16-Year-Old Student Invents New Nanotechnology Technique at The MITRE Corporation

NanoPGM System Could Push Nanotech Closer to Commercialization

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

McLean, Virginia, May 2001 — The MITRE Corporation has patented a novel nano-assembly technique that was invented by a 16-year old, Alex Wissner-Gross, during his first summer as a student employed by MITRE. His invention could make it possible to mass-produce nano-scale computers. Wissner-Gross, now 19 years old and a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started work on the project at MITRE's Virginia headquarters in 1998 while on summer break from his high school on Long Island, New York.

"Alex's invention shows considerable promise for advancing nanotechnology by permitting the precise manipulation of millions of molecules all at once," says Dr. James Ellenbogen, a leading nanotechnology investigator who heads MITRE's Nanosystems Research Group.

The NanoPGM system, which is undergoing experimental testing by MITRE staff working in labs at Harvard University, could remove a major obstacle to the commercialization of nanotechnology. In addition to making possible the rapid assembly of nanometer-scale computers, other potential industrial applications include the development of materials with unprecedented electrical conductance, strength, flexibility, and other unusual physical and chemical properties. One possible application is super-dense computer memory capable of storing a feature-length film on the head of a pin.

The newly patented system involves the use of high-frequency oscillation to assemble molecular-scale particles into millions or even billions of tiny finger-like structures. The oscillation technique, known as "patterned granular motion," or PGM, had been used prior to 1998 to generate millions of these patterns out of sand grain-size particles. MITRE's new NanoPGM system, by contrast, generates millions of "nano-fingers"—structures 10,000 times smaller than those produced in earlier experiments. These fingers, invisible to the naked eye, could constitute million-tipped nanoprobes that potentially could be used to manipulate multiple molecular-scale objects.

The patent application that MITRE filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August 1999 credits Wissner-Gross as the sole inventor. His work at MITRE on the NanoPGM system also was the basis for Wissner-Gross' winning entry in the 1998-1999 Intel Science Talent Search.

MITRE (www.mitre.org) is a national technology resource that performs information technology and systems engineering research and development for the U.S. Government. Information on the Nanosystems Group's ongoing research is available on MITRE's Web site.

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