Optical features embedded in marine shells may help develop responsive, transparent displays (w/video)

The blue-rayed limpet is a tiny mollusk that lives in kelp beds along the coasts of Norway, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. These diminutive organisms — as small as a fingernail — might escape notice entirely, if not for a very conspicuous feature: bright blue dotted lines that run in parallel along the length of their...

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2D-NANOLATTICES nanoelectronics project makes important step with silicene

A European research project has made an important step towards the further miniaturisation of nanoelectronics, using a highly-promising new material called silicene. Its goal: to make devices of the future vastly more powerful and energy efficient. Silicene, a new semiconducting material combining properties of silicon and graphene, is one of the most...

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Moving molecules write letters

High performance materials for gas storage, thermal insulators or nanomachines need a thorough understanding of the behavior of the material down to the molecular level. Thermodynamics, which have been developed two hundred years ago to increase the efficiency of steam engines, typically observes and averages over a large number of molecules. Now a...

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