Nano News: 06/15/15

Researchers grind nanotubes to get nanoribbons (w/video)

A simple way to turn carbon nanotubes into valuable graphene nanoribbons may be to grind them, according to research led by Rice University. The trick, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, is to mix two types of chemically modified nanotubes. When they come into contact during grinding, they react and unzip, a process that until now has depended...

Solar cells in the roof and nanotechnology in the walls

It isn't cars and vehicle traffic that produce the greatest volumes of climate gas emissions – it's our own homes. But new research will soon be putting an end to all that! The building sector is currently responsible for 40% of global energy use and climate gas emissions. This is an under-communicated fact in a world where vehicle traffic and exhaust...

3D potential through laser annihilation

Whether in the pages of H.G. Wells, the serial adventures of Flash Gordon, or that epic science fiction saga that is Star Wars, the appearance of laser beams—or rays or phasers or blasters—ultimately meant the imminent disintegration of our hero or perhaps something a little larger, say, an entire planet. Top image: An intense Gaussian-shaped x-ray...