Nanotechnology News

Breaking the ice before it begins (11/18/2010)

Engineers from Harvard University have designed and demonstrated ice-free nanostructured materials that literally repel water droplets before they even have the chance to freeze. The finding could lead to a new way to help keep airplane wings, buildings, powerlines, and even entire highways free and clear of ice during the worst winter weather. ...> Full Article

Tecnalia investigates nanoparticles for soil remediation (11/18/2010)

Tecnalia, through its Construction Unit, aims to increase the efficiency, reduce execution times and cut operational costs associated with remedial solutions for contaminated sites and for building development itself. ...> Full Article

Graphene's strength lies in its defects (11/17/2010)

Materials engineers at Brown University have found that the juncture at which graphene sheets meet does not compromise the material's strength. These so-called grain boundaries are so strong, in fact, that the sheets are nearly as strong as pure graphene. The trick lies in the angles at which the individual sheets are stitched together. Results are published in the Nov. 12, 2010, issue of Science. ...> Full Article

Step by step toward tomorrow's nanomaterial (11/16/2010)

Graphene is a promising material for tomorrow's nanoelectronics devices. Precise and upscaleable methods to fabricate graphene and derived materials with desired electronic properties are still searched after. To overcome the current limitations, Empa researchers have fabricated graphene-like materials using a surface chemical route and clarified in detail the corresponding reaction pathway. The work has just been published in the scientific journal Nature Chemistry. The scientists combined empirical observations using scanning tunneling microscopy with computer simulations. ...> Full Article

Sugar and slice make graphene real nice (11/15/2010)

Rice researchers have learned to make pristine sheets of graphene, the one-atom-thick form of carbon, from plain table sugar and other carbon-based substances. They do so in a one-step process at temperatures low enough to make graphene easy to manufacture. ...> Full Article

New forms of highly efficient, flexible nanogenerator technology (11/12/2010)

Professor Keon Jae Lee was involved in the first co-invention of "High Performance Flexible Single Crystal Electronics" during his Ph.D. course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This nanogenerator technology, based on the previous invention, utilized the similar protocol of transferring ceramic thin film nano-materials on flexible substrates and produced voltage generation between electrodes. ...> Full Article

New ultra-clean nanowires have great potential (11/11/2010)

New ultra-clean nanowires produced at the Nano-Science Center, University of Copenhagen will have a central role in the development of new high-efficiency solar cells and electronics on a nanometer scale. Ph.D. student Peter Krogstrup at the Niels Bohr Institute, in collaboration with a number of well-known researchers and the company SunFlake A/S, is behind the breakthrough. The new findings have recently been published in the prestigious journal Nano Letters. ...> Full Article

Graphene gets a Teflon makeover (11/10/2010)

University of Manchester scientists have created a new material which could replace or compete with Teflon in thousands of everyday applications. ...> Full Article

Nanogenerators grow strong enough to power small conventional electronics (11/9/2010)

Researchers have reached a significant milestone in their development of nanometer-scale generators that harvest mechanical energy from the environment using an array of tiny nanowires: the ability to power conventional electronic devices such as liquid-crystal displays. ...> Full Article

Voluntary initiatives, regulation and nanotechnology oversight (11/7/2010)

A new report from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars explores a variety of voluntary options available for the oversight of nanotechnology products and processes. The report, Voluntary Initiatives, Regulation, and Nanotechnology Oversight: Charting a Path, by Dr. Daniel Fiorino, director of the Center for Environmental Policy at American University, provides a historical overview of voluntary approaches to environmental protection and assesses their applicability to the emerging field of nanotechnology. ...> Full Article

ERC advanced grant for Professor Zandbergen's 'nanolaboratory' (11/7/2010)

Henny Zandbergen, professor at the Kavli Institute of NanoScience, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros ($3.5 million) for his research into improved microscopic technologies. The technologies enable Professor Zandbergen to visualise extremely small structures, such as semiconductor nanowires, all the way down to atomic level. What is especially remarkable is that the structures that are made visible in this way can be measured at the same time. ...> Full Article

Federal nanotechnology renewal grant awarded to ASU faculty (11/4/2010)

Professors at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law and the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU have received a federal grant to pursue their research of nanotechnology regulation. The $248,230 award, "Governing Nanotechnology Risks and Benefits in the Transition to Regulation," from the US Department of Energy Office of Science, will enable the researchers to evaluate novel "soft law" mechanisms for oversight of the technology. ...> Full Article

Radically simple technique developed to grow conducting polymer thin films (11/3/2010)

Oil and water don't mix, but add in some nanofibers and all bets are off. A team of UCLA chemists and engineers has developed a new method for coating large surfaces with nanofiber thin films that are both transparent and electrically conductive. Their method involves the vigorous agitation of water, dense oil, and polymer nanofibers. After this solution is sufficiently agitated it spreads over virtually any surface, creating a thin film. ...> Full Article

Microreactor speeds nanotech particle production by 500 times (11/2/2010)

Engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a new method to speed the production rate of nanoparticles by 500 times, an advance that could play an important role in making nanotechnology products more commercially practical. ...> Full Article

Organic solvent system may improve catalyst recycling and create new nanomedicine uses (11/1/2010)

Noble metals such as platinum and palladium are becoming increasingly important because of growth in environmentally friendly applications such as fuel cells. A new solvent system could improve the recycling of these metals. ...> Full Article