MRI: Acquisition of a Nanomanipulation Device for Biological Electronic and Optoelectronic Samples and Devices

该主要研究仪器（MRI）奖为收购Zyvex S100纳米机械手提供了资金，这是一种巴掌大小的设备，设计用于扫描电子显微镜内。该设备将用于支持以下技术的研究：1)单个蛋白质结构的操作，如直径为50纳米，长度为0.1至100毫米的胶原蛋白结构，2)定位小型仪器，研究尺寸如何影响纳米线等结构的机械和电学特性，3)纳米管增强生物组织的操作，4)光电器件的微加工，5)纳米线器件的局部门控，6)一般纳米纤维的合成。该设备非常适合学术环境，因为它具有用户友好的操纵杆界面，可以让学生快速欣赏和掌握操作物质的技术，其规模比可见的可解决的要小。Zyvex S100将推动纳米级组织工程、计算机工程和航空航天工程领域的研究。它将使研究人员能够检验关于健康、患病和工程生物组织行为的假设。具体来说，它将使当前和未来的研究人员能够看到自然如何在生命系统中形成当前的物质结构，指导病理学家在分子水平上找到纠正疾病的解决方案，并帮助组织工程师在生命系统最初进化和自我组装的规模上工作。Zyvex S100将有助于制造更小、更快、更便宜的设备，例如由金属或聚合物纳米线制成的设备，这将影响计算、生化质量传感和航空航天工程等对速度和精度至关重要的领域。该装置将有助于创造具有定制材料特性的大规模生物组织。该设备对于制造记录生命系统中与疾病相关的压力升高的设备也是必不可少的。

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award provides funds for the acquisition of a Zyvex S100 nanomanipulator, a palm-sized device designed to be used inside a scanning electron microscope. This equipment will be used to support research on the following technologies: 1) manipulation of individual protein structures such as those consisting of collagen with dimensions on the order of 50 nanometers in diameter and 0.1 to 100 millimeters in length, 2) positioning small-scale instruments to investigate how size affects mechanical and electrical properties in structures such as nanowires, 3) manipulation of nanotube-enhanced biological tissues, 4) microfabrication of optoelectronic devices, 5) local gating of nanowire devices, and 6) general nanofiber synthesis. The device is ideally suited for an academic environment due to its user-friendly joystick interface which will allow students to quickly appreciate and master techniques for manipulating matter at a scale smaller than is visibly resolvable.The Zyvex S100 will enable research in the fields of nanoscale tissue engineering, computer engineering, and aerospace engineering. It will enable researchers to test hypotheses regarding the behavior of healthy, diseased, and engineered biological tissue. Specifically it will enable current and future researchers to look at how nature arrived at the current configuration of matter in living systems, guide pathologists toward solutions for correcting disease at the molecular level, and aid tissue engineers working at the scale at which living systems first evolved and self-assembled. The Zyvex S100 will facilitate the building of smaller, faster, cheaper devices, such as those constructed from metallic or polymer nanowires, which will impact fields as diverse as computing, biochemical mass sensing, and aerospace engineering where speed and precision are critical. The device will help to enable the creation of large-scale biological tissues with tailored material properties. The device will also be essential to the fabrication of devices to record disease-related elevated pressures within living systems.