European Project Lends Nanotechnology a Hand

There are perhaps few words in the medtech industry currently more buzz-worthy than 'nanotechnology.' After all, the field promises revolutionary advancements in seemingly every aspect of the medical industry. But among the many challenges impeding commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled products is the lack of nanomanufacturing methods for production. NanoHand, a European-funded project, aims to change that.The collaborative effort seeks to "create the world's first nanorobotic production system inside of a scanning electron microscope (SEM)." Doing so, the group states, will enable the automatic handling and manipulation of carbon nanotubes in order to yield innovative new devices or replace macroscale components in existing device designs.The consortium has already made progress on this front with the NanoLab. Featuring tiny robots wielding electrothermal microgrippers within an SEM, the NanoLab enables nanohandling, which the group breaks down into three subsequences: carbon nanotube indexing, picking up a carbon nanotube, and placing a carbon nanotube. Watch the below video for a demonstration of the NanoLab's capabilities.