PowerPoint Lecture Notes: The Bleeding Edge: Emerging Applications of Nanomechanics

PART 1: Micro/Nano Surface Effects

Stanford University's gecko lizard imitating Stickybot:

Source of animation: Sangbae Kim, Mark Cutosky, Barrett Heyneman and Sal Trujillo, Stanford University (link)

 

Readings on the mechanisms of wall walking:

"Insects Did it First," Gorb et al. (link / cached copy)

"From Micro to Nano Contacts," Arzt et al. (link / cached copy)

 

Water droplets on an engineered super hydrophobic surface - The “Lotus Effect”

Source of animation: William Thielcke, Hamburg Germany (website / animation source)

 

Demonstration of super hydrophobic surfaces (Neil Shirtcliffe, Nottingham Trent University):

Original YouTube video: click here

 

Operation of "lab-on-a-chip" employing hydrophobic surface treatments:

Source of animations: Micronit Microfluidics Inc. (link)

Description of technologies employed in the "lab-on-chip" (link)

PART 2: DNA Scaffolds

Reviews on Seeman's DNA scaffolding work:

Nanotechnology and the Double Helix - Scientific American (cached copy)

Nucleic Acid Nanostructures and Topology - Agnew. Chem. Int. Ed. (cached copy)

 

Drawings and images of two dimensional artificial DNA scaffolds

Four single strands of DNA combine to form X-shaped "Holliday" junction (Wikipedia Commons)		Resulting 3D DNA structure (Richard Wheeler - Wikipedia Commons)
Electron micrograph of DNA mesh created from above junctions (Thomas H. LaBean & Hao Yan - Wikipedia Commons)

 

DNA single strands assembling into 3D cubes:

Based on the work of Ned Seeman, New York University (as described in "Nanotechnology and the Double Helix" - Scientific American 2007)

 

Papers on DNA Origami:

Rothemund's: Folding DNA to make Nanoscale Shapes and patterns (cached copy)

Douglas's: Self-Assembly of DNA into Nanoscale Three Dimensional Shapes (cached copy)

Aldeman's seminal paper on DNA Computing (cached copy with added notes at end)

Alderman's: "Computing with DNA" review in Scientific American (cached copy)

 

PART 3: Beanstalks

Prof. John G. Cramer's article on "The Carbon Nanotube Miracle Material" including his calculations of the feasibility of a CNT Space Elevator (cached copy)