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1. Platform for Controlled Supramolecular Nanoassembly

A Nanoelectromechanical Single-Atom Switch

We have exploited the electromechanical properties of gated mechanical break junctions to form single-atom relays. The gate voltage can be used to reversibly switch between a monatomic contact with a conductance around 2e2/h and the tunneling regime. In tunneling, the source−drain conductance varies smoothly with gate voltage. The characteristics of the devices can be understood within a simple continuum model. It indicates that the elastic properties of the substrate facilitate the electromechanical tuning and that the details of the switching depend sensitively on the nanoscale geometry of the electrode tips.

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Micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) timing devices can now be fabricated atop a customer’s existing CMOS chip to eliminate the need for separate quartz crystals, according to Silicon Clocks. The company is already licensing its technology to CMOS chip makers so they can add timing capabilities to their own designs, and now it has Silicon Labs–the analog chip experts–to market the technology worldwide. Look for C-MEMS chips from various vendors by 2010. R.C.J.

Silicon Clocks Inc., a Fremont, Calif., fabless vendor of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) timing chips, has landed $10.3 million in a Series C financing round led by new investor Silicon Labs (Austin, Texas) joined previous investors Charles River Ventures, Formative Ventures, Lux Capital and Tallwood Venture Capital. Silicon Clocks’ will use the money to ramp up production of its J-Series phase-locked loop technology, which produces low-jitter oscillators in the 100- to 700-MHz range using a proprietary CMEMS (CMOS + MEMS) process.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217800320

MEMS accelerometers can add interactive features to consumer devices, such as automatic shifting from portrait to landscape mode as well as scrolling by tilting the display. Smart phones, GPS devices, laptop computers and game controllers are among the consumer devices now packing MEMS sensors, which are also being designed into a widening array of medical and scientific equipment. Ever slimmer accelerometer chip form factors are encouraging ever slimmer consumer devices, today and going forward. R.C.J.

STMicroelectronics has fielded a 0.75-mm-thick three-axis microlectromechanical system (MEMS)-based accelerometer that it says will let even ultrathin consumer platforms offer advanced user interface features. The LIS302DLH is the thinnest member of ST’s Piccolo family of ultrasmall 16-bit MEMS chips, which are housed in 3 x 5-mm packages. ST said its digital three-axis accelerometer offers built-in motion sensing, orientation awareness, freefall detection and vibration monitoring. The device has a power-saving shutdown mode that awakens it automatically when motion is sensed. Acceleration measurements range from +8 to –8 g’s. The LIS302DLH uses an SPI serial interface.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217800289

STMicroelectronics is betting that MEMS gyros will find a mass market in sophisticated user interfaces that enable the recognition of complex human gestures using angular momentum sensors for pitch, roll and yaw. Smart phones, gaming controllers and gesture-recognizing remote controls using MEMS gyroscopes are due in stores by Christmas 2009.

MEMS acccelerometers have already been designed into such consumer items as the iPhone, a PS3 controller model and Wii “nunchucks,” where they respectively measure tilt for switching the display from portrait to landscape mode, enhance virtual steering and allow free-style motion sensing. MEMS gyroscopes will add angular momentum (pitch, roll and yaw) to enable the recognition of more-complex human gestures.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217800096

Most quantum phenomena are impossible to directly observe–such as the “spin” of an electron or the “polarization” of a photon–but now scientists have succeeded in transferring entangled spins to a mechanical oscillation–a nano-pendulum–thus opening the door to devices that feature quantum behaviors at the macroscopic level.

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have synchronized the motions of two nano-pendulums by virtue of a quantum phenomenon called entanglement— what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” Quantum entanglement keeps atoms, electrons and photons in synchronized states no matter how far they are moved apart. Entanglement is to communications what “Beam me up Scotty” is to transportation — a kind of faster-than-light connection that instantaneously links entangled atoms regardless of distance.

The NIST nano-pendulum consisted of two ions four microns apart—charged beryllium and magnesium atoms—oscillating in perfect synchronization with another spatially separated pair of entangled ions 240 microns away. First they used pulsed lasers to cool the atoms in an electrostatic trap between two parallel facing electrodes. Then they used a pulsed laser to entangle the spin states of the two beryllium atoms, and another pulsed laser to transfer that spin state to the pendulum-like oscillation motion between the two ions.

Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217702119