David Forrest, Technology Manager, Advanced Manufacturing Office, U.S. Department of Energy, writes with news of a new funding opportunity at DOE:

Dear Friends and Colleagues who have shown some interest in Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM), I am pleased to forward this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) to you from the Advanced Manufacturing Office. The FOA includes a range of topics in advanced materials and processes, and explicitly includes a subtopic on Atomically Precise Manufacturing.

Note: scroll down to the line “DE-FOA-0001465 – Advanced Manufacturing Projects for Emerging Research Exploration (Last Updated: 12/21/2016 05:28 PM ET)” Download the PDF and scroll down to page 11/91 – “Subtopic 1.5 – Atomically Precise Manufacturing”

As some of you know, we have been soliciting SBIR projects in this space for several years now but this is the first AMO R&D Projects FOA in this space. And the application space has been expanded from the SBIR offerings—responsive concept papers and proposals will include atomically precise membranes and catalysts, sensors, molecular electronic computer circuits, and also tools and systems to perform APM through positional assembly (whether tip-based, or molecular machine-based–aka molecular additive manufacturing). Announcement is [here]. So there is no confusion, we define APM in the same fashion as the definition from our workshop on this subject, Integrated Nanosystems for Atomically Precise Manufacturing, and, curiously, as in Wikipedia. Subtopic 1.5 – Atomically Precise Manufacturing Atomically precise manufacturing is the production of materials, structures, devices, and finished goods in a manner such that every atom is at its specified location relative to the other atoms, and in which there are no defects, missing atoms, extra atoms, or incorrect (impurity) atoms. In current practice, atomically precise molecular sheets are possible using macromolecular chemistry with densely-packed designs for near zero defects, and full cross-linking for near theoretical strength and chemical stability. Spiroligomers, Metal Organic Frameworks, engineered proteins, enzymes, ribozymes, peptoids, and engineered DNA and RNA are examples of atomically precise building blocks that can be crafted for macromolecular assemblies, or which can be designed as atomically precise receptor sites to catalyze chemical reactions. In future practice, more complex atomically precise structures and devices could be fabricated using positional assembly with advanced scanning probe systems, or with integrated nanosystems for molecular additive manufacturing. Advances in these current or future practice techniques will be considered for funding for high energy impact applications such as (but not limited to) atomically precise membranes, atomically precise catalysts, molecular electronic computer circuits, and high sensitivity molecular sensors. There will be a webinar on January 5th to walk those interested through the basics of the FOA. Please send any inquiries to the email address shown on the FOA website rather than directly to me.

The Informational Webinar mentioned in the FOA will be held on January 5, 2017 at 1:00 PM ET Eastern Standard Time. Please click or copy and paste this link from the FOA into your browser for registration: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7609726952255956994

—James Lewis, PhD

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