I'll find some weaknesses.

Right, comrade... But I have a few questions.

I'm all ears.

Why are you hiding? Is there something you're afraid of?

I'm afraid of nothing. Rather, I got numb... I'm just hiding from a certain someone, they do not need to interfere.

Your plan to merge yourself with the entirety of- ...You truly are crazy. Speaking of. What are you gonna do with Argus Blackbone's manor? There are overseer cultists running rampant.

Argus? You mean general Argus? He hasn't been around lately. I just want to see what they do with that merged Overseer before I do anything.

Although I am detecting high amounts of Dark Energy coming from gars... I thought I would never see another Antheris incident again...

Reminds me of the time me and my companion fought against Az-

Comrade, why is your communicator active? Zomeone iz liztening?

Really now? I must've bumped it when I went to get my hot cho-

[DISCONNECTED]

[on-the-shoulders-of-rootstock]

A flowchart showing the approximate flow of goods within the Affini's gift-based economy. Red indicates heavy industries, while blue indicates light industries.

Permeation Gardens are large artificial forests (including interdependent fungi and insects) that leach desired minerals out of the landscape with minimal disruption to the geography. Wide, deep root structures search for mineral veins and slowly separate trace amounts from rocks and soil.

Constructor Plants are genetically-modified flora that take in and process industrial materials such as metals or chemicals. An Affini operator is usually grafted into the Constructor when it is in operation, guiding the complex metabolic processes required in modern heavy industry, though some simple tasks can be performed autonomically. Most constructor plants produce yield in the form of sap or fruit, but some also shed bark or vitrify directly into structural components.

Matter Trainers are a nanofabrication technology used by the Affini to manufacture cheap, disposable items like medical supplies and hygine products. They are sealed cabinets of differing sizes in which swarms of nano-scale assembler robots assemble objects at the molecular scale, drawing raw feedstock from communal stores. Almost all Affini homes and public spaces have at least one Trainer, usually tucked away somewhere unobtrusive yet accessible. Larger (more than 1m in any dimension) trainers are usually kept in public workshops. The biggest trainers are the size of space stations, and usually have their own crew and propulsion.

When it comes to non-disposable items such as clothes, personal electronics, furniture, etc. most Affini consumers prefer goods handmade by craftswomen, rather than matter trainers. Objects can be tailored to an individual's needs and tastes, rather than suffering the one-size-fits-all approach common to most trainer designs. Whether the object is made from scratch or manufactured with the help of a trainer depends on the item being produced and the craftswoman making it. For every Affini blacksmith making artisinal walking sticks from raw ore, there is another woman hand-painting canes from a trainer in bright floral patterns.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Advances in nanostructure fabrication: Laser direct writing on Au nanofilm

A research team led by Xuesong Mei and Jianlei Cui from Xi'an Jiaotong University has made significant progress in the field of nanotechnology. They have successfully achieved the direct writing of nanostructures on Au nano-film using a nanosecond-laser-irradiated cantilevered scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) probe tip. The fabrication of nanostructures beyond the diffraction limit has been a substantial challenge in nanotechnology. Conventional optical lithography is hindered by the diffraction limit, and electron beam lithography is not applicable to metal nanofilms. Scanning probe lithography (SPL) offers a solution for nanofabrication, but each type of SPL has its unique application conditions.

Read more.

[databreachss]

LOADING FILE…

…

…

DONE!

…

[OPEN ROMAN.CHR]

Name: Roman

Age: 19

Height: 5’10”

Additional Info:

Roman grew up privileged within Virdis, with his twin brother Remus, and his parents. He was one of the two children of the owners of CROWN (Cybernetic Reimagining of Optimized Wearables and Nanotech)- a large-scale seller of nanofabric clothing, and everyday tech. At 17, he and his brother were given access to the company’s stock and information, expected to take over the business when their parents were gone. After learning the shady activities and partnerships with malevolent organizations, he and Remus escaped, starting a rebel group by the name of DATA BREACH, that would soon become the biggest, most dangerous threat to the corrupt government of Virdis.

…

[CLOSE ROMAN.CHR]

…

Art by me!! Remus will come soon!

[studyari]

1/24/2024

First research experience with university faculty! Literally just got a research advisor TODAY omggg. I'll be working on nano-photolithography and nanofabrication! So basically, it's really really small 3-D printing with an incredibly high resolution. So excited! Still don't know all the details but I'm ready to be in the lab!

1/30/2034 update:

so apparently we're doing work with nano-optics and plasmonics i cant waitttt!