Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Now everyone can have a desktop lab
Electric Tweezers Move Microscopic Objects. EurekaAlert shows yet another sign that desktop laboratories will become cheaper, more widely accessible, more automatable.
While devices with similar functionality using lasers exist, they often cost upwards of a quarter-million dollars. Edwards' device performs some of the same tasks as laser tweezers, yet at a price anticipated to be in the same range as a high-end desktop computer. All it would take to use electric tweezers is a computer and a microscope. The tweezers' action occurs on a common glass microscope slide embedded with five electrodes. These electrodes create an electric field that can be used to push, pull, move and spin a selected object in any direction without actual physical contact. Using software Edwards developed, an operator can select an individual object from a microscope image on a computer screen. "All the user needs to do is to move a joystick."
Anybody who wants to get into nanotech or at least work with some very small devices might want to consider this idea, and even build one at home right now! Maybe someone will take the trouble to do an article for "Make" magazine for example. Inventors are student Brian Edwards, Nader Engheta, professor, and Stephane Evoy, adjunct assistant professor, of University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-08/uop-ups081806.php
While devices with similar functionality using lasers exist, they often cost upwards of a quarter-million dollars. Edwards' device performs some of the same tasks as laser tweezers, yet at a price anticipated to be in the same range as a high-end desktop computer. All it would take to use electric tweezers is a computer and a microscope. The tweezers' action occurs on a common glass microscope slide embedded with five electrodes. These electrodes create an electric field that can be used to push, pull, move and spin a selected object in any direction without actual physical contact. Using software Edwards developed, an operator can select an individual object from a microscope image on a computer screen. "All the user needs to do is to move a joystick."
Anybody who wants to get into nanotech or at least work with some very small devices might want to consider this idea, and even build one at home right now! Maybe someone will take the trouble to do an article for "Make" magazine for example. Inventors are student Brian Edwards, Nader Engheta, professor, and Stephane Evoy, adjunct assistant professor, of University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-08/uop-ups081806.php
# posted by uv : 7:42 AM
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
