What's Next In Science & Technology

A new study into the potential health hazards of the revolutionary nano-sized particles known as ‘buckyballs’ predicts that the molecules are easily absorbed into animal cells, providing a possible explanation for how the molecules could be toxic to humans and other organisms.

Using computer simulations, University of Calgary biochemist Peter Tieleman, post-doctoral fellow Luca Monticelli and colleagues modeled the interaction between carbon-60 molecules and cell membranes and found that the particles are able to enter cells by permeating their membranes without causing mechanical damage. Their results are published in the current Advance Online Publication of Nature Nanotechnology, the world’s leading nanotechnology journal.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be a doctor's best friend for detecting a tumor in the body without resorting to surgery. MRI scans use pulses of magnetic waves and gauge the return signals to identify different types of tissue in the body, distinguishing bone from muscle, fluids from solids, and so on.

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Researchers at North Carolina State University have created a substance far stronger and harder than conventional iron, and which retains these properties under extremely high temperatures – opening the door to a wide variety of potential applications, such as engine components that are exposed to high stress and high temperatures.

Iron that is made up of nanoscale crystals is far stronger and harder than its traditional counterpart, but the benefits of this “nano-iron” have been limited by the fact that its nanocrystalline structure breaks down at relatively modest temperatures. But the NC State researchers have developed an iron-zirconium alloy that retains its nanocrystalline structures at temperatures above 1,300 degrees Celsius – approaching the melting point of iron.

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Applied scientists at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.

Spearheaded by graduate student Mariano Zimmler and Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering, both of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Prof. Carsten Ronning of the University of Jena, the findings will be published in Nano Letters. The researchers have filed for U.S. patents covering their invention.

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Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new energy storage device that easily could be mistaken for a simple sheet of black paper.

The nanoengineered battery is lightweight, ultra thin, completely flexible, and geared toward meeting the trickiest design and energy requirements of tomorrow’s gadgets, implantable medical equipment, and transportation vehicles.

Along with its ability to function in temperatures up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and down to 100 below zero, the device is completely integrated and can be printed like paper. The device is also unique in that it can function as both a high-energy battery and a high-power supercapacitor, which are generally separate components in most electrical systems. Another key feature is the capability to use human blood or sweat to help power the battery.

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Researchers at the University of Warwick's Department of Chemistry have found a way of replacing the soap used to stabilize latex emulsion paints with nanotech sized clay armour that can create a much more hard wearing and fire resistant paint.

To date latex emulsion paints have relied on the addition of soaps or similar materials to overcome the polymer parts of the paint's aversion to water, stabilize the paint, and make it work.

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Often, things can be improved by a little 'contamination.' Steel, for example is iron with a bit of carbon mixed in. To produce materials for modern electronics, small amounts of impurities are introduced into silicon – a process called doping. It is these impurities that enable electricity to flow through the semiconductor and allow designers to control the electronic properties of the material.

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Nearly 2,000 years ago, the discovery of paper revolutionized human communication. Now researchers at Northwestern University have fabricated a new type of paper that they hope will create a revolution of its own -- and while it won't replace your notepad, this remarkably stiff and strong yet lightweight material should find use in a wide variety of applications.

In a paper to be published July 26 in the journal Nature, researchers led by Rod Ruoff, John Evans Professor of Nanoengineering in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, report on the development of graphene oxide paper.

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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), collaborating with Innovalight, Inc., have shown that a new and important effect called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG) occurs efficiently in silicon nanocrystals. MEG results in the formation of more than one electron per absorbed photon.

Silicon is the dominant semiconductor material used in present day solar cells, representing more than 93 percent of the photovoltaic cell market. Until this discovery, MEG had been reported over the past two years to occur only in nanocrystals (also called quantum dots) of semiconductor materials that are not presently used in commercial solar cells, and which contained environmentally harmful materials (such as lead). The new result opens the door to the potential application of MEG for greatly enhancing the conversion efficiency of solar cells based on silicon because more of the sun’s energy is converted to electricity. This is a key step toward making solar energy more cost-competitive with conventional power sources.

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A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics.

Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of everyday, store-bought clear adhesive tape. Graphite, the common material used in most pencils, is made up of countless layers of graphene. Researchers simply used the gentle stickiness of tape to break apart these layers.

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Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a phenomenon which allows measurement of the mechanical motion of nanostructures by using the AC Josephson effect. The findings, which may be used to identify and characterize structural and mechanical properties of nanoparticles, including materials of biological interest, appear online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

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More efficient and less costly solar cells, solid-state lighting and industrial catalysts are potential applications of atomic layer deposition (ALD), a technique that researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are working to perfect. Other potential applications are improved superconductors and separation membranes.

ALD is a thin-film growth technique that offers the unique capability to coat complex, three-dimensional objects with precisely fitted layers. The scientists expose an object to a sequence of reactive gas pulses to apply a film coating over the object's surface. The chemical reactions between the gases and the surface naturally terminate after the completion of a "monolayer" exactly one molecule thick. ALD can deposit a variety of materials, including oxides, nitrides, sulfides and metals.

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By taking advantage of the full range of ways in which molecules can interact with and bind to one another, a team of investigators at the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence has created nanoparticles that assemble themselves layer by layer. These nanoparticles, which contain two different types of imaging agents, also contain a peptide coating that targets tumor cells.

Wenbin Lin, Ph.D., of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led the research effort to develop a relatively simple and versatile strategy for creating multifunctional nanoparticles capable of targeting specific types of cells.

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Tightly packed molecules lend unexpected strength to nanothin sheet of material

Scientists at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory have discovered the surprising strength of a sheet of nanoparticles that measures just 50 atoms in thickness.

“It’s an amazing little marvel,” said Heinrich Jaeger, Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago. “This is not a very fragile layer, but rather a robust, resilient membrane.”

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Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have taken a step toward simplifying the creation of nanostructures by identifying the first inorganic material to phase separate with near-perfect order at the nanometer scale. The finding provides an atomically tuneable nanocomposite “workbench” that is cheap and easy to produce and provides a super-lattice foundation potentially suitable for building nanostructures.

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