Joined: 16 Mar 2004 |Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:36 am Post
subject: Assembly lines for nanotechnology. |24 August 2007 RSC
Publishing - Chemical Technology Nano production lines
Researchers in Switzerland have built nanoscale cargo loading
stations and shuttles, an important step towards assembly lines
for nanotechnology. Drawing of a nano conveyor belt Biological
assembly lines consist of kinesin proteins which carry cargo,
like organelles or vesicles, and literally walk along
microtubules. However, as far as man-made systems go, 'nothing
comparable to a macroscopic assembly line exists at the
nanoscale,' according to Viola Vogel of the Department of
Materials at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in
Zurich. 'Imagine if you wanted to build a car by fabricating all
of its components, putting them in a glass full of water and
hoping that they would self-assemble spontaneously into the
finished car.' The challenge is to tune the interactions in the
system so that the cargo remains stuck to the sta