Asemblon Nanotechnology Kit for Self Assembly Mar 9, 2009

This kit is designed to teach critical concepts in biology and molecular science to high school and college students.

The kit allows the student to write on a gold-coated microscope slide with a felt pen that has been loaded with a particular class of organic molecule: an alkane thiol.

Alkane thiols consist of a sulfur atom, a short chain of hydrocarbons and a so-called “head group.” The sulfur seeks out the gold surface and binds to it. Molecular forces called Van der Wahl forces cause the sulfur atoms and the hydrocarbon chains to align in a very tight, 2-dimensional crystalline structure that is free of voids.

Once the sulfur atoms and the hydrocarbon chains have “self-assembled” into this very dense structure, the head groups are now seen as forming a single, uniform layer of chemicals spaced off of the surface of the gold.
The thickness of these surfaces is exquisitely thin, on the order of 1.2 nanometers or billionths of a meter. While the human eye cannot see the writing on the gold surface, there is a way to tell what was written: dip the slide in water!

The head group chosen for the Asemblon Self-Assembly Nanotechnology Kit has the property that its molecules attract water. The scientific term for this attraction is hydrophilic; literally, “water loving.” While the individual molecules are so small that they cannot be seen with even the highest-powered optical microscopes, their group action by being so closely packed together results in water being attracted and held where there was writing.

The water “beads up” on the surface of the slide and the writing can be readily seen with the naked eye.

For classroom demonstrations, the slide can be easily and safely erased using a butane flame torch of the kind used in restaurants to make crème brule.

Asemblon supplies everything that is needed except for the butane and the water (and your imagination, of course). The Kit demonstrates concepts critical to nature’s most intimate processes: cell biology.

Asemblon is offering these Kits for $100. for a very limited time. Orders may be placed on-line at www.asemblon.com/node/370.