A Robot Called WANDA (
April 26, 2010 by Aditi Risbud

(PhysOrg.com) -- Berkeley Lab scientists have established a revolutionary nanocrystal-making robot, capable of producing nanocrystals with staggering precision. This one-of-a-kind robot, named WANDA, provides colloidal nanocrystals with custom-made properties for electronics, biological labeling and luminescent devices. Since this robot is controlled by software protocols, novice users can direct WANDA to perform complex workflows that traditionally require extensive chemistry experience.


No longer attributable to human error—Berkeley Lab scientists have established a revolutionary nanocrystal-making robot, capable of producing nanocrystals with staggering precision. This one-of-a-kind robot provides colloidal nanocrystals with custom-made properties for electronics, biological labeling and luminescent devices.

This robotic engineer is named WANDA (Workstation for Automated Nanomaterial Discovery and Analysis) and was developed in collaboration with Symyx Technologies at the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy User Facility located at Berkeley Lab. By automating the synthesis of these nanocrystals, WANDA circumvents the issues facing traditional techniques, which can be laborious and are difficult to reproduce from one laboratory to the next. What's more, WANDA's synthetic prowess can help researchers sift through a large, diverse pool of materials for specific applications. Such a combinatorial approach has been used for decades in the pharmaceutical industry and now is being applied to nanomaterials at the Foundry..." (Phys.org)