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“Scores of eminent scientists from India and the US discussed several key issues in the field of nano computing at the Indo-US Shared Vision Workshop on soft, quantum and nano computing being held here.

The workshop, held at the Dayalbagh Educational Institute, began Friday with a talk by Nikhil Ranjan Pal, professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He spoke on ‘Fuzzy Rule Based Systems: Applications, Design Issues, Solutions and Open Problems: Where do we stand?’.

Pal, an authority in the area of Fuzzy Systems, is a Fellow at the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), US, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is currently a visiting fellow in Taiwan as well.

He stressed how effective the tool of Fuzzy Logic was in a variety of applications ranging from satellite image processing to medical image processing for the detection of cancer in the young. While covering a wide range of issues in the field, he also explained them with great lucidity.

G. Ramnath, professor at the Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute, US, talked on ‘Transmuting Nanostructures for Nanocomputing Technologies’.

The world of computing is set to be revolutionized with nano devices (nano = 10-9 m) wherein a few atoms would be manipulated to do computational functions to produce powerful computers that would make the computers of today appear pedestrian in comparison.

Ramnath detailed the work being done by developing carbon nanotube architectures to produce nanodevice architectures of the future.

‘Towards understanding the origin of genetic languages’ was the topic of Apoorva Patel, professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Lov K. Grover of Bell Labs, US, who chaired the session, said that Patel had made the presentation at his institute earlier and had been rated as one of the five most important talks ever given at Bell Labs.

In his talk, Patel explained how nature processes information in creating species with the lowest amount of information processing in the most optimal manner.

He provided pointers for answering the most complicated questions like ‘How did I come into being?’, ‘How does nature evolve life?’ and ‘What is Life?’.

Bringing together difficult concepts from Biology and Computer Science, Patel gave very convincing answers to some of these difficult questions on life”

I read this story off the wire you can read the entire story by clicking on the headline link was wondering if anyone out there has the speech in any format would love to hear more.

From Technology Review

Written By Prachi Patel-Predd

“A 15-nanometer-thick porous silicon membrane could lead to microfluidics filters and make protein purification and blood dialysis more efficient.

A porous silicon membrane that is a few nanometers thick can quickly filter liquids and separate molecules that are very close in size, researchers at the University of Rochester report in this week’s Nature. The new membrane could lead to efficient protein purification for use in research and drug discovery. It could also act roughly 10 times faster than current membranes used for blood dialysis, the artificial purification of blood. In addition, the membrane could be employed as a filter to separate molecules in microfluidics devices used to study DNA and proteins and as a substrate for growing neurological stem cells.”

Read the entire story by clicking on the headline but I just wanted to point out this could lead to other things like being able to bring down the levels of a patients HIV or Hepatitis virus in the blood by being able to filter the blood thru a purifier.

By Scott Hillis

“Intel Corp. and IBM have announced one of the biggest advances in transistors in four decades, overcoming a frustrating obstacle by ensuring microchips can get even smaller and more powerful.

The breakthrough, achieved via separate research efforts and announced on Friday, involves using an exotic new material to make transistors the tiny switches that are the building blocks of microchips.

The technology involves a layer of material that regulates the flow of electricity through transistors.

“At the transistor level, we haven’t changed the basic materials since the 1960s. So it’s a real big breakthrough,” said Dan Hutcheson, head of VLSI Research, an industry consultancy.

“Moore’s Law was coming to a grinding halt,” he added, referring to the industry maxim laid down by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years.

The result of Moore’s Law has been smaller and faster chips and their spread into a wide array of consumer products that now account for the bulk of the industry’s $250 billion in annual sales.

The latest breakthrough means Intel, IBM and others can proceed with technology roadmaps that call for the next generation of chips to be made with circuitry as small as 45 nanometers, about 1/2000th the width of a human hair.”

From me

This is such great news for the tech industry everything from Mobile devices to Games will be better faster and more colorful than ever before. When I read the entire article on the Reutuers web site I felt chills go down my spine and my hair raise up on my arms which is so creepy but cool so I knew right then I had to blog about it. Be sure to click on the link and read the article all the way thru. I think whatever company makes hafnium a silvery metal soon to be used in the next generation of chips will see there Stock sky rocket on the market.

Inactive enzymes entombed in tiny honeycomb-shaped holes in silica can spring to life, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found.

The discovery came when they decided to salvage enzymes that had been in a refrigerator long past their expiration date. Enzymes are proteins that are not actually alive but come from living cells and perform chemical conversions.

To the research team’s surprise, enzymes that should have fizzled months before perked right up when entrapped in a nanomaterial called functionalized mesoporous silica, or FMS. The result points the way for exploiting these enzyme traps in food processing, decontamination, biosensor design and any other pursuit that requires controlling catalysts and sustaining their activity.

“There’s a school of thought that the reason enzymes work better in cells than in solution is because the concentration of enzymes surrounded by other biomolecules in cells is about 1,000 to 10,000 time more than in standard biochemistry lab conditions,” said Eric Ackerman, PNNL chief scientist and senior author of a related study that appears today in the journal Nanotechnology. “This crowding is thought to stabilize and keep enzymes active.”

The silica-spun FMS pores, hexagons about 30 nanometers in diameter, mimic the crowding of cells. Ackerman, lead author Chenghong Lei and colleagues said crowding is important because it induces an unfolded, free-floating protein to refold; upon refolding, it reactivates and becomes capable of catalyzing thousands of reactions a second.

The FMS is made first, and the enzymes are added later. This is important, the authors said, because other schemes for entrapping enzymes usually incorporate the material and enzymes in one harsh mixture that can cripple enzyme function forever.

In this study, the authors reported having “functionalized” the silica pores by lining them with compounds that varied depending on the enzyme to be ensnared — amine and carboxyl groups carrying charges opposite that of three common, off-the-shelf biocatalysts: glucose oxidase (GOX), glucose isomerase (GI) and organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH).

Picture an enzyme in solution, floating unfolded like a mop head suspended in a water bucket. When that enzyme comes into contact with a pore, the protein is pulled into place by the oppositely charged FMS and squeezed into active shape inside the pore. So loaded, the pore is now open for business; substances in the solution that come into contact with the enzyme can now be catalyzed into the desired product. For example, GI turns glucose to fructose, and standard tests for enzyme activity confirmed that FMS-GI was as potent or better at making fructose as enzyme in solution. OPH activity doubled, while GOX activity varied from 30 percent to 160 percent, suggesting that the enzyme’s orientation in the pore is important.

“It could be that in some cases the active site, the part of the enzyme that needs to be in contact with the chemical to be converted, was pointing the wrong way and pressed tightly against the walls of the pore,” Ackerman said.

To show that the enzymes were trapped inside the FMS pores, the team stained the protein-FMS complex with gold nanoparticles and documented the enzyme-in-pore complex through electron microscopy. A spectroscopic analysis of the proteins squeezed into their active conformation turned up no new folds, evidence that they had neatly refolded rather than been forcibly wadded into the pore.

Researchers are developing smart “nanocarriers” for drug delivery and diagnostics.

By Kevin Bullis

Using parts of living cells in a smart nanotechnology-based system, researchers in Switzerland have demonstrated a “nanocarrier” that can target specific types of cells and light up in response to conditions in their immediate environment.

The work is part of a growing effort by scientists worldwide to develop nano devices that can circulate in the bloodstream, slip stealthily past the body’s immune system, attach to cancer or inflammatory cells (an important ability in diseases such as atherosclerosis and arthritis), and deliver a deadly drug payload–destroying some of the toughest diseases without the often debilitating side effects that can accompany chemotherapy (see “Nanomedicine”).

Already, early versions of such nano-based treatments have been approved for breast cancer. But Patrick Hunziker, a physician at University Hospital Basel, and Wolfgang Meier, professor of chemistry at the University of Basel, are attempting to trigger the release of the drugs at more precise locations and at release rates adjusted to have the most effect on a particular disease.

A team of researchers at MIT and the University of Hong Kong have developed a biodegradable liquid that can quickly stop bleeding.

Composed of peptides, the liquid self-assembles into a protective nanofiber gel when applied to a wound. Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and Kwok-Fai So, chair of the department of anatomy at the University of Hong Kong, discovered the liquid’s ability to stop bleeding while experimenting with it as a matrix for regrowing brain cells in hamsters.

The researchers then conducted a series of experiments on various mammals, including rodents and pigs, applying the clear liquid agent to the brain, skin, liver, spinal cord, and femoral artery to test its ability to halt bleeding and seal wounds.

“It worked every single time,” said Ellis-Behnke. They found that it stopped the bleeding in less than 15 seconds, and even worked on animals given blood-thinning medications.

The wound must still be stitched up after the procedure; but unlike other agents designed to stop bleeding, it does not have to be removed from the wound site.

The liquid’s only byproduct is amino acids: tissue building blocks that can be used to actually repair the site of the injury, according to the researchers. It is also nontoxic, causes no immune response in the patient, and can be used in a wet environment, according to Ellis-Behnke. A paper outlining the findings is available online and will be published in the December issue of Nanomedicine.

Ellis-Behnke believes that first responders, say, on a battlefield or at a traffic accident, will save more lives with the nanosolution. Yet the most significant application may be in surgery, he says, especially on the liver and brain.

In fact, as much as half of the time during any operation is spent “doing some sort of bleeding control,” says Ellis-Behnke. Consequently, such a liquid could “fundamentally change the pace of the operation.”

Ram Chuttani, director of endoscopy and chief of interventional gastroenterology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is familiar with their research. “Where I see huge applications is in patients who present with gastrointestinal bleeding,” he says. “[Right now,] there’s no ideal agent to endoscopically manage gastrointestinal bleeding.”

Click on the link to read the whole story from my favorite Techonology Magazine

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology’s workhorses — its nanomachines. Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. “misfold”), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project — people from through out the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals.Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved. Learn more about this great cause by visiting the website located on Stanfords website

A nano-sized drug capsule designed to seek-and-destroy malignant cells shows signs of being able to significantly shrink ovarian cancer tumors. The researchers behind the novel drug, Mansoor Amiji at Northeastern University and MIT’s Robert Langer, say the secret is in the packaging: a pH-sensitive nanoparticle that encapsulates the therapeutics, delivering them directly to cancer sites in mice and suppressing tumor growth. The researchers reported their success in the journal Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology.

“The main challenge in ovarian cancer treatment is lack of selectivity for tumor cells versus normal cells,” says Amiji, a pharmaceutical scientist and the study’s principal investigator. “Many approaches have devastating side effects, attacking a lot of normal cells like hair follicle and gastrointestinal cells.” Ovarian cancer is a tempting target for the technology because it is particularly difficult to treat and often has a high relapse rate, Amiji says, but the nanoparticle system could be applicable to other forms of cancer.

To avoid such side effects and hone drug delivery, Amiji and his colleagues looked for ways to exploit key characteristics of tumor cells. The environment around most tumors is acidic, having lower pH levels than the rest of the body. Levels are even more acidic inside tumors due to lack of blood and lactic acid buildup. They deduced that a pH-sensitive drug package could thus selectively target the tumor cells.

The drug-carrying vessel needs to be small enough to pass through a tumor’s membrane and yet resilient enough to not be broken down by the body’s immune cells before reaching the tumor site. So the researchers engineered a nanoparticle out of pH-sensitive, biodegradable polymers. Much like a suitcase which could only be opened with a specific combination, this vessel could only be “unlocked” in the presence of low pH levels exhibited by tumor cells. Once unlocked, the vessel dissolves, releasing its drug contents specifically to cancer cells.

Other existing cancer therapies employ similar nano vessels for drug delivery. The most common are liposomes: naturally-derived, spherical vesicles that package drugs, carrying them across tumor membranes into cancer cells. However, these drug carriers run the risk of getting taken up by macrophages before getting to the tumor. Other potential drug carriers more resistant to the body’s natural defenses have been shown to have toxic side effects. Amiji and his colleagues hoped their nanoparticle would not only decrease toxicity, but also boost drug efficiency by more effectively evading the body’s immune system.

Live animal models put the theory and design to the test. The team packed their pH-sensitive nanoparticle with paclitaxel – a widely used cancer drug — and injected it into mice with ovarian cancer tumors. Other mice received injections of the same drug package minus pH sensitivity, while yet others received the drug alone (without a nanoparticle shell). Each group received only one dose of their respective treatments. A control group received no treatment at all.

Four weeks after the injections, mice with pH-sensitive treatments had tumors half as big as those treated with paclitaxel alone, and were slightly smaller than tumors treated with nano-packaged paclitaxel that was not pH-sensitive, suggesting a more effective delivery system. These same mice exhibited no measurable side effects: blood cell counts and body weight remained unchanged, and few mice were lethargic during treatment.

Continue reading the whole story by clicking on the Headline this is truely remarkable story.

Using a fast, low-cost fabrication technique that allows inexpensive testing of a wide variety of materials, Cornell researchers have come up with nanoscale resonators — tiny vibrating strings — with the highest quality factor so far obtainable at room temperature for devices so small.
The work is another step toward “laboratory on a chip” applications in which vibrating strings can be used to detect and identify biological molecules. The devices also can be used as very precisely tuned oscillators in radio-frequency circuits, replacing relatively bulky quartz crystals.

When you strike a bell or pluck a guitar string, it will vibrate within a small range of frequencies, centering on what is called the resonant frequency. Quality factor, or Q, refers to how narrow that range will be. It is defined as the ratio of the resonant frequency to the range of frequencies over which resonance occurs. A radio receiver with high-Q circuitry, for example, will be more selective in separating one station from another.Cornell researchers have already used vibrating strings and cantilevers to detect masses as small as a single bacterium or virus. Resonant frequency depends on the mass of a vibrating object (a thick guitar string has a lower pitch than a thin one). If a nanoscale vibrator is coated with antibodies that cause a virus or some other molecule to adhere to it, the change in mass causes a measurable change in frequency. In a high Q nanostring, the researchers say, a small change in mass will produce a much more noticeable shift.

The new nanostrings, made by graduate student Scott Verbridge and colleagues in the laboratories of Harold Craighead, Cornell professor of applied and engineering physics, and Jeevak Parpia, professor of physics, are made of silicon nitride under stress. By controlling the temperature, pressure and other factors as the film is deposited, the experimenters can cause the silicon nitride to be, in effect, stretched.

Congratulations Scott his is a major break thru I can not wait to see a working prototype!

The difficulty of keeping computer chips cool is one of the most immediate challenges for the IT industry. Researchers at IBMs Zurich lab are using nano-scale technologies to make self-contained water-cooling systems that are much smaller and can handle much higher power densities than the air-cooled copper heatsinks in use today.

Nanoscale devices are made of components that measure less than 100nm. A nanometre is equivalent to one billionth of a metre.
Dr Bruno Michel, manager of advanced thermal packaging research at the Zurich lab, said the paste between the chip and the heatsink, called the thermal interface material (TIM), currently accounts for 50 percent of the thermal resistance of chip-cooling systems. The TIM is needed because the silicon chip and the copper heatsink have different thermal expansion coefficients, so they can not be directly joined together.

This is a must read article and make sure to let me know what you think.

A tiny colour projector designed to be used with mobile phones, handheld devices and PDAs has successfully passed its first batch of tests.

Israel-based Explay says its nano-projector engine is a hundred times smaller and more efficient than rival technology.

The projector, little larger than a matchbox, will take images from a portable device and display them at any size up to 35ins on a wall or screen.

What a great use of this new technolgy I was totaly impresssed with the article and am glad they have made it so far in such a short amount of time.Be sure to read the rest.

Nanotechnological, inexpensive sensors that can detect invisible, odorless hydrogen leaks and sound the alarm wirelessly could help safeguard future vehicles and refueling stations based on the gas, experts told UPI’s Nano World.
Intriguingly, the sensors have the ability to power themselves by harvesting energy from slight vibrations. This means they could operate continuously without batteries or maintenance when affixed to cars, refrigerators, pumps, motors or any other vibrating machine, the researchers added.

The chemical reaction hydrogen cars run on is remarkably simple. Just combine hydrogen gas with oxygen and you get energy and water — and none of the dirty mix of toxins and global warming gases burning gasoline spews forth. The cleanliness of hydrogen is in large part why government and industry support for hydrogen vehicles has reached into the billions of dollars.

The problem is hydrogen is odorless, invisible and potentially explosive. Researchers at the University of Florida at Gainesville funded by NASA have developed hydrogen sensors designed to work together in the dozens or hundreds to overcome this hurdle.

You will need to have sensors all over the place — if there is a leak, you can see which ones light up, and where the leak is, and how quickly it is spreading. That way you can shut off valves and avoid a major problem,” said researcher Steve Pearton, a materials engineer.

The sensors, currently the size of a deck of cards, employ rods of zinc oxide only nanometers or billionths of meters wide coated with platinum catalyst. Extremely tiny electrical currents are passed through each rod, and the more hydrogen surrounds these whiskers, the more conductive they become, to effectively detect hydrogen in the air. The researchers also developed wireless transmitters to broadcast signals out from the sensors, as well as ways to power the devices either through conventional solar cells or piezoelectric energy harvesters that convert vibrations into electricity.

You need lots of hydrogen sensors to detect leaks, but you don’t want to have to maintain them or change the battery every couple of months,” said researcher Jenshan Lin, an electrical engineer. “Our sensor can operate completely independently

Diabetech says preliminary results from our GlucoPals Study proving that patient-centric real-time communication facilitates tighter glucose control. Other findings include improved insulin dosing accuracy, better family relationships, peace of mind for the family, and more frequent blood glucose testing.
Due to the overwhelming evidence and patient feedback, Diabetech is immediately stepping up its marketing efforts around this medically necessary and covered diabetes management technology. Based on the preliminary GlucoPals subscriber data, Diabetech is now expanding its guarantee to include tighter glucose control or the service is free.

Recommended for families with diabetic children ages 8 and up, the interactive wireless communication system connects the child directly with his/her parents, school personnel, and any number of GlucoPALS (diabetes pen-pals) no matter where they live as well as providing the team with direct access to the patient in real-time.

Meanwhile Zyvex Corporation, a leading molecular nanotechnology company specializing in micro and nanomanufacturing, micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), and nanomaterials has selected Diabetech, LP as its medical device development and commercialisation partner for their wireless sensor implant targeting real-time blood glucose levels in the body.

Diabetech provides the know-how and patented technologies necessary to develop the innovative patients handheld device for not only displaying the glucose levels from the implant to the patient but also for automatically relaying that information in real-time to Diabetechs clinical management system. Diabetech will also be responsible for commercializing this leading-edge medical device technology as part of its Virtual-Loop Program.

What a great use for this technology!

Medicines that will make their own way through the body and attack precisely the diseased cells on reaching their destination such has been the dream of physicians and pharmacists since time immemorial. Fraunhofer researchers working in the Fraunhofer Nanotechnology Alliance have now come a little closer to reaching this goal. They have developed bio-functional nanoparticles that cause necrosis in cancer cells. “These cell-like structures have a solid nucleus surrounded by proteins that detect and destroy cancer cells,” explains Dr. Tovar of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB.

So how does it work? “Communication in the human body is a biochemical process based on the exchange of molecules,” says Tovar. “We are trying to understand these communication processes and harness them for our own purposes.” The tumor necrosis factor TNF for instance, releases a molecule that attaches itself to the receptors of the cancer cell and passes on its deadly message. To introduce the biological messenger TNF into the body, Tovar and his colleagues at Stuttgart University have developed bio-functional nanoparticles. Known as nanocytes, these carry TNF proteins on their surface. “In producing these particles, we benefit from the self-organizing capability of the ‘building blocks’: Once a contact has been established between the particles and the proteins, the proteins grow and envelop the nuclei without any further effort on our part,” the researcher explains. Tovar tested the finished nanoparticles in a Petri dish. His findings were most encouraging: cancer cells that came into contact with the particles did indeed perish. The researchers documented this process on video, and will be showing the film at the Fraunhofer stand at nano tech 2006.

Its spokesman Mohammad Isa Abdullah said a prototype had been developed and RM5mil was needed for the system to be commercialised.

We have yet to identify the companies which we can work with, but there has been some interest, he told Bernama.

We believe that the project is not only viable but is also of great national interest. The successful launch of the project will result in a substantial reduction in fuel costs for car users and subsidy costs incurred by the Government, he said.

He added that with further research and development, the project could pave the way for groundbreaking innovations to create opportunities in Malaysia.

HFT is designed to fit any car with emphasis on national cars like the Perdana, Waja, Wira, Iswara, Saga and Kancil. The technology uses water as a complementary fuel to petrol and diesel.

It is based on high compression nano-technology that breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen, that are then pumped into the fuel line.

The new fuel mixture, petrol/diesel (hydrogen and oxygen), is injected into the engine where combustion takes place.

The prototype has been used in a Proton Waja which has clocked 10,000km.

The fuel H2O is able to generate a fuel capacity of 20 litres (10 from petrol and 10 from H2O). For every 10 litres of petrol, the system uses 20 litres of H2O to generate a fuel capacity of 20 litres.

UCLA scientists have developed a testing strategy to help manufacturers monitor and test the safety and health risks of engineered nanomaterials.

Nanotechnology involves manipulating atoms to create molecules smaller than one one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. “Nano” means one billionth of a meter and the field might exceed the impact of the Industrial Revolution, becoming a $1 trillion market by 2015.

No government or industry regulations yet exist for the emerging technology.

At such small sizes, materials exhibit unconventional physical and chemical properties that allow them to perform new feats in the areas of electronics, optics, and drug delivery.

Engineered nanomaterials are already being used in such items as tires, cosmetics, and electronics and will also be utilized increasingly in medical diagnosis, imaging and drug delivery.

A review article on the UCLA research appears in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Science.

Xradia, Inc., a developer and manufacturer of ultra-high-resolution x-ray imaging systems for 3D tomography and nanotechnology applications, today announced receipt of a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of an ultra-high-resolution x-ray microscope for the three-dimensional imaging of complex biological systems.

Nanotechnology is emerging as a critical field essential to enabling fundamental breakthroughs in biomedicine and other disciplines. In this respect, single-cell tomography using x-rays has been identified as a major technology need by NIH.

“With unique capabilities in developing ultra-high-resolution x-ray nano-tomography systems, Xradia is in an ideal position to meet this emerging need,” said Dr. Michael Feser, engineering vice president at Xradia.

The company will expand its product line by introducing a new x-ray tomography system designed specifically for biomedical applications. This new product will include capabilities of automated 3D tomographic imaging with single cell or tissue sections at 30nm resolution, and high throughput. A cryogenic sample stage will preserve samples in a frozen-hydrated state, and enable simple preparation without the need for sectioning.

“The new x-ray microscope developed with these funds will bridge the gap between visible light and electron microscopy, and will provide biologists with a powerful and unique vision tool offering new insights on the structure and behavior of cellular organelles,” said Dr. Wenbing Yun, Xradia’s founder and president. “Development of the new microscope is expected to be complete in less than 12 months.”

About Xradia, Inc.

Xradia, Inc. is a privately held company established in 2000 to commercialize high-resolution x-ray microscopes for nondestructive inspection and nano-scale imaging. Initially targeted at failure analysis in the semiconductor IC industry, subsequent developments have led to a suite of commercial x-ray imaging products that have permitted expansion into markets that include metrology in semiconductor IC production, scientific equipment, biomedical research and nanotechnology development. These advanced systems offer outstanding nondestructive imaging capabilities, including nanometer resolution 3D imaging of complex objects, such as IC chips and biological specimens, and element-specific imaging for process control and monitoring in IC manufacturing. The company also supplies advanced x-ray imaging components and state-of-the-art imaging systems to the synchrotron research community. The company is rapidly expanding in response to demand for its unique x-ray imaging products