Nanotechnology News - August 2010 Archives

Scientists help explain graphene mystery (8/24/2010)

Nanoscale simulations and theoretical research performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are bringing scientists closer to realizing graphene's potential in electronic applications. ...> Full Article

Juelich researchers take a look inside molecules (8/23/2010)

Looking at individual molecules through a microscope is part of nanotechnologists' everyday lives. However, it has so far been difficult to observe atomic structures inside organic molecules. In the renowned scientific journal Physical Review Letters, Juelich researchers explain their novel method, which enables them to take an "X-ray view" inside molecules. The method may facilitate the analysis of organic semiconductors and proteins. ...> Full Article

Extreme darkness: Carbon nanotube forest covers NIST's ultra-dark detector (8/20/2010)

Harnessing darkness for practical use, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a laser power detector coated with the world's darkest material -- a forest of carbon nanotubes that reflects almost no light across the visible and part of the infrared spectrum. ...> Full Article

Titanium coating with protein 'flower bouquet' nanoclusters strengthens implant attachment (8/19/2010)

Researchers have developed an improved coating technique that could strengthen the connection between titanium joint-replacement implants and a patients' own bone. Implants coated with "flower bouquet" clusters of an engineered protein made 50 percent more contact with the surrounding bone than implants coated with protein pairs or individual strands. The cluster-coated implants were fixed in place more than twice as securely as uncoated plugs. ...> Full Article

New nanoscale transistors allow sensitive probing inside cells (8/16/2010)

Chemists and engineers at Harvard University have fashioned nanowires into a new type of V-shaped transistor small enough to be used for sensitive probing of the interior of cells. The new device is smaller than many viruses and about one-hundredth the width of the probes now used to take cellular measurements, which can be nearly as large as the cells themselves. ...> Full Article

Buried silver nanoparticles improve organic transistors (8/12/2010)

Out of sight is not out of mind for a group of Hong Kong researchers who have demonstrated that burying a layer of silver nanoparticles improves the performance of their organic electronic devices without requiring complex processing. Their findings are reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters. ...> Full Article

Federal grant invests in nanostructured 'super' materials (8/11/2010)

With more than 20 associated scientists, UWM's new Center for Advanced Materials Manufacturing partner with Midwest industries to "scale up" the production of nanostructured metals that are ultralight, super-strong and self lubricating. They are of particular interest to industries that make military vehicles, but also have other uses, such as in renewable energy equipment. ...> Full Article

NIST nanofluidic 'multi-tool' separates and sizes nanoparticles (8/10/2010)

NIST researchers have engineered a nanoscale fluidic device that functions as a miniature "multi-tool" for working with nanoparticles-objects whose dimensions are measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. ...> Full Article

New resource examines questions about the role of nanoscience (8/9/2010)

The new two-volume "Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society," edited by David H. Guston at Arizona State University, presents perspectives from a variety of disciplines on the questions of nanotechnology in society, and what it might mean for our lives. Accessible and jargon-free, it isn't designed for the scientist or engineer in the field, but rather for the rest of us who have plenty of questions about nanotechnology but are afraid to ask. ...> Full Article

15,000 beams of light (8/8/2010)

One Chicago skyline is dazzling enough. Now imagine 15,000 of them. Northwestern University researchers have done just that -- drawing 15,000 identical skylines with tiny beams of light using an innovative nanofabrication technology called beam-pen lithography. BPL uses an array of pens made of a polymer to print patterns over large areas with nanoscopic through macroscopic resolution. The method could do for nanofabrication what the desktop printer has done for printing and information transfer. ...> Full Article

Some like it hot: How to heat a 'nano bathtub' the JILA way (8/7/2010)

Researchers at JILA have demonstrated the use of infrared laser light to quickly and precisely heat the water in "nano bathtubs" -- tiny sample containers -- for microscopy studies of the biochemistry of single molecules and nanoparticles. ...> Full Article

Decontaminating dangerous drywall (8/6/2010)

A nanomaterial originally developed to fight toxic waste is now helping reduce debilitating fumes in homes with corrosive drywall. ...> Full Article

Kinked nanopores slow DNA passage for easier sequencing (8/5/2010)

In an innovation critical to improved DNA sequencing, a markedly slower transmission of DNA through nanopores has been achieved by a team led by Sandia National Laboratories researchers. ...> Full Article

Nano 'pin art': NIST arrays are step toward mass production of nanowires (8/4/2010)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have cultivated many thousands of nanocrystals in what looks like a pinscreen or "pin art" on silicon, a step toward reliable mass production of semiconductor nanowires for millionths-of-a-meter-scale devices such as sensors and lasers. ...> Full Article

'White graphene' to the rescue (8/2/2010)

Researchers in the lab of Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry, have figured out how to make sheets of h-BN, which could turn out to be the complementary apple to graphene's orange. ...> Full Article

Graphene under strain creates gigantic pseudo-magnetic fields (8/2/2010)

By putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene, Berkeley Lab researchers have created pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory. This finding opens a new window on a source of important applications and fundamental scientific discoveries going back over a century. ...> Full Article

Nano's brightest coming to Rice (8/2/2010)

Registration is open for Year of Nano events to be held Oct. 10-13 in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the carbon 60 molecule, the buckminsterfullerene, at Rice. ...> Full Article