An argue with CalTech. Chemistry Grad.

Anant Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student, Tohoku University
(ananta037@gmail.com)

Theme of this article is: “Knowing English is not enough to present Chemistry but one must know Chemistry in English.” (some thing about Amphidynamic Crystal)

In order to strengthen and enhance the education and research functions of graduate schools of Japanese universities, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) introduced the “Global COE (Centers of Excellence) Program in some of the top universities of Japan on 2002. Another main objective is to foster highly creative young researchers who will become world’s leaders in their respective fields through experiencing and practicing research of the highest world standard. Molecular complex Chemistry is one of the fields covered by the GCOE.

Being one of the Chemistry doctoral students of the nation’s high tech. university [Tohoku University] with the nation’s largest chemistry department, I also belong to the network of GCOE program. One of the annual events of the Tohoku Univ. sponsored by this program is to provide a chance for the doctoral students to lead a week long Int’l conference. Including the key speakers and the chairpersons of each section, every participant must be the Ph.D. candidate of Chemistry. The professors only act as a facilitator. He/she never interferes the students’ leadership.

One of the key speakers of the program was from California institute of Technology (CalTech). He was presenting his research work related to coordination chemistry and was chanting the effects of ligands to synthesize the Supramolecules with the metal ions. He was also claiming that his research output is fabulous and praiseworthy. One of the major parts of that molecule was the phenylene ring encapsulated into the cage that can create enough free space for undergoing smooth rotation. He was calling this ring as a “spacer” because the surrounding spokes can control the space around the phenylene. Any way, we around 200 students were listening his interesting speech. Being a chair person of this section, I was feeling that he was pretending some hidden facts behind his research area even though he was very bold and smart guy. He presented well and wrapped his talk by thanking his collaborators.

Then, it’s my time to open the floor for the discussion. I asked the participants for the comments and the queries. Some students asked about the effects of the coordinating efficiency of ligands’ and some other related stuffs. A Tohoku professor was suggesting him about the possibility of changing properties of that supramolecule by changing central metal ions. 

Before announcing the next speaker, I raised my query about that spacer so called phenylene ring. I am/ was very much familiar with such molecules having central rotating part encased into the static part. I also knew that such type of molecular crystals with rotating part and static part in a same molecule are called Amphidynamic crystal, but this is a very new type which I encountered while reading a paper published on 2002. My question was “does your molecular crystal belong to Amphidynamic crystal?” But that guy did not understand the last term and instead asked me for the clarification. I just clarified him by reminding the term “Amphibia” and then called the next speaker. 

Immediately after this session, the same guy approached and said to me “Knowing English is not enough to present chemistry but one must know chemistry in English.” Excellent understanding!!!! isn’t it?

Small Science vs. Large Science

Anant　Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student in chemistry
Tohoku University, Japan

Science carried out by individuals or small teams of investigators is said to be “small science” and the science carried out for large scientific data gathering programs is said to be “large science”.

Research done by individuals or small teams of investigators has been crucial for many of the important discoveries made in all branches of science. The individual or small group research work has been the first step for bringing up the revolutionary changes in the world. Such type of research facilitates the researcher to concentrate in the particular problem and hence increases the thinking level of the researchers as well. It has been found that the research work performed by the individuals or by the small teams is more accurate and reproducible. Since every branch of science needs accuracy which in fact catalyses the rate of tailoring and building up the new inventions and discoveries. These discoveries provide the fundamental basis for the application of scientific knowledge to national economic and societal goals.

Small science helps to define the goals and directions of large scientific data gathering projects [so called large science]. In turn, these data feed and are often best synthesized and interpreted by the long-term efforts of the small science community. In small science, the rate of manipulation of data is almost nil due to the accuracy which perfectly orients into the solutions of the problems.

In addition, because small science is typically done at universities, it provides students with an integral involvement in defining and solving scientific problems. Such well prepared manpower will be the pillar of the large science and finally of the nation. Any erosion in small science due to some parameters would therefore weaken not only the entire scientific enterprise, but also our future ability to utilize scientific information for the national good.

Let us imagine that if the experimental problems are carried out haphazardly due to the negligence of the members of the large teams and if the scientific society follows the same result for developing more advanced technology, the conditions will be pathetic not only in terms of wastage of time but also due to the wastage of money and prestige of the country. Thus for bringing up the new technology, the result and research work performed by the small teams [members of small science] are strongly recommended.

Small science, much of which is carried out at universities, is especially well suited to student training. Small science provides the "hands-on" experience that both excites students and teachers them how to attack scientific and technological problems creatively. They also learn the different steps of the research work intensively like from inception of the research idea to presentation of the final results. Research on a small scale is also the primary way that young scientists can establish a record of personal achievement, thus providing the best students with a powerful incentive for pursuing a scientific career.

Enormous superconducting synchrotron particle accelerator
 with circumferences of many kilometers are the examples of
Big Science. Shown above is the Fermi labTevatron
(source Wiki)

On the other hand, with out any work of the large scientific data gathering programs, no country can accept any sort of inventions. Even though the results from small science have been taken for developing the strong foundation of the large science, the work remaining on this stage and is to be completed is highly appreciable. So, on that front, large science is highly applicable. Similarly, small science is only for building up the knowledge but in order to apply this knowledge practically for inventing any sorts of scientific devices, the large scientific data gathering programs must be inserted and utilized.

Some elements for conducting biological, environmental, statistical, geographical, medical, astronomical etc research can only be addressed by large research groups or industry. Then only the impacts of these projects can be implemented to transform the process of research into small laboratories or into small science. In such front, large science dominates over small science.

In large science, the knowledge of the several members can be used and shared which might initiates the new innovative idea that results into the invention of the new technology. If we consider the several macro technologies available to us, we should not forget the large science. Now a day, development of the ideas and creation of global networks and collaborating with different countries is also an emerging example of large science.

On 8th and 10th November of 2007, two very hot scientific results had been published at “Japan Times”, the daily English newspaper of Japan, which were the result of the large science. One is, several scientists have used the antennae of the Moths to construct the most active Robert. Another work was that teams of researchers have studied the patterns of genes of mice and injected new gene which results the creation of new mice having great smelling capacity to detect kittens easily. Thus from these simple and innovative works, every one must understand the contribution of large science. So the correct implementation and computation of the research works is only possible in large science, which are the required issues in the world of this stage.

Thus, the small science and large science are strongly correlated with each other in which due to the absence of either one, the expectation of the world will be nil. The emerging issues on different disciplines of sciences can not be explained by excluding either of them. From a strategic perspective, any erosion of government support for small science is unwise because it reduces the diversity of scientific inquiry. Diversity in scope, which is one of the essential elements of scientific enterprise, is created by the large science. Hence from the national side, both should be treated equally.

Two New Elements Confirmed by IUPAC: Elements 114 and 116

A chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protonsin its nucleus. There are 94 elements believed to occur naturally on Earth and rest of the elements are synthesized in laboratories.

Are Carbon Nanotubes the Future of VLSI Interconnections?

Original paper is published by-
K. Banerjee and N. Srivastava, University of California


Summarised by Anant B. Marahatta

What is VLSI?
• Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into a single chip.
• VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.


New wiring solutions…!
• Metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates that can potentially address the challenges faced by copper and thereby extend the lifetime of electrical interconnects.
• carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have aroused a tremendous amount of interest in their use as building blocks of future integrated circuits due to their outstanding electrical properties

CNT based interconnects can potentially offer significant advantages over copper.
• CNTs exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties are efficient conductors of heat and are metallic in nature.
•SWCNTs are a very important variety of CNT because they exhibit important electric properties that are not shared by MWCNTs. The remarkable properties of SWCNTs stem from the symmetry and unusual electronic structure of grapheme [one atom thick sheet of graphite].

∙An isolated CNT can carry current densities in excess of 1010 A/cm2 without any signs of damage even at an elevated temperature of 250 0C. However, the high resistance associated with an isolated CNT (greater than 6.45 KΩ) necessitates the use of a bundle (rope) of CNTs conducting current in parallel to form an interconnection. CNT bundle interconnects have superior performance compared to Cu.

∙For short CNT bundle with small length (L), [especially for L < λCNT], resistance is higher than that of a Cu interconnect because the large contact resistance dominates the overall CNT resistance. However, for long interconnect lengths; i.e. long CNT bundle interconnects have smaller resistance than their Cu counterparts [ L>λCNT].

∙The interconnect delay can be reduced considerably by using densely packed CNT bundle interconnects, so that large power savings can be achieved. CNT bundle interconnects can reduce intermediate level interconnect delay by more than 60% due to their lower resistance.

Reliability and Thermal Analysis

∙Due to strong sp2 bonding, carbon nanotubes are much less susceptible to electro-migration (EM) problems [that plague copper interconnects] and can carry very high current densities. Metallic single-walled CNT bundles have been shown to be able to carry extremely high current densities of the order of 109 A/cm2. Cu interconnects = 106 A/cm2 due to EM.

∙A 100 x 50 nm2 cross-section Cu interconnect can carry current up to 50 μA, whereas a 1 nm diameter CNT can carry upto 20-25 uA current. Hence, from a reliability perspective, a few CNTs are enough to match the current carrying capacity of a typical Cu interconnect.

However, the need to reduce interconnect resistance (and hence delay) makes it necessary to pack several thousands of CNTs in a bundle.

Conclusion

∙There is no any experimental work or theoretical analysis yet about the nature of electromagnetic interactions between non-isolated (or tangled) nanotubes. So the authors have not considered their mutual effect during conduction, however they highlighted that this challengeable investigation should be done before using them in a circuit though these challenges are not expected to cause any fundamental problems.

Setting up Computational Chemistry (Quantum Chemistry) laboratory? Technical stuffs [Part II].

Anant　Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student in chemistry
Tohoku University, Japan



(Interested fellows are suggested to read the first part [Part 1] of this article archived herewith before proceeding it).

The designation of the molecular model is another mandatory step before performing any sorts of computer calculations. Several model making software (molecule model builder) are available free of charge. Mercury, RasMol, CHIME, SwissPDB Viewer, Avogadro etc. are some of them. How to handle them is the matter of their practice. It is very essential to know that some of the molecular builders do not support the calculating software. Let’s say in this step that we could model the sample system of our interest and get the Cartesian co-ordinates or Z-matrix of it (generated by the molecular builder) which will be our input for exploring the chemistry behind it.

Let’s move to the calculating software, one of the very well-known is GAUSSIAN (currently Gaussian-09 version for the windows G09W is available) owned by the Gaussian Inc., USA. It is very flexible software developed by the quantum chemists of all around the world. It is very trustworthy for the most accurate calculations especially ab initio, MD simulation and some semi-empirical calculations. Thus, for having the copy of this software, the university must be the member of it and get the license. The normal cost for the single computer license (single CPU version) is $1150 and for the multiprocessor /core version is $1725 (excluding shipping charge). The detail information is available here.

Here is the sample video of "Gaussian in action" to analyze the frequency.

http://www.gaussian.com/g_prod/g09.htm Similarly, individual person can get the license but he or she needs to pay some additional amount provided that Gaussian Inc. trusts him or her.

It is recommended that “GaussView” (currently, GaussView5 for windows GVW5 is available) is very useful molecular builder that supports the Gaussian software windows version. One must get the copy of it too from the Gaussian Inc. The new license costs $875 for the single windows computer and $4025 for the unlimited windows computer provided that Gaussian software has already been installed.

So far, we have installed the very essential software and our computer is ready to compute the chemistry of the input (of the interested molecular system) prepared by using molecular builder. Now, it’s time to know how to handle above installed software, prepare and route proper inputs, submit for the calculations, route the outputs, visualize the outputs and analyze them. The real chemistry starts from here and for it one must be perfect on computational/quantum chemistry.

Highest Rating of all Living Chemists: Prof George Whitesides

I have been following Prof George Whiteside for past one year, when I started working on microfluidics. While doing some literature search related to my work, I found some of the pioneer work done by his group. Later on found that his group has done some fundamental, pioneer work on microfluidics. For example: his group started paper microfluidics.Scientists are predicting paper microfluidics may revolutionize medical diagnostics in developing country by providing cheap and reliable diagnosis for common diseases. Now, withing three years this field has seen huge increase. Many research groups are after paper microfluidics. They lead or find the path, others just follow them. Recently, I also have been attracted to this area of research hoping to be able to do similar research work in resources limited countries like Nepal.

This guy is the highest H-index rating of all living chemists on the earth as of Nov 2010. He has published around 1100 papers in peer reviewed journals. This is amazing. In his ~45 yrs of science career (after his PhD), publishing 1100 papers means more than 20 papers per month. Looking at his research group this time, it kinda makes sense. His group has almost 4 dozens postdocs and rare graduate students. And, his group members are the best chemists he can find. They are in Harvard Chemistry department. 

The single primary objective of his lab is "to fundamentally change the paradigms of science." I like his idea of simplicity. Science and its applications should be very simple so that general public could benefit from science. This is how they developed microfluidics on filter papers.

You can check details about him in wiki page. Just google his name. He is still very active chemist on the age of 72.

Prof Whitesides is also famous for public talks. I have seen his couple of talks and one of them was on TedShow. You can watch his talk on the video below.

By the way: The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other people's publications (from wiki)


-Basant

How to write a paper to communicate your research? 101 on publishing your work.

Publishing your research work is very important in your career. Some people argue that if you don't publish your work or your work is not publishable then you have not done anything. It is said that if your research doesn't generate papers, it might just as well not have been done. "Interested and unpublished" is equivalent to "non-existent".

Writing your research findings and publishing them on good journals requires extra effort and skill than just research. Publishing work should be a part of research itself. The effective communication of scientific research is vital both to the scientific community and to a scientist’s career.

Recently, American Chemical Society (ACS) has produced series of video interviews with top figures of the related field to assist authors and reviewers in understanding and improving their experience with the processes of writing, submitting, editing, and reviewing manuscripts.

This time, I want to share an interview with Prof George Whitesides from Harvard University. He is the chemistry professor and has published more than one thousand research articles.

If you are looking for answers of following questions then listen and watch his interview.

• When should you begin to think about writing up your research for publication?
• How do your students handle your approach of writing while you research?
• How do new technologies help scientists communicate their work?
• How many drafts does each paper undergo? Do you have your papers undergo an internal review?
• Do authors need to be thinking of marketing their articles?
• How concerned should I be about the title and abstract of my papers?

You can listen his interview by clicking the link below.

http://web.1.c2.audiovideoweb.com/1c2web3536/WhitesidesFullMP3interviewFINAL.mp3

or Watch video interview below.