University of Bath Technology Identifies People by the Shape of Their Nose

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Forget iris and fingerprint scans – scanning noses could be a quicker and easier way to verify a person’s identity, according to scientists at the University of Bath.With worries about illegal immigration and identity theft, authorities are increasingly looking to using an individual’s physical characteristics, known as biometrics, to confirm their identity.Unlike other facial features used for biometrics, such as eyes or ears, noses are difficult to conceal and also aren’t changed much by facial expression.Dr Adrian Evans and Adrian Moorhouse, from the University’s Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, decided to investigate whether images of people’s noses could be used to recognise individuals.They used a photographic system called PhotoFace, developed by researchers at the University of the West of England (Bristol) and Imperial College London, to scan the 3D shape of volunteers’ noses and used computer software to analyse them according to the six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.Instead of using the whole shape of the nose, the researchers used three characteristics in their analysis: the ridge profile, the nose tip, and the nasion or section between the eyes at the top of the nose.A ratio is calculated from three measurements of the nose – this ratio is used to identify the individual from the databaseThey combined the curvature of the ridge with the ratios of the tip and nasion widths and ridge length. This combined ratio was then used to distinguish between a database of 36 people.Whilst the researchers used a relatively small sample, they found that nose scanning showed good potential for use as a biometric, with a good recognition rate and a faster rate of image processing than with conventional biometric techniques such as whole face recognition.Dr Evans said: “Noses are prominent facial features, and yet their use as a biometric has been largely unexplored. We wanted to find out how good they could be at recognising individuals from a database.”There’s no one magic biometric – irises are a powerful biometric, but can be difficult to capture accurately and can easily be obscured by eyelids or glasses.“Noses, however, are much easier to photograph and are harder to conceal, so a system that recognises noses would work better with an uncooperative subject or for covert surveillance.“We’ve only tried this on a small sample of people, but the technique certainly shows potential, perhaps to be used in combination with other identification techniques.”Professor Melvyn Smith led the team at the University of the West of England (UWE) who developed the PhotoFace system.He said: “This collaborative project with Bath is very exciting work with great potential. PhotoFace is an innovative 3D face data capture system developed as part of an EPSRC funded project involving UWE, Imperial College, the Home Office (Scientific Development Branch) and General Dynamics Ltd.The system takes several photos lit with a flash from different angles, throwing shadows on the face“It works by taking photos lit by a flash from several different angles so that four images are taken in very rapid succession of every point on the face, each under different controlled lighting conditions.“The technique is known as photometric stereo and UWE’s Machine Vision Laboratory is one of only three UK centres with expertise in this area. The software then works out the colour, surface orientation and depth of each point on the face by analysing the shading within each of the photos.The software analyses the shadows and works out coordinates for each point on the face“The technique is able to achieve a level of detail that is beyond current competing technologies and can be extended to a myriad of other applications, ranging from industrial surface inspection to cosmetics.”The researchers plan in the future to build up a larger database of noses to test and refine the software to see if it can pick out individuals from a larger group of people, or distinguish between relatives from the same family.

Wall Crawling Robots and Men Made Possible with Electroadhesion Technology

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Image: SRI International 

Electroadhesion technology permits controllable adherence between two objects and would allow men to climb walls and robots to climb walls and walk on ceilings, say SRI International engineers.  
U.S. Patent Application 20100059298 details electroadhesion technology that uses electrostatic forces of attraction produced by an electrostatic adhesion voltage, which is applied using electrodes in an electroadhesive device. The electrostatic adhesion voltage produces an electric field and electrostatic adherence forces.
When the electroadhesive device and electrodes are positioned near a surface of an object such as a vertical wall, the electrostatic adherence forces hold the electroadhesive device in position relative to the surface and object. This can be used to increase traction or maintain the position of the electroadhesive device relative to a surface. Electric control of the electrostatic adhesion voltage permits the adhesion to be controllably and readily turned on and off, according to SRI International engineers Dr. Ronald E. Pelrine, Harsha Prahlad, Roy D. Kornbluh, Patrick D. Lincoln and Scott Stanford. 
Until now controlled adhesion had remained an unmet technological need. For example, for over twenty years the robotics field has tried to invent a reliable form of controlled adhesion on a wide range of substrates for wall crawling robots, without success. Success in controlled adhesion can be defined by a technology that is: controllable, reliable, and robust enough to work on a sufficient range of everyday wall and natural materials, and those encountered under real environmental conditions, such as wet or dusty surfaces, highly sloped surfaces, or slippery surfaces.

The existing technologies, many of which are still in the lab and not in commercial production, marked for wall crawling fail to provide the full range of these capabilities. Chemical adhesives are always “on.” While they require no energy to perch, robots that employ chemical adhesive clamping technologies require a lot of energy to climb and traverse horizontally (requiring more batteries and weight), fighting the adhesion which cannot be switched off. Chemical adhesive technologies can also attract dust and other debris that quickly reduce their effectiveness.
Suction (active or passive) works effectively only on smooth surfaces. Also, conventional suction cups suffer from leaks and cannot manage dusty surfaces. Mechanical claws only work on very rough or penetrable surfaces and often leave damaging marks. Synthetic gecko-like skin can become easily damaged or befouled after repeated use (as few as five cycles), and does not work on wet surfaces.

Controlled adhesion is also useful outside of robotics. Robust devices and methods to provide adhesion would be beneficial.
Suitable compliant, extensible electrodes materials include conductive greases such as carbon greases or silver greases, colloidal suspensions, high aspect ratio conductive materials such as carbon fibrils and carbon nanotubes, and mixtures of ionically conductive materials. Other suitable materials include graphite powders, carbon black, colloidal suspensions, silver filled and carbon filled gels and polymers, and ionically or electronically stretchable conductive polymers.
The robots described by SRI engineers are well suited for a variety of tasks, and may carry payloads according to those tasks. For example, the robots may carry a camera for surveillance in dangerous or remote areas. Other payloads may be carried. Communications equipment, such as communications equipment to relay images captured by the camera and/or communications equipment to permit remote control, are also useful and may be carted by the robot. Such reconnaissance robots are useful for traversing complex and unstructured terrain, such as random buildings, especially in urban environments for a variety of scouting and other military or police missions.

There is a need in police and fire departments, the military, and industry for a portable robot device that can be sent into an inaccessible and/or hostile environment. The SRI robots are able to do so and traverse in three dimensions on the ground, walls, and ceilings on commonly encountered building substrates, readily transitioning across the surfaces when necessary. The ability to perch for long periods of time (more than 60 hours) on a wall or ceiling or navigate continuously for 3 hours in three dimensions without requiring battery charging is also useful in many of these applications. The ability to carry a communications link, which permits a user interface to control the robot, also extends usage in hostile environments.


Recent military operations in the Middle East and elsewhere have demonstrated the need for effective tools in urban combat operations. One such tool is a robot that has three-dimensional mobility. By affording access in a vertical direction in an urban environment, such a robot can enhance limited communications range at ground level by deploying communication antennae at much higher levels. Alternately, a robot may carry a surveillance camera and enter a building through a door, window, or hole in the building and scale the interior walls or ceilings of a room–before military personnel enter blindly. These smaller wall-climbing robots can also be deployed by soldiers into an urban combat zone inside a building by releasing them on the ground and steering them in. These robots may then scale walls surreptitiously and provide visual cues to the soldier from internal vantage points.

Another common feature permissible in the robots is symmetry along three axes (forward and back, left and right as well as top and bottom). The symmetry allows a robot to work from any position–regardless of orientation. The upside down symmetry allows the robot to detach from a ceiling and land on a floor, e.g., for rapid repositioning when necessary. In such situations, in addition to having good shock tolerance, the robot is then able to operate in whatever orientation in which it lands so that no power or time is wasted on trying to change its orientation. In addition, having cameras both fore and aft allows a teleo-operator to see what is going on beneath a climbing robot, or optimize its perching position for maximum clamping capability and field of view.

The robots are also surprisingly fast. Many of the wall-crawling robots may operate with speeds of about 0.2 to about 1 foot per second–while climbing a wall. Faster and slower speeds are also permissible. Since the electroadhesion can be switched off when the robot is moving horizontally on the ground or another level surface, the electroadhesive devices would not add any additional friction to the robot under normal operation (where electroadhesion is not needed for locomotion) and affect ground speeds significantly.

Image: SRI International 



SRI International 333 Ravenswood AvenueMenlo Park, CA 94025-3493Philip von GuggenbergDirector, Business Developmentphilip.vonguggenberg@sri.com650.859.5865 http://www.sri.com/rd/electroadhesion.html

SRI International Evaluating Carbon Capture with Ammonium Carbonate-Ammonium Bicarbonate

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SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development institute, announced on March 3rd it has been awarded a $4.5M Department of Energy (DoE) project evaluate the technical and economic viability of carbon dioxide capture using an ammonium carbonate-ammonium bicarbonate (AC-ABC) process at gasification plants, including integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants.
Great Point Energy’s coal gasification plantImage credit:  Great Point Energy
This new project is one of several projects at SRI aimed at finding cost-effective ways to recover carbon dioxide from power plants so it can be sequestered. One of the advantages of the AC-ABC process is that it removes carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide at pressure, resulting in less energy needed to capture the carbon dioxide. In addition, the AC-ABC approach has the potential to be commercialized at a low cost and in a relatively short amount of time because it does not require the development of novel materials, solvents, or reactor configurations.
“Current technologies for removing carbon dioxide from power plants are not cost-effective,” said Gopala Krishnan, Ph.D., associate director, Materials Research Laboratory at SRI. “Developing low-cost carbon capture methods for power plants is critical for the U.S. to maintain adequate power supplies while reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.”
A variety of approaches to carbon capture is needed to address both current and future power plant designs. Conventional power plants burn coal in a process that generates carbon dioxide, which can be recovered post-combustion. IGCC plants are a relatively new type of power plant that gasifies coal. Gasification produces a mixture of gases, including hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide. IGCC power plants remove the carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide from the mixed gas stream before the remaining gas, mainly hydrogen, is combusted in a gas turbine. Results from this DoE-funded project can also be applied to other types of power plants that require carbon dioxide removal pre-combustion, such as hydromethanation plants.
The research project, which is estimated to be completed in 2012, will include a field test at a coal gasifier that is operated by SRI’s partner on the project, GreatPoint Energy. The results from the field test will be used to design a large-scale demonstration program for an operating power plant. GreatPoint Energy is the developer of Bluegas™ hydromethanation technology for converting coal into hydrogen and synthetic natural gas.
“We are convinced that capturing carbon dioxide prior to combustion is the simplest and lowest cost solution for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions on a large scale,” said Andrew Perlman, GreatPoint Energy Chairman and CEO. “GreatPoint Energy is dedicated to developing new technologies such as the AC-ABC process, which we believe can dramatically hasten market acceptance of carbon capture technology.”
SRI is also committed to advancing carbon capture research and is currently using several different approaches in bench-scale pilot programs for domestic and international clients. The institute has extensive experience with carbon capture using both pre- and post-combustion techniques, and has conducted research and development to remove contaminants from gas streams for more than 20 years.
About SRI International
Silicon Valley-based SRI International is one of the world’s leading independent research and technology development organizations. SRI, which was founded by Stanford University as Stanford Research Institute in 1946 and became independent in 1970, has been meeting the strategic needs of clients and partners for more than 60 years. Perhaps best known for its invention of the computer mouse and interactive computing, SRI has also been responsible for major advances in networking and communications, robotics, drug discovery and development, advanced materials, atmospheric research, education research, economic development, national security, and more. The nonprofit institute performs sponsored research and development for government agencies, businesses, and foundations. SRI also licenses its technologies, forms strategic alliances, and creates spin-off companies. In 2009, SRI’s consolidated revenues, including its wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, Sarnoff Corporation, were approximately $470 million.
About GreatPoint Energy
GreatPoint Energy is the leading developer of a proprietary, highly efficient catalytic process, known as hydromethanation, by which coal, petroleum coke and biomass are converted directly into low-cost, clean, pipeline-quality natural gas and hydrogen, while capturing and providing for the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2). The Company has raised $140 million to date and is backed by leading investors including Suncor Energy, the Dow Chemical Company, AES Corporation, and Peabody Energy, as well as major financial institutions and venture capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Khosla Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Advanced Technology Ventures, and Citi’s Sustainable Development Investments. GreatPoint Energy is the winner of the 2009 GoingGreen East 50 as well as a Red Herring 100 company. To learn more, please visit www.greatpointenergy.com

Carbon Capture Offers Permanent Inexhaustible Supply of Fuels That Will Eliminate the Carbon Footprint of Human Activities

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The chemistry to mitigate or eliminate the carbon footprint of human activities and provide “a permanent inexhaustible supply of carbon containing fuels or products, which subsequently can be combusted or used without increasing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere” has been developed by University of California chemists Professor George A. Olah and Professor G.K. Surya Prakash, according to U.S. Patent Application 20090285739. Their discoveries could even lead to a reduction of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. 
Thus, the current lifestyles that rely extensively on conventional carbon containing fuels and products can continue indefinitely without harming the environment to preserve and even improve the earth’s atmosphere for the benefit of future generations.
This method includes an initial step of capturing carbon dioxide and then chemically recycling it to form and carbon containing fuels or products. Olah’s and Prakas’ discoveries offer a feasible way to mitigate the carbon footprint caused by human activities by not limiting or prohibiting the use of carbon containing fuels for energy generation, production of transportation fuels and varied derived materials and products, but instead by preparing such fuels and related carbon containing products from carbon dioxide that is captured from plants that generate it or by the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

By capturing and chemically recycling CO2 emissions, a neutral or in some case a negative carbon footprint is achieved. This is feasible by recycling preferentially higher concentrations of industrial and natural CO2 sources and emissions but also by capturing and recycling an equivalent amount, or on occasion even greater amounts, of CO2 directly from atmosphere or air itself.
Of course, nature itself recycles carbon dioxide through agricultural plants and trees, but the combustion and use of oil and other fossil fuels has simply overloaded the system so that it cannot keep up with the amounts of carbon dioxide that are generated. The invention recognizes this shortcoming and now seeks to assist nature in this admirable recycling project.

By first capturing carbon dioxide from the environment, or at least by preventing further amounts from being discharged, and then by converting the captured carbon dioxide to a carbon based fuel or feedstock, future generations can continue to utilize such fuels and feedstocks as well as the products made from such chemicals, without causing further harm to the environment. Thus, future sources of these fuels and products can be provided without increasing the emission of carbon dioxide or its resulting carbon footprint. The products can be used in an environmentally neutral manner.

In particular, the CO2 that is captured and recovered can be used to produce suitable and renewable fuels such as methanol or dimethyl ether as well their derived products and materials
At present, the world is facing an oil crisis, caused by rapid depletion of natural resources and our increasing use of technology that requires fuel. National oil reserves presently provide a cushion for major oil or natural gas emergencies and help to avoid disastrous disruptions caused by natural causes, as well as by geopolitical or economic interruption of these sources.

The United States government has recognized this crisis; the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established in the 1970s to maintain an emergency oil supply, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Secretary of Energy to fill the SPR to its 1 billion barrel capacity. Unfortunately, there have been several challenges to meeting this directive, including emergency situations like Hurricane Katrina, the on-going turbulence in the middle-east, and the overall oil shortage. Furthermore, storage of oil, by its nature, poses several safety issues, for example, its extreme flammability.
Olah and  Prakash advocate storing methanol and dimethyl ether instead of oil.  They have developed a  convenient storage of methanol and/or dimethyl ether as strategic reserve fuels that can be readily and effectively stored in natural or man-made storage facilities from which they can be readily withdrawn for use. As methanol and dimethyl ether can essentially be produced from recycling CO2 from any sources, including the air, with hydrogen provided by water and utilizing any energy source, the present method of stockpiling of fuel and energy reserves in the form of methanol and/or dimethyl ether provides a convenient new way for safeguarding against energy and fuel emergencies and shortages, according to U.S. Patent Application 20090320356.

Stockpiling of methanol offers several advantages over stockpiling oil. First, methanol is far less flammable than oil and other hydrocarbons, having a boiling point of 64.6.degree. C. (54.degree. F.) at atmospheric pressure. Gasoline, in contrast, will ignite at temperatures below freezing. Also, methanol is naturally present and found essentially non-toxic in plant and animal studies. For humans, methanol is safe at low concentrations. As a result of methanol’s ready availability and relative safety, the storage thereof is far less expensive than oil and other fuels. Due to its physical properties, methanol is also easy to transport.

Dimethyl ether can also be conveniently stored and handled in the same manner as liquefied petroleum gas. Dimethyl ether is a gas at room temperature, so that it is pressurized to a liquid to facilitate handling. It generally should be stored in pressurized tanks or similar vessels.
One of the world’s preeminent scholars of hydrocarbon chemistry, Professor George Olah received the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for groundbreaking work on superacids and his observations of carbocations. Olah devised a way to keep the transient carbocations around long enough to study their properties. What he found has lead to new discoveries, new fields of research and countless applications.
Professor Olah studies a wide range of synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry with emphasis on hydrocarbon chemistry. He is currently investigating electrophilic (protic) solvation, superelectrophilic activation, which allows new applications in alkylation, acylation and many other reactions. Olah has made significant research contributions to the practical development of improved lead-free gasoline, cleaner high-octane gas and other promising nonpolluting fuels, as well as many chemical processes now used in pharmaceutical and industrial chemistry. His research has also led to the development of a new kind of fuel cell, called the direct liquid methanol fuel cell, that is a highly efficient and convenient source of electricity.
His most recent research centers on the conversion of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, into useful fuels and products, investigations driven by his long-standing interest in energy and environmental issues.
To find new solutions to these pressing issues, Olah is working to develop new, cleaner and renewable fuels, based on methanol, to replace diminishing oil reserves while reducing levels of greenhouse gases. (The Methanol Economy Concept).   The concept of the Methanol Economy process presents significant advantages and great economic possibilities. In the Methanol Economy process, methanol is used as (1) convenient energy storage medium, which allows convenient and safe storage and handling; (2) readily transported and dispensed fuel, including for internal combustion engines and methanol fuel cells; and (3) feedstock for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products currently obtained from oil and gas resources, including polymers and even single cell proteins, which can be used for animal feed or human consumption. The environmental benefits obtained by disclosed chemical recycling of carbon dioxide results in mitigating the global warming to ensure the well being of future generations

The figure shows the chemicals and products that are derived from methanol.
The separation and use of atmospheric CO2 allows chemical recycling of CO2 as a renewable and unlimited source of carbon. CO2 absorption facilities can be placed proximate to a hydrogen production site to enable subsequent methanol synthesis. Although the CO2 content in the atmosphere is low (only 0.037%), the atmosphere offers an abundant and unlimited supply when CO2 is recycled. For using atmospheric carbon dioxide efficiently, CO2 absorption facilities are needed. This can be addressed by using efficient CO2 absorbents such as polyethyleneimines, polyvinylpyridines, polyvinylpyrroles, etc., on suitable nano-structured solid carriers (e.g., active carbon, polymers, silica or alumina), which allow absorption of even the low concentration of atmospheric CO2.

On March 11th, Prof. Olah at the California NanoSystems Institute delivered a talk about his discoveries in the area of carbocations, for which he won the Nobel Prize, and his current interest work to develop new cleaner and renewable fuels based on methanol. The lecture was entitled “Efficient Carbon Capture, Storage and Recycling Based on the Foundations of Lewis, Meerwein, Wittig and Winstein, for a Sustainable Future.”  
Professor Olah and Professor Prakash detail their discoveries in a series of recently published patent applications:  
20100022671
 PRODUCING METHANOL AND ITS PRODUCTS EXCLUSIVELY FROM GEOTHERMAL SOURCES AND THEIR ENERGY
20090320356 STOCKPILING METHANOL AND/OR DIMETHYL ETHER FOR FUEL AND ENERGY RESERVES
20090293348 EFFICIENT AND SELECTIVE CHEMICAL RECYCLING OF CARBON DIOXIDE TO METHANOL, DIMETHYL ETHER AND DERIVED PRODUCTS
 20090293348 EFFICIENT AND SELECTIVE CHEMICAL RECYCLING OF CARBON DIOXIDE TO METHANOL, DIMETHYL ETHER AND DERIVED PRODUCTS
 20090285739 MITIGATING OR ELIMINATING THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES
20090172997 ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY TERNARY TRANSPORTATION FLEX-FUEL OF GASOLINE, METHANOL AND BIOETHANOL

Flying Plasmonic Lens At Near Field for High Speed Nanolithography, License Available

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Flying Plasmonic Lens for High Speed NanolithographyImage credit: Xiang Zhang Laboratory

Photolithography is the most widely used micro-fabrication technique as it is a parallel, cost effective, and high throughput process. However the conventional photolithography techniques have a resolution limit that is about half of the illumination light wavelength in free space. To improve the photolithography resolution, one straightforward approach is to reduce the wavelength of the illumination light into deep UV, extreme UV, or even x-ray.
The main drawback of this approach, however, is the drastically increased instrument complexity and the corresponding cost. Several other techniques are also available to achieve nanoscale feature sizes: electron-beam lithography, focused ion-beam lithography and dip-pen lithography just to name a few. However these are slow series processes, which are not suitable for large-area pattern fabrication.
Recently, plasmonic nanolithography was demonstrated  by University of California, Berkeley engineers to improve the photolithography resolution by utilizing surface plasmons, surface electromagnetic (EM) waves that propagate along the interface of metal and dielectric. However, plasmonic lithography can only generate periodic patterns. In addition, due to limited propagating distance of surface plasmons on metal surface, it is challenging to fabricate large-area uniform patterns by plasmonic nanolithography.
Near field contact photolithography is another promising sub-diffraction-limited photolithography method. However, sub-diffraction-limited masks are always required to form sub-diffraction-limited patterns.
To address these limitations,  UC Berkeley researchers Werayut Srituravanich, Liang Pan, Yuan Wang, Cheng Sun, David B. Bogy and Xiang Zhang  have invented a patent pending family of deep-subwavelength photolithography using artificial metal-dielectric structures. The new photolithography scheme can generate deep-subwavelength patterns from diffraction-limited masks. Flat metal-dielectric structures may be used to generate one- or two- dimensional periodic deep-subwavelength patterns. Alternately, cylindrical metal-dielectric multilayers may be used to fabricate sub-diffraction-limited patterns from diffraction-limited arbitrary masks. Fabrication of features as small as 5 nanometers are possible using plasmonic lens and nano-lithography. 
The process can be used to achieve deep-subwavelength resolution comparable to that of plasmonic nanolithography and new field contact photolithography,  It can also be used to fabricate large-area uniform patterns, and generate deep-subwavelength patterns from diffraction-limited mask. The advantages of the process include parallel, cost effective, high throughput, and compatibility  with conventional photolithographic processes. This low-cost nanofabrication scheme has the potential to achieve throughputs that are two to five orders of magnitude higher than other maskless techniques.
Patterning by scanning in an extreme fashion, plasmonic nanolithography is a maskless approach utilizing a flying head carrying an optical stylus to write onto the recording surface at nanometer scales. It has the potential to reach a resolution below 10 nm and orders higher throughput than other maskless lithography methods. This technique provides a new approach towards next generation of optical lithography and will also have a major impact on other high-tech applications such as optical and magnetic data storage. Utilizing this plasmonic nanolithography, we will be able to make current micro-processors more than ten times smaller but way more powerful, and store orders more data on both optical disks and hard disk drives.
The flying plasmonic head is made by micro-fabrication techniques and can carry thousands of plasmonic lenses on one head, and with the ability to scan at a speed of tens of miles per hour, gliding only 20 nm above the medium surface. This is equivalent to an aircraft flying with the gap only 2 mm from the ground. While may sound mysterious, this is in fact, self-stabilized process achieved only by carefully aerodynamic design of the flying head without any need of electronic parts. Similar air bearing techniques are also employed in the hard-disk drives for magnetic data storage.
The two key components in this work are the plasmonic lens and the flying plasmonic head. Plasmonic lens is micrometer scale structure that utilizes the collective oscillation of electrons at the metal dielectric interface, so called surface plasmons (SPP), to focus the energy of incident light into the nano-scale. The nanometers size optical stylus created by plasmonic lens is powerful enough to enable pattern writing in outstanding speed of tens of miles per hour.
The technology is available for licensing from the UC Berkeley’s Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA)  reference Tech ID: 18034 / UC Case 2009-032-0Contact: Curt Theisen/ curt@berkeley.edu / tel: 510-643-7214. Reference Tech ID #18034.A detailed article on the technology can be found at: http://xlab.me.berkeley.edu/publications/pdfs/93.NatureNanoTech2008_Yut.pdf
Patterns Produced by Flying Plasmonic Lens and High Speed Nanolithography
Image credit: Xiang Zhang Laboratory