Dec 08, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Photonic time crystals consist of materials with uniform composition in space but properties that vary periodically over time. With this periodic variation, the spectral composition of light can be modulated and amplified as needed – key capabilities for optical information processing. “This gives us new...
Straining a material’s atomic arrangement may make for cleaner, smarter devices
Dec 06, 2024 (Nanowerk News) What’s the best way to precisely manipulate a material’s properties to the desired state? It may be straining the material’s atomic arrangement, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. The team discovered that “atomic spray painting” of potassium niobate, a material used...
Revealing elusive electron behavior in metal-organic framework photocatalysts
Dec 06, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Transforming sunlight into chemical energy is one of nature's most elegant tricks. Scientists studying artificial versions of this process have long struggled to track the fleeting movements of electrons that occur when light strikes a catalyst - the material that speeds up chemical reactions. These...
Scalable robotic fibres with light-emitting, self-healing and magnetic properties
Dec 06, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A team of interdisciplinary scientists from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering under the College of Design and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed flexible fibres with self-healing, light-emitting and magnetic properties. The Scalable Hydrogel-clad Ionotronic Nickel-core Electroluminescent (SHINE) fibre...
Thin coating of MXene material could replace thick layers of insulation
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk News) In everyday life, materials that conduct electricity well, like metals, also tend to conduct heat. For instance, a metal spoon left in a hot cup of tea will get hot, while the ceramic mug remains cool. This is because good electrical conductors are usually good...
Octahedral DNA origami with nanopores enhances protein detection at low levels
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk News) SMU Lyle mechanical engineering graduate student Kamruzzaman Joty has introduced a groundbreaking new technique in nanotechnology for detecting and analyzing biomolecules, potentially paving the way for new methods of early disease detection. The study, recently featured on the cover of Analytical Chemistry ("DNA Origami Incorporated...
A film capacitor that can take the heat
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and several collaborating institutions have successfully demonstrated a machine-learning technique to accelerate discovery of materials for film capacitors — crucial components in electrification and renewable energy technologies. The technique was used to screen a library of nearly 50,000 chemical...
Vertical transistor design enables stretchy bioelectronic devices to better interface with human tissue
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) The seamless integration of electronic devices with living tissue remains one of the most significant challenges in bioelectronics. Traditional electronic components are rigid and brittle, while biological tissues are soft and flexible. This fundamental mismatch has limited the development of advanced medical devices that can...
Superconducting qubit baths give clean simulation of quantum transport
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from Singapore and China have used a superconducting quantum processor to study the phenomenon of quantum transport in unprecedented detail. A better understanding of quantum transport, which can refer to the flow of particles, magnetisation, energy or information through a quantum channel, could propel...
Astronomers witness the in situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies
Dec 05, 2024 (Nanowerk News) An international team of researchers including The University of Tokyo Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) has found evidence showing that old elliptical galaxies in the universe can form from intense star formation within early galaxy cores. This...