Manufacturing Bits: Oct. 6


Magnetic mass spectrometers The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (National MagLab) has developed a mass spectrometer, based on what the organization claims is the world’s highest field superconducting magnet. The instrument from National MagLab is called a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer boasts a 21 tesla magnet, which is ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 29


Turning the nano-wrench The University of Vermont has developed a wrench that has linewidth geometries at 1.7nm. The so-called nano-wrench is an atomic-level tool, which could one day be used to create tiny structures and molecules. The nano-wrench has been devised using a technology called chirality-assisted synthesis (CAS). Chirality is derived from the Greek word for hand. If one holds u... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 22


Superconductor puddles Superconductors are devices that have zero electrical resistance, making them attractive for a range of applications. But superconductors must be cooled down to temperatures near zero to work, which, in turn, limits their applications. High-temperature superconductors are more promising technologies, but once again, they must be cooled down to function. The industr... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 15


Lasersabers and laser swords In 2013, the California Institute of Technology, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found a way to bind two photons, thereby forming photonic molecules. To accomplish this feat, Caltech, Harvard and MIT pumped rubidium atoms into a vacuum chamber. They used lasers to cool the atoms. Then, they fired photons into a cloud of atoms. This, ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 8


World’s pressure record The University of Bayreuth and the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) have set another world’s record for the highest static pressure ever achieved in a lab. Researchers were able to demonstrate metal osmium at pressures of up to 770 Gigapascals (GPa). Osmium is one of the world’s most incompressible metals. The 770 GPa figure is about 130 GPa higher than ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 1


Free-electron laser EUV consortium Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is delayed. Chipmakers hope to insert EUV at the 7nm node, but that’s not a given. As before, the big problem is the EUV light source. So far, the source can’t generate enough power to enable the required throughput for EUV in high-volume production. ASML’s current EUV source is operating at 80 Watts, up from 10 ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: August 25


South Pole neutrinos A group of researchers using an instrument buried deep in the ice at the South Pole have announced a new observation of high-energy neutrinos from beyond our solar system and the galaxy. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer-sized detector sunk into the ice sheet at the South Pole, allows researchers to see the byproducts of neutrino interactions with the ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: August 18


Making quantum robots Quantum dots are inorganic semiconductor nano-crystals. The technology can be used to boost the color gamut in LCD TVs. It can also be used in LEDs and other products. The problem? Quantum dots are expensive to fabricate. With funding from Dow Chemical, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed a new fabrication process. In doing so, researchers a... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: August 11


World neutrino record The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has achieved a world record for high-energy neutrino experiments. In one neutrino experiment, researchers sustained a 521-kilowatt beam generated by the organization’s so-called Main Injector particle accelerator. The previous record was a 400-plus-kilowatt beam, which was accomplished at CERN. ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: August 4


Diamond metrology The U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is building a new instrument called an optical magnetometer. The system will help researchers understand the properties of new magnetic nanomaterials. The system, dubbed the NV-magnetoscope, makes use of the properties of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds. According to researchers, diamonds have a flaw, or imperfect... » read more

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