A Defense Tech reader sent this inter­est­ing arti­cle my way. But, to be hon­est, Im not sure what to make of it.

I know a lit­tle bit about nan­otech­nol­ogy but not nec­es­sar­ily enough to really know if this devel­op­ment is sig­nif­i­cant. But I thought Id pass it along because DT read­ers may be able to enlighten me and oth­ers on this.

What appli­ca­tions in defense and intel­li­gence might this have? The arti­cle men­tions research fund­ing was pro­vided by the Army. From what I under­stand this sol-gel ink solu­tion is a process that could lead to the con­struc­tion of var­i­ous nano-structures such as lenses, optics and even fine structures.

Heres the arti­cle:

New sol-gel inks devel­oped by researchers at the University of Illinois can be printed into pat­terns to pro­duce three-dimensional struc­tures of metal oxides with nanoscale features.

The abil­ity to directly pat­tern func­tional oxides at the nanoscale opens a new avenue to func­tional devices. Potential appli­ca­tions include micro-fuel cells, pho­tonic crys­tals and gas sensors.

The researchers describe the new inks in a paper accepted for pub­li­ca­tion in the jour­nal Advanced Materials, and fea­tured on its Advances in Advance Web site.

Using this new fam­ily of inks, we have pro­duced fea­tures as small as 225 nanome­ters, said co-author Jennifer Lewis, the Thurnauer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and direc­tor of the uni­ver­si­tys Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory (FSMRL). Our goal is to get down to 100 nanome­ter fea­ture sizes.

To cre­ate three-dimensional struc­tures, the researchers use a robotic depo­si­tion process called direct-write assem­bly. The con­cen­trated sol-gel ink is dis­pensed as a fil­a­ment from a noz­zle approx­i­mately 1 micron in diam­e­ter (about 100 times smaller than a human hair). The ink is dis­pensed while a computer-controlled microp­o­si­tioner pre­cisely directs the path. After the pat­tern for the first layer is com­plete, the noz­zle is raised and another layer is deposited. This process is repeated until the desired shape is produced.

We have opened direct ink writ­ing to a new realm of func­tional mate­ri­als, said grad­u­ate stu­dent Eric Duoss, the papers lead author. Since we print the desired func­tion­al­ity directly, the need for com­pli­cated tem­plat­ing and repli­cat­ing schemes is eliminated.

Unlike pre­vi­ous inks, which require a liq­uid coag­u­la­tion reser­voir, the newly for­mu­lated inks are con­cen­trated enough to rapidly solid­ify and main­tain their shape in air, even as they span gaps in under­ly­ing layers.

This gives us the abil­ity to start, stop and repo­si­tion the flow of ink repeat­edly, pro­vid­ing exquis­ite con­trol over the depo­si­tion process, Duoss said. For exam­ple, we can directly pat­tern defects in three-dimensional struc­tures for use as pho­tonic crystals.

After the struc­tures have been assem­bled, they are con­verted to the desired func­tional oxide phase by heat­ing at ele­vated tem­per­a­ture. Titanium diox­ide, which pos­sesses high refrac­tive index and inter­est­ing elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties, is one mate­r­ial the researchers have suc­cess­fully produced.

The researchers ink design and pat­tern­ing approach can be read­ily extended to other materials.

There are a nearly end­less vari­ety of mate­ri­als to choose from, Lewis said. We envi­sion hav­ing a tool­box of inks that can print at the micro– and nanoscale. These inks will be used for het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion with other man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques to cre­ate com­plex, func­tional devices com­posed of many dif­fer­ent materials.

In addi­tion to Lewis and Duoss, for­mer post-doctoral researcher Mariusz Twardowski is a co-author of the paper. 

(Gouge: BD)

– Christian

Could the USS Liberty sur­face as a cam­paign issue?

The lat­est news on the Liberty, the Navy spook ship attacked by Israel on June 8, 1967, dur­ing the Six-Day War, is that recently released National Security Agency doc­u­ments are back­ing up what many — includ­ing the sur­vivors of Liberty — have been say­ing for 40 years: that Israel knew full well that it was attack­ing — with aer­ial straf­ing, napalm and tor­pe­does — an American vessel.

You may have read it on Military.com, one of the few news sites to run the piece in total. Other than The Chicago Tribune, which came out with the story, only The Baltimore Sun picked up the piece, accord­ing to a Google search.

It will be inter­est­ing to see is whether any pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates address the lat­est rev­e­la­tions, since those from both par­ties fre­quently tout long­stand­ing ties and mutual loy­alty between the U.S. and Israel.

One can­di­date with a real inter­est in this story is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who five years ago endorsed a book, The Liberty Incident, that con­cluded it was a mis­take. McCain’s inter­est stems from the fact that his father, the late Adm. John S. McCain, was com­man­der of U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, at the time, and ordered the offi­cial court of inquiry to inves­ti­gate the attack.

Based on the court’s find­ings, Adm. McCain con­cluded it was a case of mis­taken iden­tity. But five years ago the legal advi­sor to the court broke his own silence in an inter­view with me, call­ing the final report a sham, a cover-up. It was about that same time that The Liberty Incident, by A. Jay Cristol, a for­mer Navy pilot and retired judge, hit the bookshelves.

Sen. McCain praised the book and its find­ings in a blurb that appeared on the back cover.

In recent months there have been more rev­e­la­tions about the attack and imme­di­ate after­math, how­ever. In June, I reported that the Navy already was call­ing the attack acci­den­tal in its casu­alty noti­fi­ca­tion telegrams to next of kin even before the court of inquiry con­vened for the first time.

Then came the Tribune story last week, report­ing that the National Security Agency’s deputy direc­tor of oper­a­tions in 1967 now con­firms that tran­scripts of U.S. inter­cepts of Israeli com­mu­ni­ca­tions show the Israelis knew exactly who they were attacking.

Oliver Kirby is quoted in the Trib story as recall­ing the Israeli pilots sev­eral times iden­ti­fy­ing the ship as American but being told to attack any­way. While some of the orig­i­nal tran­scripts and intel have dis­ap­peared, the story reports that some of it is still in U.S. gov­ern­ment archives.

So far, calls to McCain’s sen­ate and cam­paign offices have not been returned.

– Bryant Jordan

From this morning’s Military.com news…

Teams on the ground and in two air­craft kept up the hunt for mil­lion­aire avi­a­tor Steve Fossett on Sunday after a new analy­sis of radar data pro­vided fresh optimism.

The for­mal aer­ial search by the Civil Air Patrol and the Nevada National Guard had ended Sept. 19 after more than two weeks of scour­ing a rugged area of deserts and moun­tains twice the size of New Jersey.

However, analy­sis of radar data and satel­lite images from Sept. 3, the day Fossett dis­ap­peared in a small plane, led Air Force tech­ni­cians to believe they had spot­ted clues to his route.

“We said the only time we would reopen the search is if we had viable leads. This time we believe we do,” Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety offi­cial in charge of the search, said Sunday.

The area being searched was south­east of hotel mag­nate Barron Hilton’s million-acre ranch in west­ern Nevada, where Fossett had been stay­ing. Nothing was found by Sunday afternoon.

Fossett, 63, was the first per­son to cir­cle the globe solo in a bal­loon. He also swam the English Channel, com­pleted the Iditarod sled-dog race and scaled some of the world’s best-known peaks. 

– Christian

In this week’s edi­tion of the Friday Follies, here’s why we at DT are con­fi­dent of vic­tory in Afghanistan. With pro­fes­sion­als like these, no one else stands a chance.

Have a great weekend…

– Christian

A lit­tle Friday Follies with your morn­ing coffee.

I guess now we know why robot EOD techs are so pop­u­lar in the Sand Box…

All I can say is “ouch!”

(Gouge: CM)

– Christian

Time for the Friday Follies…

Looks like it’s get­ting more and more dan­ger­ous for those night owls who like to dig up IED pits on Iraq’s roads.

– Christian

Now we know why Gen. Jones and Chief Ramsey say it’s time to trash the Iraqi National Police…

UPDATE:

DT reader “sin­tax” writes:

hey a friend of mine shot this with me when we were on patrol in dora dis­trict south Baghdad. yes the NP’s(national police) are very poorly trained and equipped. some­times they don’t even get paid for months. there is alot cor­rup­tion in the Iraqi state dept which is under their con­trol. any­ways shout out to Bravo com­pany 1-35AR in Germany. BLACKJACKS!…

…But believe it or not they have tons of heart and i have seen them fight hard in com­bat. many of them are good guys. they have charged with us into bat­tle many of times. 

Thanks, sin­tax, for your insight. And I gotta tell you, I love the chuck­ling in the back­ground. Keep up the good work!

– Christian

Heres another one for the Friday Funnies.

Ask any Soldier whether he likes the cam­ou­flage scheme of the new Army Combat Uniform and youll usu­ally get a groan and eye roll. Ive had a hard time find­ing any­one that thinks the uni­ver­sal camo pat­tern is any­thing close to universal.

That is, unless youre try­ing to stay out of the line of fire from CinCHome by hid­ing in plain sight…
(Gouge: RC)

– Christian

Zhang Cheng and his 1,300 mile-per-hour choice of office decor has reignited my long for­got­ten desire to cre­ate my own fortress of doom.
Decade old changes in mil­i­tary pur­chas­ing habits have opened avenues for reg­u­lar folk and para­noid fruitcakes alike. In the age of 'global' terror, your puny house alarm is only likely give provide sample-fodder for super-burglars mixing beats in their stolen iPod Nanos. So what could I do to protect my junk from techno-pirates and annoying little sh*ts that may or may not live down my street?
(For the benefit of those waiting for the missile-silo bubble to burst, we'll pretend I've got a fully-loaded island in the sun, complete with volcano).
Starting outside, the perimeter of mi casa should be free of all surveillance platforms and rival gangs. Advanced optics and specialized audio equipment placed around the gaff should provide me with ample warning of approaching homemade UAVs. Of course, you could also create your own air coverage like Bin Laden, or just buy real time satellite imagery if you're lazy.
Walls don't really go with the volcano, so Isla Snell features laser fencing to detect any possible intruder. Guard dogs are too low-tech, so in the age of genetic modification I've created my own protection: glow-in-the-dark guard pigs. Depending on my set up, speakers/sirens could also nauseate the intruder with my rendition of "I Fought the Law” whilst riot-slime causes hilar­i­ous slip’n’slide move­ments.
Surplus light armour is avail­able to move from one side of the yard to the other and the spy car will patrol the areas my guard pigs don’t. If you’re lucky enough to sur­vive the pigs/slime, please feel free to ring the buzzer. Biometrics would secure all doors and win­dows but I’ve opted for the alter­na­tive, of course.
For today’s wealthy ago­ra­phobes, a mod­est $10,000 could pro­vide fea­tures such as candle-stick acti­vat­ing door­ways and revolv­ing fire­places. Naturally all electrics are con­nected by a cen­tral sys­tem, but my mod­esty shots are kept off-site. Robotic agents patrol the cor­ri­dors feed­ing video to the Tablet PC alert­ing me to any food deliv­ery. A ther­mal cam­era would help me avoid cred­i­tors mean­ing I could make a quick get­away in my sub­ma­rine. Any attempt to gain under­wa­ter access would be detected by the robo-fish, of course.
Some among you may argue that fear has clouded rea­son and that para­noia has led to the 21st cen­tury ver­sion of bomb shel­ter hys­te­ria, that we don’t actu­ally need used mil­i­tary equip­ment and high-tech ‘home-alone’ pro­tec­tion. But with the balls/idiocy of todays ‘crim-orrists’ (or terr-inals), now might be the time to spruce up the old home­stead and — let’s face it — play with some of the coolest inven­tions since Porno Pez.
Now, if I only had room in the tub…
– Steven Snell