Additional information related to last month\u2019s blog.\u00a0 Single layer technology advances from the DoE\u2019s Argonne National Laboratory have moved the Molecular Layer Etching to the atomic level. [Ref. 1] Argonne Labs have been employing Atomic Layer Etching (ALE).\u00a0 Just as ALD can be employed to create single layers on a substrate, ALE can be employed to remove atomic layers.\u00a0 Their work also established a relationship between the reaction temperature and the rate of material removal.\u00a0 (There is a post by Karsten Arts of Eindhoven University of Technology [Ref. 2] that provides significant detail on plasma assisted ALD and thin film uniformity.)\u00a0 The claim by researchers at Argonne is that this work may provide a means of creating and controlling nanomaterial geometries with the possibility of creating a means of extending Moore\u2019s Law.\u00a0 As has been stated in a number of blogs, the development of new tools or creating means to extend the usage of existing tools will provide the means of creating new materials that have properties unknown to us at this time.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving to at different subject, the need for scientific\nintegrity and reproducible results is critical for the advancement of\nscience. It is also true in other\nfields. In a report from the University\nof Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business [Ref.3], the topic of using\nstandard algorithms to develop corporate business reports is compared to the\ntraditional approach employed by businesses. \nOne key observation was that depending on the manner in which the company\nemployed the data (or only a portion of the data), the results of the\nbusinesses could change. Interestingly,\nthe independent observer preferred the reports generated by the management over\nthe algorithm approach. The report\nstates that the observers preferred the business developed report due to the\n\u201cpositive\u201d spin on explaining the numbers. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This brings us back to scientific research where the results\nare promising but there is insufficient information about the original\nhypothesis, or the experiment procedure developed to prove\/disprove the\nhypothesis. A few years ago, I covered\nthe study that found of just over 100 published reports of scientific\ndiscovery, over 80% of the results were not able to be duplicated \u2013 even by the\noriginal researcher. Granted, that many\ncases, the research area is so new, that expertise of independent researchers\nfor the review may not fully comprehend what is being done without the ability\nto observe the experiment. This becomes\nmore of an issue as the nanoscale development moves to smaller and smaller\ndimensions. The equipment is normally\nexpensive and scarce. Time to use the\nequipment is strictly allocated. \nConsequently, the researcher must provide details of the testing and\ndetailed results that are comprehensive. \nRemoving some results need to be explained whether due to\ninstrumentation irregularities or equipment malfunction or bad sample\npreparation. Without details the\nintegrity of the results must be suspect. \nA single instance is insufficient. \nIf one looks at the range of probabilities for an occurrence of a sample\nsize of one, and there is an \u201cn-1\u201d in the denominator, the answer is\nmeaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the development of materials starts to incorporate more and more single atomic layer materials, the critical nature of reproducible results is necessary.\u00a0 Scientific integrity has to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Additional information related to last month\u2019s blog.\u00a0 Single layer technology advances from the DoE\u2019s Argonne National Laboratory have moved the Molecular Layer Etching to the atomic level. [Ref. [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nano","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}