IBM's international chain of research centers has delivered more than its share of technical innovations over the years: the hard disk drive, for example, the dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics and the scanning tunneling microscope, to name just a few of the more memorable items. This month has been a particularly good month for IBM on the nano front, with various labs reporting a switch made up of a single molecule, a printing technique capable of laying down a single nanoparticle, and a new understanding of the magnetic behavior of individual atoms that could conceivably lead to single-atom memory bits of the future.

The nanoscale printing technology was discussed by IBM researchers from the Zurich Research Laboratory (Rüschlikon, Switzerland) in the September issue of Nature Nanotechnology, a monthly journal of the Nature Publishing Group. In "Nanoprinting printing with single-particle resolution," the IBM researchers claim that they can print the smallest particles on record, particles with a diameter of just 60 nanometers; and what's more, that they can control the printing process to deliver a single particle to a desired location. That's precision! IBM is collaborating with ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, on this project.

The single-particle delivery system builds on IBM's previously reported "directed self-assembly" process, which was integrated into IBM's East Fishkill NY manufacturing operation earlier this year. The self assembly process was collaboratively created by IBM's Almaden Research Center (San Jose CA) and T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown NY). IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill helped "perfect" the technology for commercialization, as did staff at the NanoTech Center located at the University at Albany NY. According to IBM, the process can be incorporated into any standard CMOS manufacturing line "without disruption or new tooling."

IBM's first commercial application of its self assembly process will be for "air gap" microprocessors, expected in the 2009 time frame. In these, tiny vacuums reside between the cooper lines on a chip, thanks to nanoscale patterning that's "considerably smaller" than what current lithographic techniques can achieve, says IBM, which claims that the scheme enables a two-generation leap in Moore's Law, as applied to wiring speed.

How does the process work? Simply put, IBM coats a plate with a colloidal suspension of particles, aka "the ink." The characteristics and topographical features of the plate determine where the particles settle and, after being baked, dry into a master image. The image is then transferred from the plate to what the Zurich researchers call a "plain" substrate when the two come into contact, using a process dubbed "tailored adhesion."

In regard the air-gap microprocessor, the particles self-assemble themselves into 20-nanometer-diameter holes on the master plate. As IBM corporate poetically puts it, "The natural pattern-creating process that forms seashells, snowflakes, and enamel on teeth has been harnessed by IBM to form trillions of holes to create insulating vacuums around the miles of nano-scale wires packed next to each other inside each computer chip."

As for self assembly with single-particle resolution, that capability is still some years away. When it arrives, though, it will deliver an extraordinary level of control. For example, in terms of the conventional metric for printing resolution--dots per inch or dpi--the IBM technique has capabilities in the realm of 100,000 dpi, well beyond the 1500-dpi norm of todays garden variety offset printers.

In Zurich, they're thinking about finer nano-wires of the future, biosensors, optoelectronics and, of course, semiconductors. But first, the IBM's Euro lab will strive for better accuracy "as would be required for large-scale integration in microelectronics," and smaller particles.