Researchers have designed a nanoparticle that can be detected by six medical imaging techniques: computed tomography (CT) scanning; positron emission tomography (PET) scanning; photoacoustic imaging; fluorescence imaging; upconversion imaging; and Cerenkov luminescence imaging.
A new atomic-scale study of the surface properties of certain ferromagnetic topological insulators reveals that these materials exhibit extreme, unexpected, and self-destructive electronic disorder.
University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have made a significant leap toward creating higher-performance electronics with improved battery life — and the ability to flex and stretch. Led by materials science Associate Professor Michael Arnold and Professor Padma Gopalan, the team has reported the highest-performing carbon nanotube transistors ever demonstrated. In addition to paving the way for improved consumer electronics, this technology could also have specific uses in industrial and military applications.
While researchers in ORNL’s buildings group focus on increasing energy efficiency using new foam insulation panels, the nanophase materials sector experiments with catalyst performance, revealing an oxidation discovery that could help reduce vehicle emissions. Additionally, ORNL researchers aim to reduce the size, weight and power for some particle accelerators with development of a new voltage supply. And by using water and nano-sized particles isolated from trees and plants, scientists explore low-cost and nontoxic metal oxides.
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new precision approach for synthesizing graphene nanoribbons from pre-designed molecular building blocks. Using this process the researchers have built nanoribbons that have enhanced properties—such as position-dependent, tunable bandgaps—that are potentially very useful for next-generation electronic circuitry.
Berkeley Lab’s quantum dots have not only found their way into tablets, computer screens, and TVs, they are also used in biological and medical imaging tools, and now Paul Alivisatos’ lab is exploring them for solar cell as well as brain imaging applications.
A conductive silver matrix forming inside an otherwise poorly performing battery enhances its efficiency and potential applications. X-rays revealed where, when, and how these nanoscale “bridges” emerge.
While nanotechnology has led to countless advancements, a group of Israeli researchers are now raising a flag of caution about its effects on our health. They say exposure to tiny silica-based particles can play a big role in increasing heart attack and stroke risks.
If the new nano-machines built at The Ohio State University look familiar, it’s because they were designed with full-size mechanical parts such as hinges and pistons in mind. The project is the first to prove that the same basic design principles that apply to typical full-size machine parts can also be applied to DNA—and can produce complex, controllable components for future nano-robots.
Rust never sleeps. Whether a reference to the 1979 Neil Young album or a product designed to protect metal surfaces, the phrase invokes the idea that corrosion from oxidation — the more general chemical name for rust and other reactions of metal with oxygen — is an inevitable, persistent process. But a new Binghamton University study reveals that certain features of metal surfaces can stop the process of oxidation in its tracks.
Using indium tin oxide, a common coating in modern electronics, an engineer developed a biosensor that enables simultaneous electrical measurements and visual observation.
The LICARA guidelines are geared towards small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from all branches of industry, and help weigh up the pros and cons of nanomaterials and make decisions on their use. The guidelines also do their bit towards efficient communication in the value added chain.
Researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology have made new compact, high-value resistors for nanoscale quantum circuits. The resistors could speed the development of quantum devices for computing and fundamental physics research.
A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Ohio University have devised a powerful technique that simultaneously resolves the chemical characterization and topography of nanoscale materials down to the height of a single atom.
A new study will help researchers create longer-lasting, higher-capacity lithium rechargeable batteries, which are commonly used in consumer electronics. In a study published in the journal ACS Nano, researchers showed how a coating that makes high capacity silicon electrodes more durable could lead to a replacement for lower-capacity graphite electrodes.
Mufit Akinc says filling vacuum insulation panels with new, low-cost materials could produce hundreds of millions of dollars in energy savings. And so he's leading an effort to search for insulating materials that could one day make it to the marketplace.
As machines get smaller, knowing characteristics can make huge engineering differences.
University of Utah engineers have developed a polarizing filter that allows in more light, leading the way for mobile device displays that last much longer on a single battery charge and cameras that can shoot in dim light.
A team of New York University and University of Barcelona physicists has developed a method to control the movements occurring within magnetic materials, which are used to store and carry information. The breakthrough could simultaneously bolster information processing while reducing the energy necessary to do so.
A team of researchers from Vanderbilt University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory reports that it has discovered an entirely new form of crystalline order that simultaneously exhibits both crystal and polycrystalline properties and holds promise for improving the efficiency of thermoelectric devices.
Kansas State University researchers have been awarded a U.S. patent for microscopic, genetics-based technology that can help safely kill mosquitos and other insect pests. The patented technology affects the genes pest insects use to make their protective exoskeleton.
A team of University of Maryland researchers is growing vertically aligned “forests” of carbon nanotubes on three-dimensional (3-D) conductive substrates to explore their potential use as a cathode in next-gen lithium batteries.
Researchers at the University of Maryland have invented a single tiny structure that includes all the components of a battery that they say could bring about the ultimate miniaturization of energy storage components.
Scientists have made the first direct observations of a one-dimensional boundary separating two different, atom-thin materials, enabling studies of long-theorized phenomena at these interfaces.
University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of carbon nanotube material for handheld sensors that will be quicker and better at sniffing out explosives, deadly gases and illegal drugs.
Empa toxicologist Harald Krug has lambasted his colleagues in the journal Angewandte Chemie. He evaluated several thousand studies on the risks associated with nanoparticles and discovered no end of shortcomings: poorly prepared experiments and results that don’t carry any clout. Instead of merely leveling criticism, however, Empa is also developing new standards for such experiments within an international Network.
In less than a minute, a miniature device developed at the University of Montreal can measure a patient's blood for methotrexate, a commonly used but potentially toxic cancer drug. Just as accurate and ten times less expensive than equipment currently used in hospitals, this nanoscale device has an optical system that can rapidly gauge the optimal dose of methotrexate a patient needs, while minimizing the drug's adverse effects.
Scientists will receive about $1.25 million from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to develop an implantable device that delivers therapeutic drugs at a rate guided by remote control. The device's effectiveness will be tested aboard the International Space Station and on Earth's surface.
Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a nanoparticle to deliver a melanoma-fighting drug directly to the cancer. Delivering cancer drugs directly to tumors is difficult. Scientists are working on new approaches to overcome the natural limitations of drugs, including loading them into nanoparticles.
A graphene, one-atom-thick microelectrode now solves a major problem for investigators looking at brain circuitry. Pinning down the details of how individual neural circuits operate in epilepsy and other brain disorders requires real-time observation of their locations, firing patterns, and other factors.
Microscopic particles that bind under low temperatures will melt as temperatures rise to moderate levels, but re-connect under hotter conditions, a team of New York University scientists has found. Their discovery points to new ways to create “smart materials,” cutting-edge materials that adapt to their environment by taking new forms, and to sharpen the detail of 3D printing.
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology report today that they have made the first experimental observation of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), resulting in a unique electric generator and mechanosensation devices that are optically transparent, extremely light, and very bendable and stretchable.
Scientists from Tohoku University in Japan have developed a new type of energy-efficient flat light source based on carbon nanotubes with very low power consumption of around 0.1 Watt for every hour’s operation--about a hundred times lower than that of an LED.
Using a common laboratory filter paper decorated with gold nanoparticles, researchers have created a unique platform, known as “plasmonic paper,” for detecting and characterizing even trace amounts of chemicals and biologically important molecules—from explosives, chemical warfare agents and environmental pollutants to disease markers. The work will be described at the AVS 61th International Symposium and Exhibition.
Cancer vaccines have recently emerged as a promising approach for killing tumor cells before they spread. But so far, most clinical candidates haven't worked that well. Now, scientists have developed a new way to deliver vaccines that successfully stifled tumor growth when tested in laboratory mice. And the key, they report in the journal ACS Nano, is in the vaccine's unique stealthy nanoparticles.
Applying a well-known optical phenomenon called thin-film interference, a group of researchers at Harvard University has demonstrated the ability to "paint" ultra-thin coatings onto a rough surface -- work that holds promise for making future, flexible electronic devices, creating advanced solar cells and detailing the sides of next-gen rocket ships and spacecraft with extremely lightweight decorative logos (Applied Physics Letters).
Columbia Engineering and MIT researchers have combined computer simulations designed for Hollywood with precision model experiments to examine the mechanics of coiling. Their study, which bridges engineering mechanics and computer graphics, impacts a variety of engineering applications, from the fabrication of nanotube serpentines to the laying of submarine cables and pipelines (published 9/29 PNAS Early Online edition).
Extremely early detection of cancers and diseases is on the horizon with a supersensitive nanodevice being developed at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) with The Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering (JSNN) in Greensboro, NC.
Researchers have demonstrated a new method to improve the reliability and performance of transistors and circuits based on carbon nanotubes (CNT), a semiconductor material that has long been considered by scientists as one of the most promising successors to silicon for smaller, faster and cheaper electronic devices. The result appears in a new paper published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have created a small scale “hydrogen generator” that uses light and a two-dimensional graphene platform to boost production of the hard-to-make element.
Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute infused antibody-studded iron nanoparticles into the bloodstream to treat heart attack damage. The combined nanoparticle enabled precise localization of the body’s own stem cells to the injured heart muscle. The study addresses a central challenge in stem cell therapeutics: how to achieve targeted interactions between stem cells and injured cells.
In a move that could have huge implications for national security, researchers have created a very sensitive and tiny detector that is capable of detecting radiation from various sources at room temperature. The detector is eight to nine orders of magnitude --100 million to as high as 1 billion -- times faster than the existing technology, and a Texas A&M University at Galveston professor is a key player in the discovery.
Graphene is a semiconductor when prepared as an ultra-narrow ribbon – although the material is actually a conductive material. Researchers from Empa and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now developed a new method to selectively dope graphene molecules with nitrogen atoms. By seamlessly stringing together doped and undoped graphene pieces, they were able to form ”heterojunctions” in the nanoribbons, thereby fulfilling a basic requirement for electronic current to flow in only one direction when voltage is applied – the first step towards a graphene transistor. Furthermore, the team has successfully managed to remove graphene nanoribbons from the gold substrate on which they were grown and to transfer them onto a non-conductive material.
A new route to making graphene has been discovered by Penn State researchers that could make the 21st century’s wonder material easier to ramp up to industrial scale.
Collaborating with nanochemists led by Rafal Klajn at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who found that magnetite nanocubes can self-assemble into helical superstructures under certain conditions, UIC theoretical chemist Petr Kral and his students simulated the phenomenon and explained the conditions under which it can occur.
Researchers at the University of Rochester describe a new combination of materials that could be a step towards building computer chips capable of transporting digital information at the speed of light.
A team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new sensor that can detect and count nanoparticles, at sizes as small as 10 nanometers, one at a time. The researchers say the sensor could potentially detect much smaller particles, viruses and small molecules.
Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have developed what they call “a simple, one-step method” to grow nanowires of germanium from an aqueous solution. Their process could make it more feasible to use germanium in lithium-ion batteries.
Kit Lam and colleagues from UC Davis and other institutions have created dynamic nanoparticles (NPs) that could provide an arsenal of applications to diagnose and treat cancer. Built on an easy-to-make polymer, these particles can be used as contrast agents to light up tumors for MRI and PET scans or deliver chemo and other therapies to destroy tumors. In addition, the particles are biocompatible and have shown no toxicity. The study was published online today in Nature Communications.
Brookhaven Lab scientists discover surprising head-to-head charge polarizations that impede performance in next-gen materials that might revolutionize data-driven devices
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