The next chip-generation
Organic molecules as components for nanoelectronics
Electronic engineering based on silicon chips in the range of only few nanometers has reached its limit. Within a new international project scientists from the Walter Schottky Institute (Technical University Munich, TUM) currently develop chips that are even smaller and more effective: they apply organic molecules as components of the new generation of chips.
A hot road to new drugs
The search for new therapeutic agents is time-consuming and expensive. Pharmaceutical companies may have to screen thousands of compounds for the ability to bind a target molecule before they hit upon a promising drug candidate. A group of Biophysicists at LMU Munich led by Professor Dieter Braun, a member of the Cluster of Excellence “Nanosystems Initiative Munich“ (NIM), and a partner in NanoTemper (an LMU spin-off), have now developed a unique technology called “microscale thermophoresis” that allows to measure intereactions under close-to-native conditions, thus improving the decision making process in drug development.
More information...NANOSYSTEMS NEWS - the new issue
We kindly invite you to read the latest news from our cluster of excellence. In 2009, we discussed the status of NIM intensively and worked out strategies for its future. One important result has been the focusing on five research areas instead of ten. In particular, a new research area at the interface between nanoscience and energy research will be established.
In 2009 NIM has been invited by two renowned Nano Institutes to join an international symposium on “Nano and Health” in Los Angeles. The next workshop takes place in Munich in autumn 2010 and is organized by NIM. Another NIM-event will also emphasize the importance of nanoscience in Munich: in April 120 international scientists will meet at the conference “Nanoscience with Nanocrystals” (NaNax 4) in Tutzing near Munich. This and more you will read in the fourth edition of 
NanosystemsNEWS.
Subscribe to NANOSYSTEMS NEWS!Nanoscience for everyone
NanoDay 2009 attracted interested public into Deutsches Museum - visit the online gallery!
What is behind the term Nanoscience was shown at the NanoDay 2009 by around 100 scientists of the Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM). The presentation took place on November 19 in the Center for New Technologies (ZNT) of the Deutsches Museum that had been opened by German President Horst Köhler only two days before. At more than 25 stands the scientists explained their current research projects to many interested visitors. The invisibly small subjects of science became literally tangible by particular experimental models like replacing electrons by chocolate eggs or by oversized wood patterns.
Joint workshop on "New Directions in NanoHealth"
NIM started collaboration with Nano Institutes in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Seoul - NIM will organize the next workshop
As a first joint action within a collaboration with the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), NIM took part in the 3rd Annual Symposium on Nanobiotechnology, which was held on "New directions in NanoHealth" in the auditorium of the CNSI (Photo) on the UCLA campus. As a great honour for NIM, the next joint workshop shall be held in October 2010 in Munich, organized by NIM.
Review: NIM Workshop October 2009
Three years after the start of NIM, the NIM scientists gathered in a workshop to present and discuss their current research. Over 300 participants listened to talks and visited the poster session on the five main NIM topics: Quantum Nanophysics, Hybrid Nanosystems, Biomolecular Nanosystems, Biomedical Nanotechnologies and Energy Conversion & Storage.
NIM physicists invent the smallest electric motor world-wide
The principle is easy: one starter and one motor atom in a ring of laser light - and a bit of fine tuning, in order to keep moving into the right direction.
The research group around the theoretical physicist Prof. Peter Hänggi from the University of Augsburg has invented a concept for the minimal version of an electric motor, which runs on merely two atoms. The study has recently been published in the renowned scientific journal Physical Review Letters. An ordinary electric motor is based on the principle that mechanical work is done by electrical energy. Hänggi and his co-authors Dr. Alexey Ponomarev and Dr. Sergey Denisov have now transferred this principle into the nano world, even to the level of
single atoms.
NIM / CeNS / SFB 486 Winter School 2009
The Winter School 2009 on "Nanosystems and Sensors" was held with international renowned speakers in
March 2009 in St. Anton, Arlberg, Austria.
Download the group picture in full resolution.Minister visited NIM groups
The new Bavarian Science Minister Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch (image: front) visited the LMU on 22nd January. He met the NIM Coordinator Professor Jochen Feldmann (image: right) and Professor Hermann Gaub, Deputy Coordinator of NIM area H and member of the NIM executive committee. On a laboratory tour he received an impression of the current research in NIM. Dr. Heubisch has taken over the ministry from Dr. Thomas Goppel in November 2008.