Pentagonal tiles pave the way towards organic electronics

New research paves way for next generation of ultra-small electronic devices.

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New research paves way for the nanoscale self-assembly of organic building blocks, a promising new route towards the next generation of ultra-small electronic devices.

Ring-like molecules with unusual five-fold symmetry bind strongly to a copper surface, due to a substantial transfer of charge, but experience remarkably little difficulty in sideways diffusion, and exhibit surprisingly little interaction between neighbouring molecules.  This unprecedented combination of features is ideal for the spontaneous creation of high-density stable thin films, comprising a pavement of these organic pentagonal tiles, with potential applications in computing, solar power and novel display technologies.

Currently, commercial electronics use a top-down approach, with the milling or etching away of inorganic material, such as silicon, to make a device smaller. For many years the computing power of a given size of computer chip has been doubling every eighteen months (a phenomenon known as Moore’s law) but a limit in this growth is soon expected.  At the same time, the efficiency of coupling electronic components to incoming or outgoing light (either in the generation of electricity from sunlight, or in the generation of light from electricity in flat-screen displays and lighting) is also fundamentally limited by the development of fabrication techniques at the nanometre scale (a nanometre being one billionth of a metre).

Researchers are therefore looking for ingenious solutions in the creation of ever smaller electronics. The field of nanotechnology is taking a bottom-up approach of creating electronics using naturally self-assembling organic components, such as polymers, which will be capable of spontaneously forming devices with the desired electronic or optical characteristics.

The latest findings are from scientists at the University of Cambridge and Rutgers University who are working on the development of new classes of organic thin films on surfaces.  By studying the fundamental forces at play in self-assembling thin films, they are developing the knowledge that will allow them to tailor these films into molecular-scale organic-electronic devices, creating smaller components than would ever be possible with conventional fabrication techniques.

Dr Holly Hedgeland, of the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, one of the co-authors of the paper, said: “With the semiconductor industry currently worth an estimated $249 billion per year there is a clear motivation towards a molecular scale understanding of innovative technologies that could come to replace those we use today.”

It is not simply the electronic properties of a molecule on a surface that will control its potential to form part of a device, but also whether it will move by itself into the required structural configuration and remain stable in that position even if the device becomes heated in use.

Molecules that are strongly bound to the substrate with a high degree of transfer of charge offer a range of new possibilities, though little is currently known of their behaviour. A number of organic molecules, usually featuring carbon rings across which electronic charge can conduct, potentially demonstrate the right electronic properties, but the long-range forces which will govern their self-assembly during the first phases of growth often remain a mystery.

Now the interdisciplinary team based in the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, have reported the first dynamical measurements for a new class of organic thin film where cyclopentadienyl molecules (C₅H₅) receive significant electronic charge from the surface, yet diffuse easily across the surface and show interactions with each other that are much weaker than would typically be expected for the amount of charge transferred.

Hedgeland explained: “By coupling the experimental helium spin echo technique with advanced first-principles calculations, we were able to study the dynamic behaviour of a cyclopentendienyl layer on a copper surface, and to deduce that the charge transfer between the metal and the organic molecule was occurring in a counter-intuitive sense.”

Dr Marco Sacchi, of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, who carried out the calculations that helped explain the startling new experimental results, said that “the key to the unique behavior of cyclopentadienyl lies in its pentagonal (five-fold) symmetry, which prevents it latching onto any one site within the triangular (three-fold) symmetry of the copper surface through directional covalent bonds, leaving it free to move easily from site to site; at the same time, its internal electronic structure is just one electron short of an extremely stable `aromatic’ configuration, encouraging a high degree of charge transfer from the surface and creating a strong non-directional ionic bond.”

The researchers’ findings, reported in Physical Review Letters today, Friday 06 May, highlight the potential of a new category of molecular adsorbate, which could fulfil all the criteria required for useful application.

Hedgeland concluded: “The unusual character of the charge transfer in this case prevents the large repulsive interactions between adjacent molecules that would otherwise have been expected, and hence should enable the formation of unusually high-density films. At the same time, the molecules remain highly mobile and yet strongly bound to the surface, with a large degree of thermal stability. In all, this is a combination of physical properties that offers huge potential benefit to the development of new classes of self-assembled organic films relevant for technological applications.”

Self-Organizing Nanotech Could Store 250 DVDs on One Coin-Size Surface

Sapphire crystals may be the next material to transform the electronics industry, thanks to nanotechnology researchers who have announced a new way of storing data that would fit the contents of 250 DVDs on a coin-sized surface. The study, published in Science, illustrates how nanoscale elements can organize themselves over a large sheet of semiconductor film. The researchers expect that when applied to electronic media, their discovery will improve the efficiency of data storage, savings which can then be transferred to improve other pieces of electronics besides just storage, like high-definition screens and solar cells.

Similar attempts have previously been made to improve data storage on semiconductor films, but have consistently failed because the polymers—which are known to link together, on their own, in precise patterns—lose their organized structure when the film being used increases in area, rendering them useless for storing memory. Lead researchers Ting Xu from the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Russell from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst overcame this by layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle—a common procedure known as a miscut—and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers [Science Daily].

With this technique, the only limit to the size of an array of block copolymers is the size of the sapphire, Xu said. Once a sapphire is heated up and the pattern is created, the template could be reused. Both the crystals and the polymer chains could be obtained commercially, Xu said [PC World]. The researchers say the technology could make nearly perfect arrays of semiconductor material that are about 15 times denser than anything achieved previously [Reuters].

Using the technology, it might also be possible to achieve a high-definition picture with 3-nanometer pixels, potentially as large as a stadium JumboTron, Xu said. Another possibility is more dense photovoltaic cells that capture the sun’s energy more efficiently…. The new technology could create chip features just 3nm [nanometers] across, far outstripping current microprocessor manufacturing techniques, which at their best create features about 45nm across [PC World].

NanoSpider

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The latest installment in DNA nanotechnology has arrived: A molecular nanorobot dubbed a "spider." Click to enlarge this image.
Paul Michelotti

• A molecular robot made of DNA has been created by scientists.
• The nanobot walks like a spider and follows a track made out of stitched-together strands of DNA.
• In a separate study, another research team had enabled a nano-scale "assembly line."

Scientists on Wednesday announced they had created a molecular robot made out of DNA that walks like a spider along a track made out of the chemical code for life.

The achievement, reported in the British journal Nature, is a further step in nanoscale experiments that, one day, may lead to robot armies to clean arteries and fix damaged tissues.

The robot is just four nanometers -- four billionths of a meter -- in diameter.

Milan Stojanovic of New York's Columbia University, who led the venture, likens the nanobot to "a four-legged spider."

The beast moves along a track comprising stitched-together strands of DNA that is essentially a pre-programmed course, in the same way that industrial robo move along an assembly line.

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Drug -Delivering Robot

Back in 1966, a science fiction movie called Fantastic Voyage wowed audiences as a submarine was miniaturized and injected into a human vein. The concept seemed unbelievable, like something you’d see in a children’s cartoon, which we actually did see in the popular kids’ show Magic School Bus. But 45 years after the film came out, it appears that something similar is actually happening in the world of nanorobotics that could change the way eye surgery is performed in the future.

A team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich led by Brad Nelson, professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, have created a microbot tiny enough to be injected into an eye without the need for any anesthetic. Nelson said in a video interview (shown below) that the first applications are in targeted delivery. Diseases like age-related macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness in older people, or retinal vein occlusions, can be treated with the microbot by delivering the drugs to a specific location on the retina.

Right now, the most common treatment for macular degeneration is a drug that is injected into the eye. It tends to diffuse quickly through the retina, so it requires regular injections. The robot, on the other hand, can stay in the eye for months, so it could provide a lengthier and more-targeted drug release. The robot can also position a biodegradable drug capsule in the eye and then be removed with a magnetic needle.

Basically a tiny magnet, the microbot is controlled by an electromagnetic field outside of the eye. Nelson said they have to be very precise about controlling the fields and the currents through their electric magnets. This has been a challenge that the team has been able to overcome in the past couple of years.

The research has been done on synthetic eyes, or the eyes of dead animals so far. The eye in the video below is that of a pig. The team says it will be moving soon to the eyes of living animals, which will be followed by human trials.

Nelson said that if they can make it small enough to fit in a 23 gauge needle, it can be injected into the eye with just topical anesthetic or none at all, and it doesn’t even need a suture. Though the microbot still has a ways to go before it can be used regularly on (live) humans, the tiny size of the robots could bring forth a new type of non-invasive surgery.

Super Piel : Celdas Solares Flexibles.

The "super skin" developed by Stanford University researcher Zhenan Bio is self-powering, using polymer solar cells to generate electricity. The solar cells are not just flexible, but stretchable -- they can be stretched up to 30 percent beyond their original length and snap back without any damage or loss of power.

"With artificial skin, we can basically incorporate any function we desire," says Bao, a professor of chemical engineering, who presented her work on Feb. 20 at the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C. "That is why I call our skin 'super skin.' It is much more than what we think of as normal skin."

The foundation for the artificial skin is a flexible organic transistor, made with flexible polymers and carbon-based materials. To allow touch sensing, the transistor contains a thin, highly elastic rubber layer, molded into a grid of tiny inverted pyramids. When pressed, this layer changes thickness, which changes the current flow through the transistor. The sensors have from several hundred thousand to 25 million pyramids per square centimeter, corresponding to the desired level of sensitivity.

To sense a particular biological molecule, the surface of the transistor has to be coated with another molecule to which the first one will bind when it comes into contact. The coating layer only needs to be a nanometer or two thick.

"Depending on what kind of material we put on the sensors and how we modify the semiconducting material in the transistor, we can adjust the sensors to sense chemicals or biological material," she says.

Bao's team has successfully demonstrated the concept by detecting a certain kind of DNA. The researchers are now working on extending the technique to detect proteins, which could prove useful for medical diagnostics purposes.

"For any particular disease, there are usually one or more specific proteins associated with it -- called biomarkers -- that are akin to a 'smoking gun,' and detecting those protein biomarkers will allow us to diagnose the disease," Bao says.

The same approach would allow the sensors to detect chemicals, she said. By adjusting aspects of the transistor structure, the super skin can detect chemical substances in either vapor or liquid environments.

Regardless of what the sensors are detecting, they have to transmit electronic signals to get their data to the processing center, whether it is a human brain or a computer.

Having the sensors run on the sun's energy makes generating the needed power simpler than using batteries or hooking up to the electrical grid, allowing the sensors to be lighter and more mobile. And having solar cells that are stretchable opens up other applications.

A recent research paper by Bao, describing the stretchable solar cells, will appear in an upcoming issue of Advanced Materials. The paper details the ability of the cells to be stretched in one direction, but she said her group has since demonstrated that the cells can be designed to stretch along two axes.

The cells have a wavy microstructure that extends like an accordion when stretched. A liquid metal electrode conforms to the wavy surface of the device in both its relaxed and stretched states.

"One of the applications where stretchable solar cells would be useful is in fabrics for uniforms and other clothes," says Darren Lipomi, a graduate student in chemical engineering in Bao's lab and lead author of the paper.

"There are parts of the body, at the elbow for example, where movement stretches the skin and clothes," he adds. "A device that was only flexible, not stretchable, would crack if bonded to parts of machines or of the body that extend when moved."

Stretchability would be useful in bonding solar cells to curved surfaces without cracking or wrinkling, such as the exteriors of cars, lenses and architectural elements.

The solar cells continue to generate electricity while they are stretched out, producing a continuous flow of electricity for data transmission from the sensors.

Bao says she sees the super skin as much more than a super mimic of human skin; it could allow robots or other devices to perform functions beyond what human skin can do.

"You can imagine a robot hand that can be used to touch some liquid and detect certain markers or a certain protein that is associated with some kind of disease and the robot will be able to effectively say, 'Oh, this person has that disease,'" she says. "Or the robot might touch the sweat from somebody and be able to say, 'Oh, this person is drunk.'"

Finally, Bao has figured out how to replace the materials used in earlier versions of the transistor with biodegradable materials. Now, not only will the super skin be more versatile and powerful, it will also be more eco-friendly.

An educated public needs access to clear, reliable research news. Futurity finds all that really promising good stuff—fresh from the lab—and funnels it directly to you. Think of it as a snapshot of where science is today and where it just might take us tomorrow.

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FUTURITY STAFF. (2011, February 22). Stretchy solar cells power "super skin". Retrieved from http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2BrK9Q/www.fastcompany.com/1730687/stretchy-solar-cells-power-super-skin?hpt=Sbin/

Chips Metatronicos con luz y nanorods

Optical engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have created the first computer circuit where logic is performed with light instead of electricity. Dubbed “metatronics,” this light-based logic could enable smaller, faster, and more energy efficient computer chips.

The team, led by Nader Engheta, demonstrated that it’s possible to make resistors, inductors, and capacitors that act on light. By creating a chip that has a comb-like array of nanorods — tiny pillars of silicon nitride (pictured below) — the flow of light can be controlled in such a way that the “voltage” and “current” of the optical signal can be altered. By changing the height and width of the nanorods, and by altering their arrangement, different effects can be achieved. For example, if light has to pass by a short rod and then a tall rod, it might create a resistor-like effect — but a square of four short rods might act as an optical capacitor. The metatronic name comes from the fact that these nanorods are a metamaterial; a material that has has properties that can’t be found in nature.

Because Engheta and co are working with light instead of electricity, their metatronic chip has some very odd properties. For example, light’s polarization — whether the light wave undulates left/right or up/down — affects how it moves through the nanorods. When the light is aligned with the nanorods (pictured above), the circuit fires in parallel; but when light is perpendicular, the circuit is serial. In effect, one set of nanorods can act as two different circuits, which Engheta calls “stereo-circuitry.”

Furthermore, if you rotate the circuit itself through 45 degrees, the light wave would hit the nanorods obliquely, creating a circuit that is neither series or parallel — a setup that doesn’t occur in regular electronics. Eventually — and be careful, this might make your brain explode — you could even build 3D arrays of nanorods, where a single arrangement could act as dozens of different circuits.

To put this into perspective, imagine a low-power, ultra-high-speed CPU that turns into a GPU when you change the input signal — that’s the kind of functionality that metatronic circuits might one day enable. In the short term, though, work needs to be done on optical interconnects– and, as yet, the closest we’ve come to creating an optical transistor is MIT’s optical diode. In the short term it is much more likely that optoelectronic chips — chips that mix electronic logic with optical interconnects, and which can be built using standard semiconductor processes — will be used commercially.

Sebastian, A. (2012, February 24). Metatronic chip replaces electricity with light, swaps resistors with nanorods. Retrieved from www.extremetech.com/extreme/119759-metatronic-chip-replaces-electricity-with-light-swaps-resistors-with-nanor

Moduladores Opticos de Grafenos

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated a new technology for graphene that could break the current speed limits in digital communications.

The team of researchers, led by UC Berkeley engineering professor Xiang Zhang, built a tiny optical device that uses graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of crystallized carbon, to switch light on and off. This switching ability is the fundamental characteristic of a network modulator, which controls the speed at which data packets are transmitted. The faster the data pulses are sent out, the greater the volume of information that can be sent. Graphene-based modulators could soon allow consumers to stream full-length, high-definition, 3-D movies onto a smartphone in a matter of seconds, the researchers said.

Schematic illustration of the graphene-based optical modulator. A layer of graphene (black fishnet) is placed on top of a silicon waveguide (blue), which is used as an optical fiber to guide light. Electric signals sent in from the side of the graphene through gold (Au) and platinum (Pt) electrodes alter the amount of photons the graphene absorbs. (Ming Liu graphic)

“This is the world’s smallest optical modulator, and the modulator in data communications is the heart of speed control,” said Zhang, who directs a National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center at UC Berkeley. “Graphene enables us to make modulators that are incredibly compact and that potentially perform at speeds up to ten times faster than current technology allows. This new technology will significantly enhance our capabilities in ultrafast optical communication and computing.”

In this latest work, described in the May 8 advanced online publication of the journalNature, researchers were able to tune the graphene electrically to absorb light in wavelengths used in data communication. This advance adds yet another advantage to graphene, which has gained a reputation as a wonder material since 2004 when it was first extracted from graphite, the same element in pencil lead. That achievement earned University of Manchester scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov the Nobel Prize in Physics last year.

Zhang worked with fellow faculty member Feng Wang, an assistant professor of physics and head of the Ultrafast Nano-Optics Group at UC Berkeley. Both Zhang and Wang are faculty scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Materials Science Division.

“The impact of this technology will be far-reaching,” said Wang. “In addition to high-speed operations, graphene-based modulators could lead to unconventional applications due to graphene’s flexibility and ease in integration with different kinds of materials. Graphene can also be used to modulate new frequency ranges, such as mid-infrared light, that are widely used in molecular sensing.”

Graphene is the thinnest, strongest crystalline material yet known. It can be stretched like rubber, and it has the added benefit of being an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. This last quality of graphene makes it a particularly attractive material for electronics.

“Graphene is compatible with silicon technology and is very cheap to make,” said Ming Liu, post-doctoral researcher in Zhang’s lab and co-lead author of the study. “Researchers in Korea last year have already produced 30-inch sheets of it. Moreover, very little graphene is required for use as a modulator. The graphite in a pencil can provide enough graphene to fabricate 1 billion optical modulators.”

It is the behavior of photons and electrons in graphene that first caught the attention of the UC Berkeley researchers.

The researchers found that the energy of the electrons, referred to as its Fermi level, can be easily altered depending upon the voltage applied to the material. The graphene’s Fermi level in turn determines if the light is absorbed or not.

When a sufficient negative voltage is applied, electrons are drawn out of the graphene and are no longer available to absorb photons. The light is “switched on” because the graphene becomes totally transparent as the photons pass through.

Shown is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image magnifying the key structures of the graphene-based optical modulator. (Colors were added to enhance the contrast). Gold (Au) and platinum (Pt) electrodes are used to apply electrical charges to the sheet of graphene, shown in blue, placed on top of the silicon (Si) waveguide, shown in red. The voltage can control the graphene's transparency, effectively turning the setup into an optical modulator that can turn light on and off. (Ming Liu image)

Graphene is also transparent at certain positive voltages because, in that situation, the electrons become packed so tightly that they cannot absorb the photons.

The researchers found a sweet spot in the middle where there is just enough voltage applied so the electrons can prevent the photons from passing, effectively switching the light “off.”

“If graphene were a hallway, and electrons were people, you could say that, when the hall is empty, there’s no one around to stop the photons,” said Xiaobo Yin, co-lead author of the Nature paper and a research scientist in Zhang’s lab. “In the other extreme, when the hall is too crowded, people can’t move and are ineffective in blocking the photons. It’s in between these two scenarios that the electrons are allowed to interact with and absorb the photons, and the graphene becomes opaque.”

In their experiment, the researchers layered graphene on top of a silicon waveguide to fabricate optical modulators. The researchers were able to achieve a modulation speed of 1 gigahertz, but they noted that the speed could theoretically reach as high as 500 gigahertz for a single modulator.

While components based upon optics have many advantages over those that use electricity, including the ability to carry denser packets of data more quickly, attempts to create optical interconnects that fit neatly onto a computer chip have been hampered by the relatively large amount of space required in photonics.

Light waves are less agile in tight spaces than their electrical counterparts, the researchers noted, so photon-based applications have been primarily confined to large-scale devices, such as fiber optic lines.

“Electrons can easily make an L-shaped turn because the wavelengths in which they operate are small,” said Zhang. “Light wavelengths are generally bigger, so they need more space to maneuver. It’s like turning a long, stretch limo instead of a motorcycle around a corner. That’s why optics require bulky mirrors to control their movements. Scaling down the optical device also makes it faster because the single atomic layer of graphene can significantly reduce the capacitance – the ability to hold an electric charge – which often hinders device speed.”

Graphene-based modulators could overcome the space barrier of optical devices, the researchers said. They successfully shrunk a graphene-based optical modulator down to a relatively tiny 25 square microns, a size roughly 400 times smaller than a human hair. The footprint of a typical commercial modulator can be as large as a few square millimeters.

Even at such a small size, graphene packs a punch in bandwidth capability. Graphene can absorb a broad spectrum of light, ranging over thousands of nanometers from ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths. This allows graphene to carry more data than current state-of-the-art modulators, which operate at a bandwidth of up to 10 nanometers, the researchers said.

“Graphene-based modulators not only offer an increase in modulation speed, they can enable greater amounts of data packed into each pulse,” said Zhang. “Instead of broadband, we will have ‘extremeband.’ What we see here and going forward with graphene-based modulators are tremendous improvements, not only in consumer electronics, but in any field that is now limited by data transmission speeds, including bioinformatics and weather forecasting. We hope to see industrial applications of this new device in the next few years.”

Other UC Berkeley co-authors of this paper are graduate student Erick Ulin-Avila and post-doctoral researcher Thomas Zentgraf in Zhang’s lab; and visiting scholar Baisong Geng and graduate student Long Ju in Wang’s lab.

This work was supported through the Center for Scalable and Integrated Nano-Manufacturing (SINAM), an NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. Funding from the Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also helped support this research.

Yang, S. (2011, May 08). Graphene optical modulators could lead to ultrafast communications. Retrieved from newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/05/08/graphene-optical-modulators-ultrafast-communications/

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La Nanotecnologia se disfraza de Virus.

Qdots are tiny fluorescent particles, smaller than a virus, and over 1000 times smaller than a cell, which can be linked to biological molecules, such as antibodies. Once linked, the fluorescence would make it easy to find which cells contain the protein the antibody recognizes, and where in the cell this protein is located. However there have been problems getting the Qdots into cells without them clumping, or being packaged in to endosomes, and excreted from the cells as waste.

Researchers from the City College of New York have overcome this problem by coating the Qdots in lipid and protein coats based on Sendai virus. Prof Maribel Vazquez explained, "While cells have complex defense mechanisms to protect themselves against attack, viruses have evolved ways to fool the cell into letting them in. We were able to exploit these mechanisms by fusing inactivated mouse parainfluenza virus with liposomes containing Qdots. The Qdots were in turn attached to an antibody against EGFR. So, once inside the cell, the Qdot-antibody complexes were able to bind to the receptor and the amount of bound complex could be monitored by measuring Qdot fluorescence."

This study looked at the level of EGFR as a marker for cancer but the Qdots could be attached to any antibody. Antibody-Qdot sets would allow rapid identification of different cancer types ,determine potential chemotherapy resistance, and lead a more individualized treatment plan.

More information: Sendai Virus-based Liposomes Enable Targeted Cytosolic Delivery of Nanoparticles in Brain Tumor-Derived Cells Veronica Dudu, Veronica Rotari and Maribel Vazquez. Journal of Nanobiotechnology (in press)

Biomed Central, E. (2012, February 17). Nano-technology uses virus' coats to fool cancer cells. Retrieved from www.physorg.com/nanotech-news/bio-medicine/

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Reconstruyendo el Cuerpo una Molécula a la vez.

Making paralyzed mice walk was just the first step for Samuel Stupp. Now he and his team are on a mission to help our bodies repair themselves.

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Bionanotech Guru: "I have an interdisciplinary brain," Samuel Stupp says. | Photograph by Tim Klein

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In The Clean Room: Dorota Rozkiewicz, a materials scientist, is now working with biologists. | Photograph by Tim Klein

Samuel Stupp didn't trust his eyes.

The mice in the video flickering on his colleague's computer screen were moving their legs. Their back feet trailed behind them from time to time, but the fact that they were walking at all was astounding. Only a few weeks earlier, they'd been paralyzed from the waist down. Then Stupp's team at Northwestern University injected them with made-to-order molecules. Now the mice were trying to run around their cage. "I wasn't satisfied with the video, so I went to the lab to see it myself," remembers Stupp. "I was totally stunned."

Those mice were the first living glimpse of the future that Stupp is hoping to accelerate in his role as the director of the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern. It's a future in which molecular self-assembly -- where researchers direct molecules to spontaneously combine into ordered structures -- will help the body heal itself. The prospect is straight out of The Six Million Dollar Man, but one better, since damaged parts will be replaced with actual human tissue instead of metal.

The intrepid Stupp, 61, first made his name as a materials scientist in the highly technical field of self-assembly, which has traditionally involved developing products for industrial use -- a computer chip, for example, or a protective coating. But back in the late '90s, when "regenerative medicine" still sounded like something from a sci-fi novel, he began to wonder if he might be able to apply the principles of molecular self-assembly to biology. "I have an interdisciplinary brain," Stupp says in a lilting in-between accent (born in Costa Rica, he speaks four languages fluently). "We had this idea that you could have a single platform that would cover an extremely broad range of conditions.

"It's always easier when you specialize in something, and there is a place for that," he continues. "But if you're trying to solve these kinds of problems, you cannot do it without interdisciplinary research." So he has built a lab in his own image, boasting biologists, physicists, chemists, and nanotechnologists, as well as materials scientists; he has also forged partnerships with neuroscientists and surgeons.

With his shiny bald pate and unflinching gaze, Stupp reminds me of actor-producer Bruce Willis, and when he says he'd want to make movies if he weren't a scientist, it makes sense. It's the directorial thrill of fitting the right puzzle pieces together, the synergy of assembling a diverse team and watching the sparks fly, that appeals to him. "You can motivate and inspire people to a higher level of creativity. I guide the process, give the 35,000-foot view."

The potential of that process is breathtaking. One day, the specialized molecules -- the "noodle gels" and macroscopic scaffolds -- that Stupp and his team are creating could repair injured spinal cords and treat brain disorders. Success would mean better lives for countless patients and enormous profits for Nanotope, the startup Stupp founded to commercialize the lab's discoveries. And even failed ideas can serendipitously turn into better ones. "When you see something interesting, you have an idea what might happen," Stupp says, "but you might discover something completely orthogonal that you didn't predict."

The Institute for Bionanotechnology in Medicine (IBNAM) takes up the 11th floor of the towering Robert Lurie Medical Center at Northwestern's downtown Chicago campus, just steps from the shore of Lake Michigan. When I arrive, Stupp is running late, so Dorota Rozkiewicz, one of his junior colleagues, gives me a whirlwind lab tour, complete with superlatives about her boss. "He does great science, but many people are innovative," she tells me conspiratorially, between spiels about the state-of-the-art mass spectrometer and the clean room. "He also has this vision of where the work is going -- which subjects will be a great success in the future."

Rozkiewicz and I are still chatting in a conference room overlooking the lakeshore neighborhood when Stupp enters, so soundlessly that I don't realize he's there. He typically works on dozens of projects at any one time, but he doesn't seem stressed, or rushed. Instead, he fetches me a bottle of water and insists I tell him how I got into writing. It's only when he starts talking about what motivates him that I get a real sense of the magnitude, the ambition, of his self-imposed mission. "I don't like the idea of applied research -- develop a product and that's your focus," he says, looking straight at me without hesitation. "I want to leave behind a scientific legacy that can be used by other people in other fields."

Stupp didn't always have such a strong sense of his scientific calling. He grew up in Costa Rica, where his Eastern European parents had fled after Hitler rose to power, went north to attend UCLA, and then pursued a materials-science PhD at Northwestern. It seemed a practical choice, since he was hoping to go back to Costa Rica someday and he knew the country's economic situation was shaky.

Shovoda, E. (2011, February 07). How samuel stupp is rebuilding your body, one molecule at a time. Retrieved from http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1GQni

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