Der Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology ist ein vom Foresight Institute in Palo Alto seit 1993 verliehener Preis für Nanotechnologie und Nanowissenschaften. Zuerst wurde er alle zwei Jahre vergeben, seit 1997 jährlich.
Er ist nach Richard Feynman benannt, dessen Vortrag There is plenty of room at the bottom von 1959 vielfach als visionäre Vorwegnahme der Nanotechnologie-Revolution gilt. Der Preis ist mit 5000 Dollar dotiert und wird in den Kategorien Experiment und Theorie vergeben.
Das 1986 von Eric Drexler gegründete Foresight Institute ist eine Non-profit-Organisation zur Förderung der Nanowissenschaften. Sie lobt auch einen großen Preis aus von je 250.000 Dollar für die erste Person, die einen Nanoroboter-Arm mit präziser Steuerung und einen 8-Bit-Addierer im Nanobereich realisiert.
“for groundbreaking work in constructing molecular structures through the use of self-organization, the same forces used to assemble the molecular machine systems found in nature”[4]
“for his pioneering experimental work in molecular nanotechnology which included seminal contributions to the synthesis and characterization of the unique physical properties of carbon nanotubes and nanowires”[7]
“for opening up new possibilities for the fabrication of molecular machine systems by selectively functionalizing nanoparticles and surfaces, particularly with DNA, enabling the self-assembly of new structures which move us closer to the goal of molecular manufacturing”[8]
“for his pioneering research into methods of integrating single molecule biological motors with nano-scale silicon devices, which opens up new possibilities for nanomachines”[9]
“for his work in developing a novel technology synthesizing macromolecules of intermediate sizes (between 1000 and 10,000 Daltons) with designed shapes and functions”[11]
“for their work demonstrating that DNA tiles can be designed to form crystalline nanotubes that exhibit a stiffness greater than the biological protein nanofilament actin, [and for having] established that algorithmic self-assembly could work well enough to generate non-trivial non-periodic patterns”[12]
“for the Synthesis of Nanocars... and other molecular machines [which] is providing critical insight in investigations of bottom-up molecular manufacturing”[14]
“in recognition of their pioneering experimental demonstrations of mechanosynthesis, specifically the use of atomic resolution dynamic force microscopy – also known as non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) – for vertical and lateral manipulation of single atoms on semiconductor surfaces”[15]
International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA Center), National Institute for Materials Science in Japan
“in recognition of his pioneering and continuing work, including research into the manipulation of atoms, the multiprobe STM and AFM, the atomic switch, and single-molecule-level chemical control including ultradense molecular data storage and molecular wiring; and his inspiration of an entire generation of researchers who have made their own ground-breaking contributions to nanotechnology”[16]
“[for] their remarkable experiments advancing the frontiers of scanning probe microscopy. They were the first to produce images of molecular orbitals and charges detailed enough to identify the structure of individual molecules, as well as metal-molecule complexes. They have also been able to precisely make and break individual chemical bonds.”[18]
“The award recognizes Prof. Beratan's development of theoretical approaches to understand the function of complex molecular and macromolecular assemblies and machines.”[19]
“…pioneered major advancements in scanning probe microscopy for imaging and manipulating individual atoms, including the first achievement of atomic resolution by frequency modulation atomic force microscopy, inventing the qPlus sensor-based atomic force microscopy technique, and achieving subatomic resolution and the visualization of individual chemical bonds”[22]
“…the total mastery of the design and synthesis of three dimensional DNA nanostructures. His work extended DNA origami from 2D to 3D - a breakthrough in the field. Shih entered DNA nanotechnology with a Nature article demonstrating the folding of a single strand of DNA; it was on the strength of this Nature paper that Shih got his position at Harvard. Thanks in large part to Shih's efforts over the last decade, programmable self-assembly of 3D DNA nanoshapes the size of a virus now is routine. His groundbreaking studies in Nature and Science that generalized DNA origami to solid three-dimensional structures were published in 2009.”[23]
“for fundamental advances in our ability to model molecular machine systems, and for the design and analysis of components likely to be important in future molecular manufacturing systems”[8]
“for their development of RosettaDesign, a program that has a high success rate in designing stable protein structures with a specified backbone folding structure”[10]
“for their ‘Theory in Molecular Computation and Algorithmic Self-assembly’ research … based on their demonstration of methods for universal computation with DNA, including using DNA tiles to simulate cellular automata”[12]
“[for] the design and synthesis of artificial molecular motors and machines from first principles and … the construction of molecular machine systems that function in the realm of Brownian motion”[13]
“first for sophisticated modeling and optimization of the dip pen nanolithography method of nanofabrication, and second, for his explanation of plasmon effects in metallic nanodots”[14]
“in recognition of his pioneering theoretical work in mechanosynthesis in which he proposed specific molecular tools and analyzed them using ab initio quantum chemistry to validate their ability to build complex molecular structures, [and] also his previous work in systems design of molecular machines, including replicating molecular manufacturing systems, which should eventually be able to make large atomically precise products economically, and the design of medical nanodevices, which should eventually revolutionize medicine”[15]
“for his development of quantum mechanical methods and computational programs that make it possible to carry out accurate theoretical predictions of molecules and solids, and their application to the chemical and electronic properties of carbon nanostructures”[16]
“for his contributions to the understanding of Brownian motion and its use to power molecular motors and other functional mechanisms at the atomic scale”[17]
“for his general theory of DNA displacement cascades. He has shown that systems of DNA molecules can be designed with arbitrary dynamic behavior. In particular, he has shown that they are Turing-complete, and so can be made to run any general-purpose computer program.”[18]
“The award recognizes Prof. Zettl’s exceptional work in the fabrication of nanoscale electromechanical systems (NEMS), spanning multiple decades and including carbon nanotube-based bearings, actuators, and sensors brought to fruition with cutting-edge nanoscale engineering.”[19]
“…for inventing a method (“nano-rheology”) for measuring stress – strain relations of soft nanoparticles with sub-Angstrom resolution and thereby discovering that enzyme mechanics is viscoelastic. Nano-rheology allows the exploration of conformational changes in enzymes from a materials science perspective. This includes the demonstration of nano-rheology as a biochemical assay. When enzymes bind small molecules, such as substrates or inhibitors, their mechanical susceptibility changes. This effect is easily detected by nano-rheology. The method can measure binding of small ligands, where existing label free methods such as the Biacore instrument fail. Nano-rheology thus emerges as a potential alternative to electronic and spin spectroscopies for certain bio-molecular assays.”[23]
