Soldering wounds with light and nano thermometers

Jan 16, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Not every wound can be closed with needle and thread. Empa researchers have now developed a soldering process with nanoparticles that gently fuses tissue. The soldering technique is expected to prevent wound healing disorders and life-threatening complications from leaking sutures. The team recently published the...

Tailored nanograins enable greener ammonia production

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Ammonia is indispensable for producing the fertilizers and chemicals that sustain food and material production for billions globally. However, conventional industrial scale ammonia synthesis comes at great environmental costs. The predominant century-old Haber-Bosch method accounts for over 2% of energy use worldwide, while generating substantial...

New research opens doors to next-generation memristive devices

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Memristive devices constitute a category of devices capable of retaining their internal resistance, thus offering superior performance compared to conventional devices that use integrated circuits. Several materials have been explored to manufacture these devices. In recent years, transition metal oxides have gradually become widely popular...

Tracking molecules at turbo speed

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Being able to observe micro-organisms and their cellular components is key to understanding fundamental processes that go on inside cells—and thus potentially developing new medical treatments. Microbiologists and biophysicists from the University of Bonn have now developed a method that makes the high-throughput process for...

Breakthrough method enables scalable hexagonal boron nitride synthesis for superior corrosion protection

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Industrial metals face an unrelenting threat from corrosion and degradation that drains trillions annually. Yet effective large-scale protection has remained elusive, frustrating both structural engineers and asset managers alike. Advanced coatings once seemed poised to deliver a breakthrough after graphene isolation enabled investigation of other...

Physicists identify overlooked uncertainty in real-world experiments like optical tweezers

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) The equations that describe physical systems often assume that measurable features of the system — temperature or chemical potential, for example — can be known exactly. But the real world is messier than that, and uncertainty is unavoidable. Temperatures fluctuate, instruments malfunction, the environment interferes,...

‘Optical fingerprints’ on an electron beam

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) The precise control of electron beams in so-called transmission electron microscopes (TEM) makes it possible to analyze materials or molecules at the atomic level. Combined with short light pulses, these devices can also be used to analyze dynamic processes. Researchers from Göttingen and Switzerland have...

Bladder tumors reduced by 90% using nanorobots

Jan 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Bladder cancer has one of the highest incidence rates in the world and ranks as the fourth most common tumour in men. Despite its relatively low mortality rate, nearly half of bladder tumours resurface within 5 years, requiring ongoing patient monitoring. Frequent hospital visits and...