[tt] advancednano: Moriarty gets funding to try to see if Freitas & Merkle's diamond mechanosythesis toolset matches reality

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

(
http://www.molecularassembler.com/Nanofactory/Media/PressReleaseAug08.htm
)

Nanofactory Collaboration Colleague Awarded $3.3M
to Conduct First Diamond Mechanosynthesis Experiments

Professor Philip Moriarty [1] of the Nanoscience Group [2] in the School
of Physics at the University of Nottingham (U.K.) [3] has been awarded a
five-year £1.67M ($3.3M) grant [4] by the U.K. Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [5] to perform a series of laboratory
experiments designed to investigate the possibility of diamond
mechanosynthesis (DMS). DMS is a proposed method for building diamond
nanostructures, atom by atom, using the techniques of scanning probe
microscopy under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Moriarty’s project,
titled “Digital Matter? Towards Mechanised Mechanosynthesis,” was funded
under the Leadership Fellowship program [6] of EPSRC. Moriarty’s
experiments begin in October 2008.

The Nottingham work grew out of continuing discussions on DMS between
Moriarty and Robert Freitas [7], a Senior Research Fellow at the
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) (Palo Alto, California,
U.S.) [8]. These discussions started in January 2005 [9].

Freitas and Ralph Merkle [10], also a Senior Fellow at IMM, founded the
Nanofactory Collaboration [11] in 2001 to pursue molecular manufacturing
via DMS. Since then they have produced a series of papers [12,13]
reporting a set of careful density functional theory (DFT) and quantum
chemistry calculations on fundamental mechanosynthetic reactions in
diamondoid systems. In April 2008 the two IMM researchers published the
results [13] of a comprehensive three-year project to computationally
analyze a complete set of DMS reaction sequences and an associated
minimal set of tooltips that could be used to build basic diamond and
graphene (e.g., carbon nanotube) structures. These structures include
all of the tools themselves along with the necessary tool recharging
reactions. A particularly useful result of this study was the proposal
of an experimentally viable route towards the fabrication of a
rechargeable toolset that can extract hydrogen, deposit carbon, and
donate hydrogen to a diamond surface. 

Moriarty is interested in testing the viability of
positionally-controlled atom-by-atom fabrication of diamondoid materials
as described in the Freitas-Merkle minimal toolset theory paper.
Moriarty’s efforts will be the first time that specific predictions of
DFT in the area of mechanosynthesis will be rigorously tested by
experiment. His work also directly addresses the requirement for “proof
of principle” mechanosynthesis experiments requested in the 2006
National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) review [14], in the 2007
Battelle/Foresight nanotechnology roadmap [15], and by EPSRC’s Strategic
Advisor for Nanotechnology, Richard Jones (Physics, Sheffield
University, U.K.) [16].

“We congratulate Philip for his tremendous success in securing funding
for this pathbreaking effort,” said Freitas. “We look forward to working
together closely with his experimental team as this exciting project
goes forward over the next five years.”

 Philip Moriarty Robert Freitas Ralph Merkle

“We invite computational theorists and scanning probe experimentalists
in the nanoscience community to join our Collaboration,” added Merkle.
“There’s lots of interesting work to do. The first important steps
toward practical realization are now underway.”

Led by Moriarty, the DMS research team at the University of Nottingham
will also include one postdoc and four PhD students who will be working
with new low-temperature UHV scanning probe equipment dedicated
exclusively to the DMS work. Assisting Moriarty are a group of project
partners with expertise in diamond systems including the Freitas-Merkle
team in the U.S., Malcolm Heggie (Chemistry, University of Sussex, U.K.)
[17], Lev Kantorovich (Physics, King’s College London, U.K.) [18], and
Chris Pakes (Physics, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia) [19].
 
Web Links

[1]
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/about/staffbyrole.php?id=NTM5NzI4&page_var=personal

[2] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/research/nano/

[3] http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/

[4] http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/G007837/1

[5] http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/

[6]
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/Opportunities/Fellowships/LF.htm

[7] http://www.rfreitas.com

[8] http://www.imm.org

[9] http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=70 (2005)

[10] http://www.merkle.com

[11] http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Nanofactory

[12] http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Nanofactory/Publications.htm; see
also: http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/JNNDimerTool.pdf (2003),
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/JCTNPengMar04.pdf (2004),
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/JCTNPengFeb06.pdf (2006),
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/TemelsoHAbst.pdf (2006),
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/DPTMotifs.pdf (2007),
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/TemelsoHDon.pdf (2007).

[13] http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Papers/MinToolset.pdf (2008)

[14] http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11752.html

[15] http://www.foresight.org/roadmaps/index.html

[16] http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=175#comment-6315

[17] http://www.sussex.ac.uk/chemistry/profile24753.html

[18] http://kcl.ac.uk/schools/pse/physics/people/kantorovich.html

[19] http://www.latrobe.edu.au/physics/people/pakes/research.html