Nanoscience News - SciTechDaily

New Concept for Self-Assembling Mobile Micromachines

Linda Behringer, Max Planck Institute — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 13:30:58 +0000

In the future, designers of micromachines can utilize a new effect. A team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have presented a concept that enables the components of microvehicles, microrotors, and micropumps to assemble themselves in an electric field. The new concept may help to construct medical microrobots [...]

Household Ingredients Rich in Sodium Help Grow Carbon Nanotubes

Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 13:56:23 +0000

Baking soda, table salt, and detergent are surprisingly effective ingredients for cooking up carbon nanotubes, researchers at MIT have found. In a study published this week in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team reports that sodium-containing compounds found in common household ingredients are able to catalyze the growth of carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, at much [...]

New Study Solves Longstanding Nanowire Mystery

Bill Hathaway, Yale University — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 00:40:52 +0000

Deep in the ocean or underground, where there is no oxygen, Geobacter bacteria “breathe” by projecting tiny protein filaments called “nanowires” into the soil, to dispose of excess electrons resulting from the conversion of nutrients to energy. These nanowires enable the bacteria to perform environmentally important functions such as cleaning up radioactive sites and generating [...]

New Process Allows Scientists To Mold Metal At The Nanoscale

William Weir, Yale University — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 01:50:43 +0000

Numerous metals and alloys would be ideal for specific nanoscale applications — from solar energy to microelectronics — but accurately molding metals into such minuscule shapes has proved challenging. Researchers, though, have developed a process that allows manufacturers to essentially shape any metal and alloy and replicate even the smallest details. The labs of Jan [...]

Physicists Record Temporal Coherence of a Graphene Qubit

Rob Matheson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 15:51:06 +0000

For the first time, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have recorded the “temporal coherence” of a graphene qubit — that is, how long it can maintain a special state that allows it to represent two logical states simultaneously. According to the researchers, the demonstration, which employed a new type of graphene-based qubit, is a key [...]

Borophene Breakthrough Provides New Insight Into a Promising Material

Jon Atherton, Yale University — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 01:51:59 +0000

The thinnest flake, just one atom thick, has provided scientists at Yale and the Brookhaven National Laboratory with new insight into a promising material for the next generation of high-speed electronics and a host of practical applications. Sheets of boron, or borophene — a close cousin of graphene, a material 200 times stronger than steel [...]

Innovative Approach to Controlling Magnetism Opens Route to Ultra-Low-Power Microchips

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 14:22:50 +0000

A new approach to controlling magnetism in a microchip could open the doors to memory, computing, and sensing devices that consume drastically less power than existing versions. The approach could also overcome some of the inherent physical limitations that have been slowing progress in this area until now. Researchers at MIT and at Brookhaven National [...]

New Polymer Material Uses Carbon Dioxide to Self‐Repair

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 15:13:32 +0000

A material designed by MIT chemical engineers can react with carbon dioxide from the air, to grow, strengthen, and even repair itself. The polymer, which might someday be used as construction or repair material or for protective coatings, continuously converts the greenhouse gas into a carbon-based material that reinforces itself. The current version of the [...]

Swarms of Nanomachines Could Improve the Efficiency of Any Machine

Thomas Klein, University of Luxembourg — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 13:36:25 +0000

The research team of Prof. Massimiliano Esposito of the University of Luxembourg studied the thermodynamics of small nanomachines. All machines convert one form of energy into another form – for example, a car engine turns the energy stored in fuel into motion energy. Those processes of energy conversion, described by the theory called thermodynamics, don’t [...]

Physicists Manipulate and Control Individual Molecules

Chris Melvin, University of Bath — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 11:39:10 +0000

A new technique will open up research possibilities across the fields of nanoscience and nanophysics. Physicists at the University of Bath have discovered how to manipulate and control individual molecules for a millionth of a billionth of a second, after being intrigued by some seemingly odd results. Their new technique is the most sensitive way [...]

Engineers Develop a New Propulsion System for Nanosatellites

Olga Buhner, Samara University — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 14:51:28 +0000

The scientists of the Inter-University Department of Space Research of Samara University presented a prototype of a propulsion system for the maneuvering nanosatellite SamSat-M. The presentation took place at the IV International Conference “Scientific and Technological Experiments on Automatic Space Vehicles and Small Satellites” (SPEXP) in Samara. The presented propulsion system for the maneuvering nanosatellite [...]

New Technique Allows Engineers To 3D Print Colloidal Crystals

Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 14:34:20 +0000

MIT engineers have united the principles of self-assembly and 3-D printing using a new technique, which they highlight today in the journal Advanced Materials. By their direct-write colloidal assembly process, the researchers can build centimeter-high crystals, each made from billions of individual colloids, defined as particles that are between 1 nanometer and 1 micrometer across. [...]

Cannibalistic Materials Spontaneously Form New Nanostructures

Dawn Levy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 14:21:28 +0000

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory induced a two-dimensional material to cannibalize itself for atomic “building blocks” from which stable structures formed. The findings, reported in Nature Communications, provide insights that may improve the design of 2D materials for fast-charging energy storage and electronic devices. “Under our experimental conditions, titanium and [...]

Researchers Develop A Novel Nanoactuator System

Jussi Toppari, University of Jyväskylä — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:58:59 +0000

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and the University of Tampere (Finland) together with BioNavis Ltd (Finland) have developed a novel nanoactuator system, where the conformation of biomolecules can be tuned by an electric field and probed using optical properties of gold nanoparticle. Over the past decades, nanoactuators for detection or probing of different [...]

Scientists Reveal Mechanism That Helps Malaria Parasites Take Over Blood Cells

Meghan Steele Horan, University of California - Los Angeles — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:43:30 +0000

Researchers from UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the previously unknown mechanism of how proteins from Plasmodium parasites — which cause malaria — are exported into human red blood cells, a process that is vital for parasites to survive in humans. The finding could pave the way for new treatments for malaria. [...]

Engineers Incorporate Optoelectronic Diodes Into Washable Fabrics

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 13:52:50 +0000

The latest development in textiles and fibers is a kind of soft hardware that you can wear: cloth that has electronic devices built right into it. Researchers at MIT have now embedded high-speed optoelectronic semiconductor devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode photodetectors, within fibers that were then woven at Inman Mills, in South Carolina, [...]

Scientists Toughening Graphene by Integrating Carbon Nanotubes

Mike Williams, Rice University — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 15:06:10 +0000

Rice University researchers have found that fracture-resistant “rebar graphene” is more than twice as tough as pristine graphene. Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon. On the two-dimensional scale, the material is stronger than steel, but because graphene is so thin, it is still subject to ripping and tearing. Rebar graphene is the nanoscale analog [...]

On-Chip Optical Filter Provides Cheaper Alternative to “Broadband” Filters

Rob Matheson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 14:16:08 +0000

Silicon-based system offers smaller, cheaper alternative to other “broadband” filters; could improve a variety of photonic devices. MIT researchers have designed an optical filter on a chip that can process optical signals from across an extremely wide spectrum of light at once, something never before available to integrated optics systems that process data using light. [...]

Scientists Create Smallest Robots Yet That Can Sense Their Environment

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Tue, 24 Jul 2018 17:27:12 +0000

Researchers at MIT have created what may be the smallest robots yet that can sense their environment, store data, and even carry out computational tasks. These devices, which are about the size of a human egg cell, consist of tiny electronic circuits made of two-dimensional materials, piggybacking on minuscule particles called colloids. Colloids, which are [...]

MIT Engineered Nanoparticles Boost Immune Cells

Anne Trafton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 12:45:02 +0000

Programming the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells has had promising results for treating blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia. This tactic has proven more challenging for solid tumors such as breast or lung cancers, but MIT researchers have now devised a novel way to boost the immune response against solid tumors. By [...]

Kirigami-Inspired Technique Manipulates Light, Could Enable Microchip-Based 3D Optical Devices

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:50:25 +0000

Nanokirigami has taken off as a field of research in the last few years; the approach is based on the ancient arts of origami (making 3-D shapes by folding paper) and kirigami (which allows cutting as well as folding) but applied to flat materials at the nanoscale, measured in billionths of a meter. Now, researchers [...]

Janus Graft Block Copolymers, A Breakthrough in Nanostructured Materials

SEAS, Yale University — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:30:56 +0000

Block copolymers (BCPs) have been of great interest to researchers in recent years. These nanostructured materials, made from blocks of chemically dissimilar polymers, self-assemble to form microdomains of various morphologies and sizes. They could potentially be used for everything from cleaner water to the next generation of computing. Researchers, however, have been limited by the [...]

MIT Develops Nontoxic Alternative to Water-Repellent Coatings

David L. Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:11:20 +0000

Fabrics that resist water are essential for everything from rainwear to military tents, but conventional water-repellent coatings have been shown to persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies, and so are likely to be phased out for safety reasons. That leaves a big gap to be filled if researchers can find safe substitutes. [...]

Nanoparticles Cure Blood Disorder, Provide Site-Specific Gene Editing

William Weir, Yale University — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 13:30:53 +0000

With the combined efforts of three Yale laboratories, researchers conducted the first demonstration of site-specific gene editing in a fetus, correcting a mutation that causes a severe form of anemia. The technique, described in a paper published June 26 in Nature Communications, involves an intravenous injection of nanoparticles carrying a combination of donor DNA and [...]