Professor Inkyu Park of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and his team announced on October 19 that they developed a new method of manipulating nanoparticles by controlling the electric field and temperature. Professor Park expects that this new technology will have an impact on a wide range of fields, including high density electronic circuit patterning, high performance nano-sensors, protein and DNA manipulation and cell manipulation. In particular, this technology is expected to bring about a breakthrough in the development of portable nano-sensors, which is currently at an impasse due to current technological limits making delicate control of nanoparticles impossible.
 
The research team utilized nano-patterning, a process that creates patterns and structures on a nanometer scale, in order to create nanowires. These wires are said to be 1 to 100 nanometers thick and only a few micrometers long. By varying the current through the wires they were able to quickly change the temperature, thereby affecting the chemical reactions which govern the formation of nanoparticles. The team has proven experimentally that it is possible to quickly and accurately control nanoparticles through the use of this technique.
 
Professor Park commented that, "This technology will be utilized to control organic molecules and circuit patterning, and will contribute significantly towards enhancing the performance of chemical sensors, the development of nano-sensors, as well as many other branches in the IT field."
 
Also participating in this research, which was funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the HP Open Innovation Research Program, were Doctor Gwang-chul Lee from the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science and Doctors Zhiyong Li and Stan Williams from HP. The results were published in the October 3 online issue of the nanotechnology journal Nano Letters.
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