News of MRS Members/Materials Researchers
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3/30/2007
8:58 AM
Page 304
RESEARCH/RESEARCHERS
The gold layer is coated with an insulating polymer coating ~10 nm thick. The researchers use a focused ion beam to slice off the end of the nanotube, exposing a conducting ring of gold sandwiched between an insulating core and an insulating outer ring. The process yields nanoelectrodes with a diameter of 100 nm, and a length of up to 30 µm. Because the nanotube is attached to a much larger probe, the researchers can
manipulate the nanotube like a needle. They can control precisely where the nanotube penetrates a cell, for example, and even pinpoint smaller cell structures, such as the nucleus or mitochondrion. “Nanoelectrodes offer new opportunities for electrochemical sensing in intracellular environments,” said Yu, who was scheduled to describe the fabrication process and demonstrate the feasibility of nanoelectrodes at the meeting of the American Physical Society held in
Denver in March. “By functionalizing the active area of the nanoelectrode with an appropriate chemical, we can target the detection of specific chemical species.” The researchers have demonstrated that their nanoelectrode can sense the chemical environment within a droplet 10 µm in diameter. Their next step is to show that the probe can penetrate the cellular membrane of a living cell, without damaging the cell.
News of MRS Members/Materials Researchers Patrick Bruno and Peter Gumbsch Named 2007 Leibniz Prize Recipients Patrick Bruno of Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle and Peter Gumbsch of the Institute for Reliability of Components and Systems (IZBS), University of Karlsruhe, and Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials (IWM), Freiburg and Halle have each been named recipients of Germany’s most highly endowed research award, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, given by the German Research Foundation (DFG). DFG has named 10 scientists and academics to receive the 2007 prize, which includes up to 2.5 million euros to be used flexibly over a period of seven years to finance their research. Patrick Bruno’s scientific interests are focused on theoretical solid-state physics, especially the theory of magnetism in low-dimensional systems and in nanostructures. His explanation of special exchange interactions in ferromagnetic layered systems (“interlayer exchange coupling”) is already a staple of modern textbooks on solid-state physics. Bruno analyzed several magnetic effects in quantum mechanics (e.g., Casimir effect, spin Hall effect) and examined the role of Berry phases in anisotropic ferromagnets. In doing so, he often elucidated new aspects of standard theories. The scope of his knowledge, which spans the entire field of theoretical solid-state physics, is especially evident in numerous overview articles he Patrick Bruno published about hot topics such as the spin polarization of nanostructures, quantum nanomagnets, and magnetic semiconductors. Bruno studied physics in Saint-Cloud and Paris, where he graduated in solidstate physics in 1986. He earned his doctorat
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