Event
MSE Seminar - Prof. Robert L. Snyder, The Georgia Institute of Technology
Friday, April 11, 2008
1:00 p.m.
Rm. 2108, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Bldg.
Annette Mateus
301 405 5207
amateus@umd.edu
"The New World of Materials Science & Engineering: Nano & Bio Technology"
The two most important events in Materials Science and Engineering in the past 50 years have been the introduction of surface free energy as a tool for creating new materials and the cracking of the genetic code of the entire biosphere which is underway and is creating a tidal wave of information that is going to transform our technology to the core. These two events are intertwined at the most fundamental level in that the key to the assembly of complex nanomachines lies within each of our cells. The ribosome has done its evolutionary job of getting us to 2008 and its now time to turn this marvelous machine loose to manufacture materials and machines that have nothing to do with evolution.
In this talk I will start with a fundamental examination of the nature of nanomaterials and show how Z.L. Wang has made many beautiful structures of ZnO. We will then turn to the applications of nanowires, nanobelts and carbon nanotubes to the making of field-effect transistors, lasers, self-cleaning surfaces and nano-sized electrical generators.
I would then like to explore applications of using the machinery of the living cell to manufacture nanostructures via biomimetics to use structures that already exist in nature collecting the low hanging fruit. Nature provides elegant examples of organisms that generate three-dimensional structures with complex patterns from the macro-scale to the nanoscale. Lastly we will look at methods to take genes from species producing desirable structures, perhaps modify them, and then retrofit them onto a compliant single celled bug who will become a manufacturing unit. By mid 21st century I believe that we will know enough genetics, biochemistry and materials science to computer design genes to produce devices from nanomachines to complete computer systems, using the machinery in each of our cells.
For more information, contact Annette Mateus at (301) 405-5207 or amateus@umd.edu.
