Isn’t it amazing how much you’ve learned over a lifetime?  Did you ever stop to think how much you’ve forgotton?   The human memory is amazing but certainly not fool-proof.  And yet even a whiff of a certain smell or a glimpse of a certain shape can bring back the memories of something in your past.

Electronic memory is also quite amazing, powering digital cameras and MP3 players.  As nanotechnology takes hold the density of the memory will continue to increase, giving us the power to capture and store nearly everything around us.  As the size shrinks, one challenge will be the testing of memory.  When dealing with nanoscale elements on a memory chip it is critical that the electronic signals be very precise. 

Fudan University in China uses a function generator to send very precise nanosecond pulses to its nanoscale memory devices.   Read more about the application in the Application Example section of the Agilent in Nanotechnology website.  http://nano.tm.agilent.com/index.cgi?CONTENT_ID=1238&User:LANGUAGE=en-US

Chemical sensing will very likely become an important field in the world of nanotechnology.  Chemical sensing plays in important role in our homes as we use carbon dioxide sensors to detect that harmful gas.  Sensors in public arenas are important to warn us of impending danger from toxic spills or terrorist attacks.  Chemical sensors in hospitals and clinics help us prevent disease or warn us of harmful viruses.  Nanotechnology will no doubt improve the sensitivity of chemical sensors making them even more useful for characterizing minute amounts of toxins or finding very early signs of disease.

Carnegie Melon University is building a chemical sensor array using inkjet printing technology.  The printed circuit board is powered with a DC power supply during the testing. To learn more about this chemical sensor - go to Application Examples on the Agilent in Nanotechnology website.

Stimulus and response is common in almost every part of our society.  As parents– a bad behavior by your child (stimulus) results in a punishment from you (response).  A lowering of interest rates (economic stimulus) generally results in a surge in house sales or consumer spending (economic response).  The swallowing of a sleeping pill (stimulus) results in a much needed rest (response).  The same holds true for nanotechnology.

This week I want to highlight three examples of a stimulus-response from our collection of nanotechnology measurement examples found on the nanotechnology website.  http://nano.tm.agilent.com/index.cgi?CONTENT_ID=1361&User:LANGUAGE=en-US

In electronics, we have the Unversity of Groningen in The Netherlands performing a stimulus-response on an organic field effect transistor (FET).  They use a pulse generator to stimulate the FET with an 85V, 10ms pulse and they use a semiconductor analyzer to measure the current/voltage and the capacitance/voltage responses.  Their work is published in the February 2005 edition of Nature Materials.

In life science, Pohang University in South Korea is performing a stimulus-response in electrochemistry.  They are using a function / arbitrary waveform generator to generate a simulated noise signal and use an oscilloscope to measure the peak current from analytes.  Their work is published in the June 2005 edition of Analytical Chemistry. 

In materials science, Georgia Tech is using a combination of instruments to characterize the mechanical properties of carbon nanosprings.  They use an atomic force microscope (AFM) to stimulate the nanospring and a dynamic signal analyzer (DSA) to capture the deflection signal.  They also use a function/arbitrary waveform generator to trigger the DSA with a specfic pulse waveform.  Their work is published in the February 2004 Nano Letters. 

If you have an application that you would like us to highlight on the nanotechnology website, send me an email at grant_drenkow@agilent.com