Brian Dorsett

This is Malvern's fifth Queen's Award and this year recognises the company's continuous development of its market-leading Zetasizer Nano particle characterization systems.

Following the announcement in June this year of the collaboration between Beneq and ALD NanoSolutions, Beneq is proud to reveal that the first system for Particle ALD will be delivered to the Centre de Recherche Public - Gabriel Lippmann in Luxembourg.

This week's most interesting nanotechnology news.

Unlike most biological membranes, polymeric, nanometer-thin membranes are very stable and can withstand considerable pressure. This is an essential requirements for separation processes such as in water purification and desalination. Because their mechanical stability can be combined with flexibility and chemical functionality, polymer nanomembranes are also intensely researchers as materials for actuators and microsensors. They have also entered the biomedical field as artificial nacre and as a novel material used in surgery. Crosslinking of a spin-coated precursor solution, a common fabrication technique, reduces the interactions between the polymer chains and the environment and thus impairs the sensitivity and flexibility of the films. Researchers in Germany have now developed the first freestanding polymer brush, grafted from a crosslinked monolayer (nanosheet) that provides mechanical stability and structural integrity.

Um potenzielle Risiken fuer den Menschen auszuschliessen, foerdert das Bundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) den Forschungsverbund CarboTox fuer drei Jahre mit rund 1,25 Millionen Euro.

The Technology Strategy Board and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK have jointly allocated up to GBP7m to invest in highly innovative, collaborative research projects looking at the use of novel nanoscale technologies to enable the next generation of solar energy harvesting.

Surrey NanoSystems raises second-round venture capital for silicon-friendly carbon nanotube growth process.

QB3 biophysicists have traced with unprecedented resolution the paths of cargos moving through the nuclear pore complex (NPC), a selective nanoscale aperture that controls access to the cell's nucleus, and answered several key questions about its function.

Biophysicists in Bochum have discovered a diode for protons: just like the electronic component determines the direction of flow of electric current, the 'proton diode' ensures that protons can only pass through a cell membrane in one direction. Water molecules play an important role here as active components of the diode.

Amtech Systems, Inc., a global supplier of production and automation systems and related supplies for the manufacture of solar cells, semiconductors, and silicon wafers, today announced that its solar subsidiary, Tempress Systems, Inc., has received approximately $37 million in new solar orders for its diffusion processing systems from several new and existing customers in Asia.

IBM has announced details of the world's fastest computer chip - the microprocessor in a new version of the IBM mainframe that begins shipping to customers on Sept. 10.

Novelda AS, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in nanoscale wireless low-power technology for impulse radar, has been invited by the Norwegian government and Innovation Norway to exhibit at the prestigious EXPO 2010, taking place in Shanghai, China in September 2010.

A visionary team of computer scientists and electrical engineers from six universities is proposing to deal with the downside of nanoscale computer components by re-thinking and enhancing the role that software can play in a new class of computing machines that are adaptive and highly energy efficient.

SiGen introduces high volume manufacturing kerf free wafering equipment.

Firm taps renowned materials and semiconductor expert to lead new facility for the continued development of architected materials for Asian electronics manufacturers.

Compounds made from renewable materials could be used for gas storage, food technologies.

Mad City Labs Inc., the leading global manufacturer of flexure based nanopositioning systems capable of sub-nanometre positioning resolution has appointed Elliot Scientific as distributor of its products within the UK and Ireland.

A new smartphone chip prototype under development at the University of California, San Diego will improve smartphone efficiency by making use of 'dark silicon' - the underused transistors in modern microprocessors.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have devised a new technique - using a sheet of carbon just one atom thick - to visualize the structure of molecules. The technique, which was used to obtain the first direct images of how water coats surfaces at room temperature, can also be used to image a potentially unlimited number of other molecules, including antibodies and other biomolecules.

The company is making the flow available to customers as a platform to build upon proven foundry methodologies and enable successful design. GLOBALFOUNDRIES has teamed with Cadence Design Systems to deliver this AMS production design flow.