Nanotechnology? What's That?! -- Engineers Create Exhibits on Achievements, Promise

ScienceDaily () -- Nanotechnology has already brought advances such as self-cleaning windows and energy-efficient LED lighting, and could soon deliver medical breakthroughs. To educate the public about nanotechnology's promise, the National Science Foundation has slated $20 million to fund a network of interactive exhibits at 100 museums around the country.

Explosives At The Nanoscale With 'World's Smallest Controlled Heat Source'

ScienceDaily (2006-09-11) -- Using nanometer scale analysis techniques and quantities too small to explode, researchers have mapped the temperature and length-sale factors that make energetic materials -- otherwise known as explosives -- behave the way they do.

Close-up of AFM cantilever tip, the "world's smallest controlled heat source" used to study explosive materials at the nanoscale. (Image courtesy William King)

Scientists would like to design energetic materials with specific responses, with a given temperature producing a given burn rate, for example," explained William King, an assistant professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Mechanical Engineering. "Before our measurements, no one was able to interrogate these properties at the nanometer scale. With the data we have generated, it is possible to build physics-based models of how these materials behave rather than relying on empirical relationships seen at the macro scale."

Using an AFM tip capable of heating spots as small as a few nanometers in diameter, the researchers performed nanometer-scale thermal analysis on thin films of a polycrystalline energetic material known as Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN). They melted, evaporated and decomposed the PETN at length scales ranging from 100 nanometers to a few micrometers.

Georgia Institute of Technology (2006, September 11). Explosives At The Nanoscale With 'World's Smallest Controlled Heat Source'. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 22, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2006/09/060908171310.htm

Well, PETN is one of the most dangerous explosive with ammo. use. Have a very bad behavior; if you a unfamiliar with this class of detonating explosives, detonate very fast.

What's the point?

Explosives On A Chip: Unique Structure Enables New Generation Of Military Micro-detonators

cienceDaily (2007-12-23) -- Tiny copper structures with pores at both the nanometer and micron size scales could play a key role in the next generation of detonators used to improve the reliability, reduce the size and lower the cost of certain military munitions.

Georgia Institute of Technology (2007, December 23). Explosives On A Chip: Unique Structure Enables New Generation Of Military Micro-detonators. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 22, 2007,
from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/12/071218105422.htm#

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