Competition on nanotechnology fourbit weapons

Competition on nanotechnology fourbit weapons. "I return to a symposium in the United States where it is clear that it is the nanocharacterization who will now make the difference between the major world centres of research" says Jean-Charles Guibert, one of the leaders of the new Grenoble pole Minatec. The neologism flatters esotericism often popular scientists. The nanocharacterization is still nothing more than the review of the magnifying glass, new tools to see what happens. But the issue is the same, observation remaining the first act of any scientific approach. At each border crossing, it took find suitable observatories, the telescopes, seismic sensors, microscopes, extra-planetary probes.

It is at the heart of new buildings of the pole that researchers have placed their nanocharacterization centre. A central position to better serve all of the laboratories. Inside, the walls are full or Windows are closed. Here, researchers do not have head elsewhere but the eyes drawn to large instruments sit in masters. It is that there are few places in the world with such dormers on the infinitely small. "We are in the trio of head, Berkeley is at the same level and the Japanese are a little less efficient" smiles Philippe Brincard, the head of the centre.

On control screens, researchers navigate mouse landslide in black and white landscapes whose pillars are graded in the tens of nanometers. Here, not combinations, headwear or fabric, the uniforms of war dust that conventional clean rooms are unnecessary. The level of molecules and atoms, dust are elephants in a China shop: they do not disturb the visit until they crush anything.

The full range of microscopes, x-ray or ion probes machines offers scientists, 40 machines, most of the prototypes cost 100,000 to 2 million euro coin. A few hundred meters of the laboratory, researchers have even a single infrastructure in Europe, the ESRF synchrotron whose construction represented an investment of 400 million euros in the 1990s. With its high power, its bright beam opens the way of the tenths of nanometers in precision.

The most commonly used instruments is not, so far, the most imposing. Invented in 1982, the scanning tunnelling microscope is at the top of his art. Its extremely fine tip hosts at the end a single Atom it wanders along a surface. This "nanobille" sweeps of electrons in the atoms on the surface and thus reconstitutes a photograph of its roughness. Therefore, researchers arrive at a picture of nano-objects built often groped. It was he that IBM used to photograph its logo of three letters drawn with 35 Xenon atoms.

To observe objects in three dimensions, Minatec has a battery of Cree last microscopes, scanning electron or transmission. "Five years, microscopes have been much progress" indicates an operator. Now, the electrons (which play the role of optical microscopes photons) are uprooted from filaments of emission by a magnetic field. Electromagnetic coils (the equivalent of the lenses) cause also less aberration, optical deformation from 0.05 to 0.1 nanometer.

A magical landscape

Progress are also the speed of obtaining copies. Previously, needed to equip the microscopes of numerous appendages on the outcome. Today, they are more versatile and require less preparation of samples. "Known to get on the production line a visualization of a few microns cubic Silicon in four hours against one or two days in the past", provides Philippe Brincard.

The main activity of the laboratory will be the next few years, to accompany the slow descent to the underworld nanoscale transistors and memories. Superb shots show the complexity of the cross sections of circuits, each successive layer (oxides, grids...) with its lines of atoms.

On a different screen, a researcher shows an almost magical landscape, a sort of a little mad forest with trees topped with bells, that Tim Burton could shoot, billions of times larger. "These are silicon nanowires that grows on silicon substrate." "The growth of these crystals is in contact with ball gold of about 10 nanometers, below which grows the wire" corrects Philippe Brincard. The other star of the laboratory, are of course carbon nanotubes which scientists count on for many applications.

Prepare the chips of tomorrow

Some researchers are working on more exotic objects, to a more distant horizon. The head of the "chimtronique" program, Gérard Bidan preparing chips of tomorrow with organic molecules, an unknown material from the microélectroniciens. The nanocharacterization becomes even more sensitive because these objects from a few nanometers are more fragile than conventional crystalline structures. 100 People will work on the subject at Minatec this year. Out this futuristic science of the stages, the battalion of brains will double by 2010.