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July 13, 2005
Dr. Susanne Arney, Director of the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Research Department at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories, June 1, 2005
The live "Science and Society" interview with Dr.Susanne Arney is posted here.
Dr. David Lemberg: I’m Dr. David Lemberg. Our next guest is Dr. Susanne Arney, Director of the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Research Department at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories, and the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium. They’re located in Murray Hill, NJ. For 20 years, Dr. Arney has been involved in seminal nanotechnology and MEMS component design fabrication, and reliability physics assessments. Her group was awarded the Bell Labs’ President’s Award in 2001.
Dr. Arney has served as invited speaker, technical program committee member, steering committee or co-chair of numerous MEMS and nanotechnology conferences and symposia. She has authored over 90 publications and presentations, holds 11 U.S. patents, and is a Bell Labs Fellow. Welcome, Dr. Susanne Arney.
Dr. Susanne Arney: Hello, David. It’s really such a pleasure to be on the show again today.
Lemberg: Thank you, Susanne, likewise. Well, can we start by the overall topic, what is new in nanotechnology?
Arney: Well, I guess one way of putting this is that it’s not really a newly invented field. It’s almost like nature has been building nanodevices since the beginning of time.
Lemberg: Yes.
Arney: And, even from the point of view of technology, if you think back to something which we now think of as relatively low-tech, the internal combustion engine, which is in all of our automobiles, was invented almost a century ago, and it, also, makes nanoparticles. So, it’s sort of like, at this moment, what is unprecedented, is that we’re in a position technologically, and even commercially, to make nanostructured surfaces, and nanostructured particles, and many types of commercial applications of nanotechnology today, which is something we weren’t really in a position to do ten or 15 years ago, and certainly, not a 100 years ago.
Lemberg: Right, scanning electron microscope, for example.
Arney: Oh, yeah, and the atomic force microscope, and the scanning tunneling microscope. Lots of things have come on board in the last ten or 15 years that make it possible, not only for us to fabricate nanostructures, but also, to image them, and characterize them in a way that makes it meaningful to go to a commercial market.
Lemberg: Susanne, thanks, well, can we talk about Lucent for a little bit? Why is Lucent interested in nanotech research?
Arney: Well, so, one aspect of that is that, traditionally, Bell Labs has had a great strength in doing basic research across a variety of disciplines, and it turns out that nanotechnology is such a discipline, in that it is very cross-fertilized by different disciplines, including physics, and material science, chemistry, electrical, and other types of engineering, like mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and also, math and computing sciences, and wireless, and you know, lots and lots of things that Lucent is interested in, and has Bell Labs’ activities in the R&D portion of.
And so, if you sort of look at Lucent, then, in the greater marketplace, in terms of nanotechnology, we have numbers from the National Science Foundation estimating that nanotechnology, which, as I mentioned, is sort of in this unprecedented space, where it’s about to go commercial, could be a trillion dollar industry by the year, 2015…
Lemberg: Yes.
Arney: …which, may seem like a long way away, but it’s really only ten years.
Lemberg: That’s right, it’s right there.
Arney: And, for Bell Labs, that’s a reasonable timeframe for thinking about things, and more importantly, we have a head start in the field, because, for one thing, I know there are many nanotech initiatives around the country, but Bell Labs already has such a facility, with all the technology, equipment, and expertise in place to not only begin doing research, but actually, to continue doing research, which we’ve been doing for decades.
Lemberg: Does that facility have a name? Is it a unit within…
Arney: Oh, well, it actually does, it’s the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium, and essentially, it’s a 16,400 square foot clean room, that means, ultra clean, and that means that nanostructures, which are actually smaller than dust particles, by the way, so nanostructures can be fabricated there without being damaged by the presence of dust or other particles. And so, that clean room houses the only 200 mm, is one way of saying it…also, 8” is another way of saying it.
We make silicon wafers about the size of dinner plates, and on those dinner plates made out of silicon single crystal, we can fabricate nanostructures, so it’s like sort of like a huge thing, and then, a really, really tiny thing. And, sort of complementary to that clean room facility, we have the ability to go to very, very small dimensions using electron beam lithography techniques that take you down to the sort of 10 to 100 nanometer regime.
Lemberg: And, with electron beam lithography, what types of chips are you writing?
Arney: Oh, so, electron beam allows you to make things like quantum dots, and quantum wires, and ultra small contacts between atomic probes. And, you can do molecular characterization, and DNA characterization in those molecular probes. So, that’s sort of very much on the physics side of nanotechnology research. It’s really, it’s going beyond nano, you’re much closer to the atomic and molecular regime.
Lemberg: Beyond nano.
Arney: Yes, is that an amazing thought?
Lemberg: It’s a great book title and movie title.
Arney: Yeah, well, in reality, you know, we often think of nano and bio in the same breath, but the reality is, that bio is even smaller than nano.
Lemberg: That’s great.
Arney: And, atomic is even smaller than bio.
Lemberg: Susanne, great, so can we talk about telecommunications, and how nanotechnology is currently impacting this field, and what some new developments might be in the next five years.
Arney: OK, so one aspect of that is just to sort of put Lucent in the framework of communications technology, so we are a networking company, and so, that means systems and networks that go around the nation, and around the globe. And yet, when we’re talking nanotechnology, we have to come back to the component level. What is the enabling element in a network, in a communication network?
And, one thing that we’d like to be able to do with nanotechnology, is to eliminate distance, and eliminate the need for, really, appliances. I mean, we all know about cell phones, and PDA’s, and other small hand-held appliances that we use right now to communicate with one another, and to have mobility, but we’d like to really sort get rid of devices and appliances, and eliminate depth distance, and also, enhance the sensory experience. So, we get something more like a natural communication between people, even if they’re at a distance, and, otherwise, you know, you might only get sound, or you might only get vision.Or, maybe, at best, you’ll get sound and vision, sort of like a videophone sort of connection.
But, we’d like to think about fully immersing people in the interaction of communication, and so, all your five senses would be involved, potentially, sight, sound, taste, smell, touch.
So, there are ways that nanosensors could sort of help you to do that, and become part of a more global network of sensors, and, in particular, wireless, and very mobile sensing. And, I guess the timeframe you mentioned, there are already parts on the shelf today, we call them commercial, off the shelf parts. So, there are pieces, even, of the network in place today for enhancing your mobility, and enhancing your sort of multi-media experiences, may be a way that we’ve heard about it coming into the present view of the consumers.
And, even from like that hidden part of the network, like all optical free space switching, like our LambdaRouter product, which we had put out a couple of years ago. That enables extremely high data rates, extremely great flexibility with data formats, so you can sort of send any format at any wavelength, at any speed, in any volume of data can go through free space optical switches.
So, there are bits and pieces of this total immersion, sort of natural communication concept already in the marketplace, both at the network scale, and at the component scale. And, what we’re trying to do now, with nanotech, is drive towards ever more enabling nanotech-based concepts for that sort of immersion experience and communication.
Lemberg: Susanne, you’ve said a great deal, and I’m looking at the parts. When I think of total sensory immersion, this makes me think of a Virtual Reality device.
Arney: Oh, Virtual Reality, yes. I think that would be a really nice application. That would sort of tend more towards the…I don’t know, there already are some approaches to Virtual Reality, but this would be a case where sort of every person, every mom and dad, and grandpa, and aunt and uncle, when they wanted to visit with the family…hopefully, we are a mobile society, airplane fares are staying low, and we’re still able to travel a lot, but it’s nice on the weekends, and, you know, regular days, when you can have that sort of communication with people you care about.
Lemberg: Yes, and are you really speaking about man-machine interfaces?
Arney: Yes, we definitely are speaking about man-machine interfaces. It’s a longer-term view, but when you first begin to have…well, so let me give you some examples, if that might help.
Lemberg: Please.
Arney: You don’t have to go all the way towards man-machine interface, in terms of like plugging in a cable, or anything like that, into your brain. I hope that’s not what you were thinking I meant when I said that. But, think, instead, like, think of your cell phone, which already does live video, right, which you can make movies, and pictures, and you can pipe them over to your friends while you’re speaking to them on the phone. And so, intelligent networks, wireless infrastructure, mobile, like, the ability to travel in your car from cell to cell, in a cell phone network. All of those things are already enabling a relatively simple appliance to send both audio and visual data.
And, think about how they have those vibration sensors on the phone, right? Or, vibration generators, so that you’re beginning to say, “Well, this vibration means my mother is calling,” and, “This vibration means the boss is calling.” And so, we’re beginning to have a little bit more of sensory experience there, as well, right? It isn’t too far down the road, I have to admit, it’s relatively simple ideas, even on your computer, if you think about it, you have different tones that say an e-mail just came through, and then, there’s a different tone that says you just typed something backwards, or whatever.
So, we already are trying to bring the five senses into play to make the interface between man and machine more seamless, but I think the end goal for all of us is to have that more natural experience in communicating with one another.
Lemberg: OK, I’m getting this, and I guess I’m really wondering about the design of such a communications device. Right, if it’s not implantable…do you know what I mean when I’m saying that?
Arney: Yes.
Lemberg: Right? If it’s not implantable, is it a more sophisticated cell phone, for example?
Arney: OK, yes, so, I think that’s a good question, and I guess I don’t want to leave out the possibility that ultimately in many years…I’m not imagining this tomorrow, or even next year…ultimately, there might be implantable devices. But, if you just think about what we can do, taking sort of the next step beyond what we already know. Let me give you some examples of sort of near term applications that, in some way, support our long-term vision.
If, on your cell phone, and I’m going to just use that example, because I think it’s most visible, you know, sort of more comprehensible to all of us, right? We all have a cell phone, practically every member of the family has a cell phone. So, what if, in addition to, let’s see, speakerphone capabilities, so you could just sort of put it out on the dining room table at Thanksgiving, let’s say, just dinner, in general, OK?
So, you have speakerphone capability, and what if you had a tunable liquid lens, some sort of electronic cornea in that cell phone, and every time grandma spoke, the cell phone would sort of look at grandma, and zoom in, and focus on her, so that the people at the other end of the line would say, “Oh, doesn’t she look good!” you know, or whatever, like that.
And then, so we’re already making that kind of liquid tunable lens, which can both point and focus, so we call it tip, tilt, pan and zoom, and focus. So, we’re already making those devices, and they’re based on nanotextured, dynamically tunable structures on surfaces, so that’s the kind of thing that nanolithography and high aspect ratio etching capabilities give you already today, in terms of micro fluidic development.
So, another example, which I think they’re already using in a number of factory applications, but would also be interesting in a hand-held appliance, or in future other venues, would be some sort of electronic node, and this would be something that is sensitive to programmable flavors, things that you like, or things that you don’t like, and it can send you warnings. You know how we have that funny-flavored gas that comes out of your stove if there’s a leak or something like that? So, you could have a sensor in your cell phone that picks up both the good and the bad flavors that you’re interested in being aware of, and could communicate that to you in a meaningful way.
And similarly, we can make these ultra-tiny microphones, which go into cell phones, already, these days, and use them in such a way that they are directional, so that instead of picking up all the background noise of that Thanksgiving dinner, you know, maybe even the window is open, and there’s a little bit of noise from the yard, instead, the phone knows when grandma is speaking. It orients towards her, the microphones are trained on her, so there’s a very directional high signal to noise pick-up. So, we can do that sort of thing, using nano and microtechnology.
And, even more importantly is power, so you want to make these very small sensors, very high-fidelity, and you want to be able to power them with the least possible number of electrons, I guess, so the least possible current. And, in order to do that, you have to make some sort of on board power source, so there isn’t a lot of parasitic pick-up from the big hunky battery over here on the side of the cell phone, to where the sensor devices are. And so, we’re looking at ways to use nanotechnology to get very, very small, but reliable power sources to power these little sensors, as well.
Lemberg: Susanne, I’m just sitting here with this big smile on my face.
Arney: Oh, I’m glad to hear it.
Lemberg: This is fantastic material! And, I’m also thinking that what you’ve just described would also apply to a revolution for the next generation in the entertainment industry.
Arney: Oh, definitely, especially when you mentioned Virtual Reality earlier. Even…you know, I’m thinking back, twenty years ago, I remember putting on…it was not the first Virtual Reality helmet ever made, but it was the first one I ever put on my head, and it weighed like thirty pounds. And, the reason that it was so heavy, is it had this huge heavy, like 3” in diameter set of cables coming off the back end of it to plug into the computer. You know what I mean?
Lemberg: Right.
Arney: So, now, think about getting rid of that really heavy cable, and using wireless communications, instead, and then, making the sensors in the helmet even lighter. So, you know, people are even talking about putting those sensors and the circuits that go with them, and the wireless transmitters and receivers and everything on your eyeglasses. So, we’re talking about huge gains in miniaturization. Remember, the battery’s one of the heaviest things in your cell phone, so if you could make those really, really small, then you get rid of a lot of weight and volume.
And so, say that you could just like wear something on the frame of your eyeglasses that would be relatively unobtrusive to the person wearing it, and yet, would give you this great capability for this sort of natural immersion communication.
Lemberg: And, we’re thinking…what we’ve just been discussing is five or ten years away?
Arney: Oh, boy, you want a timeframe, huh?
Lemberg: Well, not a hard timeframe, but…
Arney: So, I’d say the timeframe is now, and ten and twenty years into the future. It really is going to be something that emerges, and is already started. Like, we know about, video is already available, and vibration is already in your cell phones, and different sound tones are already on your computer. We’re already beginning to see the use of the five senses.
Lemberg: Susanne, thank you for a brilliant conversation.
Arney: My pleasure.
Lemberg: We didn’t even talk about optical MEMS.
Arney: Oh,I wish we had time for that.
Lemberg: Well, I’m going to make time. We’ll set up a follow-up, if that’s OK with you.
Arney: OK, that would be great. I’m really sorry we’re out of time today.
Lemberg: Thank you, Susanne. Our guest is Arney, Director of the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Research Department at Lucent Techologies, Bell Laboratories, and the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium.
Posted by David Lemberg at July 13, 2005 12:58 AM