Grant from NIH to Develop AFM Probes

Carbon Design Innovations has announced that it has grant in the amount of $390,000 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. The grant will fund the development and commercialization of Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) probes for bioimaging and investigations in cellular biology. Carbon Design Innovations will collaborate with the University of California at Davis, US on the development of the probes.
www.carbondesigninnovations.com

MIT and INL Launch Research Collaboration

The International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), Braga, Portugal and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MA, US have announced a new collaboration that will enrich each institution’s research activities in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The two institutions will create MIT-INL, a new education and research enterprise focusing on nanotechnology. The collaboration will create 10 senior research positions for scientists who will launch a new nanotechnology research agenda, and it will enable approximately $35 million (€25 million) of new sponsored research with MIT in its first five years.
www.mit.edu
www.iinl.org

Canada Gains New Centre for Nanotechnology

Alberta, Canada will soon be home to a new research and product development centre for nanotechnology called Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Development Centre (HEMiC) at the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) in Edmonton. The centre will house three new electron microscopes valued at $7 million. The $14 million project is supported by the Western Economic Partnership Agreement between the Governments of Canada and Alberta and to contributions from Hitachi High-Technologies. The HEMiC is made possible by a wider collaboration of the Alberta Ingenuity Fund’s nanoWorks program, the National Institute for Nanotechnology of the National Research Council, the University of Alberta and Hitachi High Technologies Canada Inc. One of the centre’s first projects will evaluate and test the world’s sharpest electron emitter, developed by the Molecular Scale Devices group at NINT for use as an electron source in electron microscopes.
www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

FEI Joins Metrology Research at University of Albany

FEI Company, a provider of atomic-scale imaging and analysis systems, and Sematech, the global consortium of chipmakers, announced that FEI has joined Sematech’s Advanced Metrology Development Program at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany, US. As a member of this program, FEI will collaborate with experts to develop high-resolution capabilities of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis, with electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and focused ion beam (FIB) technology to address critical needs in process development and defect analysis.
www.fei.com
www.cnse.albany.edu
www.sematech.org

Milestone for Nanoelectronics

In collaboration with the University of Regensburg, Germany, and Utrecht University, Netherlands, IBM scientists demonstrated the ability to measure the charge state of individual atoms using noncontact atomic force microscopy. They imaged and identified differently charged individual gold and silver atoms by measuring the tiny differences in the forces between the tip of an atomic force microscope and a charged or uncharged atom located in close proximity below it. This opens up new possibilities in the exploration of nanoscale structures and devices at the ultimate atomic and molecular limits. These results hold potential to impact a variety of fields such as molecular electronics, catalysis or photovoltaics.
www.ibm.com/us/en/

Cellular Imaging and Analysis Software Relationship

PerkinElmer and Accelrys have announced a software collaboration to enable new single cell imaging and analysis techniques. The cooperation is aimed at providing researchers with capabilities for the detection and analysis of single cells via high content screening (HCS) technologies, for faster and better outcomes in identifying cellular markers associated with human health and disease. PerkinElmer’s Columbus software will provide the images containing single cells as well as large amounts of cell level data, and Accelrys‘ Pipeline Pilot platform will furnish intelligent algorithms and image analysis data transfer capability.
www.perkinelmer.com
www.accelrys.com

Strengthening the Research and Education Network

Microscope designer Leica Microsystems and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have signed a corporate partnership agreement whereby Leica Microsystems becomes a founder partner of the EMBL Advanced Training Centre scheduled to be completed in September 2009. Besides its financial involvement, the company will provide EMBL with Leica systems and will support events for the international scientific community. In return, Leica will be granted access to the first-class facilities of the molecular biology research institute to run product and application training courses.
www.embl-heidelberg.de
www.leica-microsystems.com

Ultra Clean to Manufacture Products for FEI

Ultra Clean Technology and FEI Company have signed a global supplier agreement under which Ultra Clean will provide hosted manufacturing services in the FEI Hillsboro, Ore., US facility. It is also anticipated that Ultra Clean’s Asia operations will be utilized to produce some FEI sub-assemblies. The two companies are targeting the first quarter of 2009 for transfer of current product lines to Ultra Clean operations.
www.uct.com
www.fei.com

Observing Cells in Solution

Chikara Sato and Toshihiko Ogura of the Structure Physiology Group at the Neuroscience Research Institute of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, (AIST) have collaborated with Mitsuo Suga and Hidetoshi Nishiyama of the Clair Project at Jeol, Japan, to develop an atmospheric scanning electron microscope (ASEM) capable of observing aqueous samples and cells in solution at atmospheric pressures. Conventional electron microscopes view samples in vacuum and are unable to image wet samples or samples in solution.
www.aist.go.jp
www.jeol.com