Nano News: 02/16/15

Autonomous atom assembly of nanostructures using a scanning tunneling microscope

NIST researchers have demonstrated the autonomous computer-controlled assembly of atoms into perfect nanostructures using a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope. The results, published in an invited article in the ("Autonomous assembly of atomically perfect nanostructures using a scanning tunneling microscope"), show the construction without...

Buckybowls for molecular circuits

Corannulene is a carbon molecule with a unique shape (similar to the better known fullerene) and promising properties. A team of scientists from SISSA and the University of Zurich carried out computer simulations of the molecule’s properties and discovered that it might help overcome the difficulties building molecular circuits (i.e., of the size of...

Discovery of new ferroelectric silicate materials

Barium titanate (BaTiO3) and lead zirconium titanate (Pb(Zr,Ti)O3) are well known ferroelectric materials that are used for fabricating capacitors and actuators. Their crystal structures belong to the perovskite-type oxide group (ABO3) with a BO6 octahedral coordination. However, new and important ferroelectric compounds with other structural groups...