Scientists at IBM and Nion R&D have improved the resolution to the sub-Anstrom level in electron microscopes by reducing aberration effects. The resolution performance is about 20 times the wavelength of the 120keV electrons. The team combined seven new sets of magnetic lens designed by computers to correct for spherical aberrations. The work was based on a VG Microscopes' HB501 STEM with the addition of a quadrupole-octupole aberration corrector. The four quadrupoles are separated by three octupoles. The researchers believe this is the smallest resolution achieved so far for direct electron imaging, although a posteriori processing of high energy electron scattering has resulted in higher resolution. High energy can result in beam damage of the target. The new microscope assembly was used to image gold atoms on a carbon substrate.

Scientists at the Juelich research centre in Germany have produced silicon
thin-film solar cells which can maintain an 11.2% efficiency for more than
1000 hours of irradiation. The device consists of several layers. One of
these layers is the commonly used amorphous silicon and another consists of
microcrystalline silicon. The Juelich team aims to develop a complete
process for producing large-area (30x30cm) cells on glass substrates for
mass production at low cost. Industrial cooperation comes from RWE Solar.

Scientists at the Walter Schottky Institute near Munich, Germany, are
exploring the use of quantum dots for quantum computing (Nature, August 8).
The team built a two-level InGaAs dot in a photodiode. Exciting the dot with
a "pi pulse" from a laser allows one electron to pass through the system.
The number of pulses per second times the electon charge gives the current.
The scientists are hoping that by controlling the two quantum states of the
dot they will be able to create a reliable "quantum bit" or qbit for quantum
computing.

The Los Alamos and Sandia US national laboratories will jointly recevied
$75.8mn from the US Department of Energy (DoE) for the design and
construction of buildings in New Mexico for a Center for Integrated
Nanotechnologies (CINT).

Cornell University is to receive $1.3mn from the US National Science
Foundation and $0.3mn from the US Semiconductor Research Corporation to
investigate interfaces for wiring organic semiconductors. The Cornell
researchers will study in detail the chemistry of the bond formed when
organic films are deposited on metals (or in some cases, insulators) and,
most importantly, the inverse -- where metals are deposited on the organic.
The approach will be "self-assembly", where a metal or insulating substrate
is masked to form a pattern, such as the pattern of wires to which circuit
elements are connected, and a film of organic material is allowed to deposit
on the unmasked areas. Later they will examine additional chemical reactions
in which metallic thin films are deposited on top of the organic layers to
make a second "contact" with the organic layer.
The researchers plan to test layers of various metals and metal nitrides for
these contacts. One approach will be the synthesis of molecules containing
both the metal and the organic where the inorganic-organic interface is
"prefabricated", already built into the molecular structure. The eventual
goal is to produce testable devices and demonstrate that they have useful
properties, but not to make fully functional circuits.