Nano News: 2015

Joseph DeSimone receives $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine

Northwestern University's International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) announced that chemist Joseph M. DeSimone of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the recipient of the inaugural $250,000 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine. The Kabiller Prize and the $10,000 Kabiller Young Investigator Award in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine...

Brilliant colors from environmentally friendly quantum dots

Quantum dots have made it possible to substantially increase color quality in LCD displays. However, these cadmium-based nanocrystals have proven to be harmful to the environment. Fraunhofer researchers are working together with an industry partner to develop a promising alternative: quantum dots based on indium phosphide. Quantum dots make it possible...

Phoenix effect: Resurrected proteins double their natural activity

Proteins play a large role in sustaining life functions. These molecules ensure that vital reactions, such as DNA replication or metabolism catalysis, are carried out within cells. When proteins die, the so-called process of denaturation takes place, which is accompanied by the unfolding of the native...

New research puts us closer to do-it-yourself spray-on solar cell technology

In a 2014 study, published in the journal ("Fully solution processed all inorganic nanocrystal solar cells"), St. Mary's College of Maryland energy expert Professor Troy Townsend introduced the first fully solution-processed all-inorganic photovoltaic technology. While progress on organic thin-film photovoltaics is rapidly growing, inorganic devices...

New electrode gives micro-supercapacitor macro storage capacity

Micro-supercapacitors are a promising alternative to micro-batteries because of their high power and long lifetime. They have been in development for about a decade but until now they have stored considerably less energy than micro-batteries, which has limited their application. Now researchers in the Laboratoire d’analyse et d’architecture des systèmes...

Invisibility cloak might enhance efficiency of solar cells

Success of the energy turnaround will depend decisively on the extended use of renewable energy sources. However, their efficiency partly is much smaller than that of conventional energy sources. The efficiency of commercially available photovoltaic cells, for instance, is about 20%. Scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now published...

New processes in modern ReRAM memory cells decoded

Resistive memory cells or ReRAMs for short are deemed to be the new super information-storage solution of the future. At present, two basic concepts are being pursued, which, up to now, were associated with different types of active ions. But this is not quite correct, as Jülich researchers working together with their Korean, Japanese and American...

Hopes of improved brain implants with nanowire structures

Neurons thrive and grow in a new type of nanowire material developed by researchers in Nanophysics and Ophthalmology at Lund University in Sweden ("Support of Neuronal Growth Over Glial Growth and Guidance of Optic Nerve Axons by Vertical Nanowire Arrays"). In time, the results might improve both neural...

Electric field control of magnetic moment in palladium

Researchers at the University of Tokyo and Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry have successfully induced a magnetic moment in palladium (Pd), usually a non-magnetic material, and demonstrated the ability to reversibly control the strength of the magnet by applying an electric field ("Electric-field control of magnetic moment in Pd")....

New method for building on an atomic scale

UK scientists have pioneered a new way of manipulating several thousand atoms at a time, paving the way for building nanoscale electronic devices more quickly and easily at room temperature. Drawing with atoms In 1992 the very first man-made atomic structure was created by using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) to gently nudge individual atoms...

Metamaterial absorbers for infrared inspection technologies

Plasmonic metamaterials are man-made substances whose structure can be manipulated to influence the way they interact with light. As such, metamaterials offer an attractive platform for sensing applications, including infrared (IR) absorption spectroscopy – a technique used to uncover details of the chemical make-up and structure of substances. Now,...

Biomimetic dental prosthesis

There are few tougher, more durable structures in nature than teeth or seashells. The secret of these materials lies in their unique fine structure: they are composed of different layers in which numerous micro-platelets are joined together, aligned in identical orientation. Although methods exist that allow material scientists to imitate nacre, it...

Designed defects in liquid crystals can guide construction of nanomaterials

Imperfections running through liquid crystals can be used as miniscule tubing, channeling molecules into specific positions to form new materials and nanoscale structures, according to engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The discovery could have applications in fields as diverse as electronics...

Organic electronics with an edge

Using sophisticated theoretical tools, A*STAR researchers have identified a way to construct topological insulators — a new class of spin-active materials — out of planar organic-based complexes rather than toxic inorganic crystals ("Topological insulators based on 2D shape-persistent organic ligand...

A magnetic memory bubbling with opportunity

RIKEN researchers have used ultrafast laser pulses to poke, stretch and position tiny magnetic domains on demand ("Photodrive of magnetic bubbles via magnetoelastic waves"). New technology that exploits the spin of electrons, known as spintronics technology, requires rapid and non-invasive methods to manipulate magnetic fields without generating excess...

New cathode material creates possibilities for sodium-ion batteries

Led by the inventor of the lithium-ion battery, a team of researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has identified a new safe and sustainable cathode material for low-cost sodium-ion batteries. During the past five years, sodium-ion batteries have emerged as a promising new type of rechargeable battery and...

New diamond structures produce bright luminescence for quantum cryotography and biomarkers applications

Germanium defects in a diamond crystal lattice act as a reliable source for single photons, new research shows. The results are reported in Scientific Reports and provide a promising new route to building components for quantum cryptography and biomarkers. Pure diamonds are naturally colorless, but gaps in the crystal structure or impurities of other...

Nanowire quantum dot solar cells: oxide layer boosts performance

Attempts to improve solar cells can seem a balancing act, as optimising one variable can compromise another. The introduction of nanowires to colloidal quantum-dot solar cells (CQDSCs) aroused interest as a means of improving a limitation in the charge-collection layer thickness. However the high nanowire surface area brings other inhibiting factors....

Ultrathin graphene oxide lens could revolutionise next-gen devices

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology, collaborating with Monash University, have developed an ultrathin, flat, ultra-lightweight graphene oxide optical lens with unprecedented flexibility. The ultrathin lens enables potential applications in on-chip nanophotonics and improves the conversion process of solar cells. It also opens up new...

Low-cost nanomembrane a new option for high-temperature fuel cells

Obtaining energy from fuel cells is an important issue nowadays to conserve the environment and membranes play the role of electrolyte in fuel cells and are solid electrolytes in proton exchanging fuel cells, which allow the pass of ions. Researchers from New Energies Research Center of Amirkabir University...

Molecular diagnostics at home: Chemists design rapid, simple, inexpensive tests using DNA

Chemists at the University of Montreal used DNA molecules to developed rapid, inexpensive medical diagnostic tests that take only a few minutes to perform. Their findings, which will officially be published tomorrow in the ("A highly selective electrochemical DNA-based sensor that employs steric hindrance effects to detect proteins directly in whole...

Diverse set of Turing nanopatterns coat corneae of insects

In 1952, the legendary British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing proposed a model, which assumes formation of complex patterns through chemical interaction of two diffusing reagents. Russian scientists managed to prove that the corneal surface nanopatterns in 23 insect orders completely fit into this model. Their work is published in the...

Permanent data storage with light

The first all-optical permanent on-chip memory has been developed by scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the universities of Münster, Oxford, and Exeter. This is an important step on the way towards optical computers. Phase change materials that change their optical properties depending on the arrangement of the atoms allow for...

Pushing the limits of lensless imaging

Using ultrafast beams of extreme ultraviolet light streaming at a 100,000 times a second, researchers from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, have pushed the boundaries of a well-established imaging technique. Not only did they make the highest resolution images ever achieved with this method at a given wavelength, they also created images...

Darwin on a chip

Researchers of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology and the CTIT Institute for ICT Research at the University of Twente in The Netherlands have demonstrated working electronic circuits that have been produced in a radically new way, using methods that resemble Darwinian evolution. The size of these...

Exploring catalytic reactions at the nanoscale

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has used a novel imaging capability - tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy - to map catalytic reactions at the nanoscale for the first time. Catalysts are substances that facilitate chemical reactions without being consumed, enabling industry to produce chemicals which would otherwise be uneconomic or even impossible....