Enabling and Investigative Tools: Measuring Methods, Instruments, and Metrology

Abstract

2.1 VISION FOR THE NEXT DECADE Changes in the Vision over the Past Ten Years Advances in nanotechnology investigative tools have enabled fundamentally new approaches to the research carried out during the last decade. The crucial role of tools for manipulation and characterization of matter at the nanoscale was articulated by Nobel Laureate Horst Störmer in 1999 at the first U.S. Nanotechnology Research Directions workshop, as follows: " Nanotechnology has given us the tools… to play with the ultimate toy box of nature—atoms and molecules… [This scale] provides an impressive array of novel opportunities to mix-and-match hunks of chemistry and biology with artificially defined, person-made structures. The possibilities to create new things appear endless " (Roco, Williams, and Alivisatos 1999, p. viii). The workshop vision at that time was that the promises of nanotechnology could be realized only through " the development of new experimental tools to broaden the capability to measure and control nanostructured matter, including developing new standards of measurement. " A particular point was made to extend this recommendation to biomolecules (p. xvi). The investments in the science of characterization tools in the last decade have resulted in exciting discoveries, enabling metrologies, and windows of opportunity for revolutionary changes in the future. It is now possible to detect the charge and spin of a single electron, image catalytic reactions in real time, track some dynamic processes with 100 femtosecond (fs) 16 time resolution, map real and imaginary contributions to dielectric properties of molecules, and control chemo-mechanical interaction of individual essential biomolecules. Electron microscopy has achieved unprecedented spatial resolution with aberration correction, demonstrated 3D tomography, and developed in situ capacity, even for liquid-based systems. X-ray brilliance at beam lines has increased five orders of magnitude in the last ten years, enabling detailed observations of dynamic processes and 3D structure from x-ray scattering. The consequence of the advances in instrumentation science of the last decade is that researchers can now envision a new generation of tools for the next decade that will: