Obama Raises Awareness of Nanotech

November 19, 2008

Okay, it's not Barack, personally, who is raising awareness of nanotech, but his face. John Hart, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, has created 3-D portraits of the president-elect out of carbon nanotubes, and he's called them "nanobamas." Each one is smaller than a grain of salt and contains about 150 million carbon nanotubes that rise vertically like millions of trees in a dense forest. The growth, when looked down upon from a "bird's-eye" view, resembles the big O.

Hart's Mechanosynthesis Group makes nanostructures and studies how to use them as components in electronics, energy devices and high-performance materials.

The team create the nanobamas by using a laser to create a pattern in a glass plate. Then they shined UV light through the pattern onto a silicon wafer. Next, they grew the carbon nanotubes in the pattern on the wafer.

Hart has a whole gallery of images of nanostructures on his Nanobliss website. Worth checking out.

Photo: Courtesy John Hart

Comments

[Hugh Betcha]

Very cool. Obama will lead on all structural levels. Perhaps we will find a galactic cluster in his likeness.

[patty]

Nanobamas? seriously? These guys have WAY too much time on their hands.