#Scientists develop atomic force microscopy for imaging nanoscale dynamics of neurons While progress has been made over the past decades in the pursuit to optimize atomic force microscopy (AFM) for imaging living cells,
and technological issues that needed to be addressed before fundamental questions in cell biology could be address in living cells.
In their March publication in Scientific Reports("Long-tip high-speed atomic force microscopy for nanometer scale imaging in live cells),
"researchers at Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and Kanazawa University describe how they have built the new AFM system optimized for live-cell imaging.
"We've now demonstrated that our new AFM can directly visualize nanometer scale morphological changes in living cells,
According to Dr. Yasuda, the successful observations of structural dynamics in live neurons present the possibility of visualizing the morphology of synapses at nanometer resolution in real time in the near future.
Since morphology changes of synapses underlie synaptic plasticity and our learning and memory, this will provide us with many new insights into mechanisms of how neurons store information in their morphology,
#Nanotechnology may double radio frequency data capacity A team of Columbia Engineering researchers has invented a technology--full-duplex radio integrated circuits (ICS)--that can be implemented in nanoscale CMOS to enable simultaneous transmission and reception
transmitters and receivers either work at different times or at the same time but at different frequencies. The Columbia team, led by Electrical engineering Associate professor Harish Krishnaswamy,
is the first to demonstrate an IC that can accomplish this. The researchers presented their work at the International Solid-state Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San francisco on February 25.
Cosmic (Columbia High-speed and Mm-wave IC) Lab full-duplex transceiver IC that can be implemented in nanoscale CMOS to enable simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency in a wireless radio.
networks can effectively double the frequency spectrum resources available for devices like smartphones and tablets."
and it is clear that today's wireless networks will not be able to support tomorrow's data deluge.
Today's standards, such as 4G LTE, already support 40 different frequency bands, and there is no space left at radio frequencies for future expansion.
At the same time, the grand challenge of the next-generation 5g network is to increase the data capacity by 1, 000 times.
So the ability to have a transmitter and receiver reuse the same frequency has the potential to immediately double the data capacity of today's networks.
Krishnaswamy notes that other research groups and startup companies have demonstrated the theoretical feasibility of simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency,
but no one has yet been able to build tiny nanoscale ICS with this capability.""Our work is the first to demonstrate an IC that can receive
and transmit simultaneously,"he says.""Doing this in an IC is critical if we are to have widespread impact
and bring this functionality to handheld devices such as cellular handsets, mobile devices such as tablets for Wifi,
and in cellular and Wifi base stations to support full duplex communications.""The biggest challenge the team faced with full duplex was canceling the transmitter's echo.
Imagine that you are trying to listen to someone whisper from far away while at the same time someone else is yelling
while standing next to you. If you can cancel the echo of the person yelling,
"explains Jin Zhou, Krishnaswamy's Phd student and the paper's lead author.""Transmitter echo or'self-interference'cancellation has been a fundamental challenge,
especially when performed in a tiny nanoscale IC, and we have found a way to solve that challenge."
"Krishnaswamy and Zhou plan next to test a number of full-duplex nodes to understand what the gains are at the network level."
"We are working closely with Electrical engineering Associate professor Gil Zussman's group, who are network theory experts here at Columbia Engineering,
"Krishnaswamy adds.""It will be very exciting if we are indeed able to deliver the promised performance gains
#Researchers probe nanoscale properties and mechanisms of lubricant films The pistons in your car engine rub up against their cylinder walls thousands of times a minute;
Now, engineers from the University of Pennsylvania and Exxonmobil have teamed up to answer this question. With a vested interest in the chemistry and performance of lubricants, scientists at Exxonmobil worked with scientists at Penn
whose research focuses on nanoscale measurements of friction and lubrication. The team conducted research to probe nanoscale properties and mechanisms of lubricant films and ultimately uncovered the molecular mechanisms behind a common anti-wear additive.
Motor oil contains chemical additives that extend how long engines can run without failure, but, despite decades of ubiquity, how such additives actually work to prevent this damage have remained a mystery.
Now, engineers from the University of Pennsylvania and Exxonmobil have teamed up to answer this question. In their experiments, the tip of an atomic force microscope stands in for an individual point of roughness on engine surfaces.
The tip also provides data on the amount of force necessary to break the additive down into a film that protects the surfaces.
but we still don't understand how it works. We do know that everything that happens during sliding is occurring on the first few atomic layers of the surfaces,
so we have to use the knowledge we have from nanotechnology and apply it to understand what's going on there."
It can also generate byproducts in the exhaust that reduce the lifespan and efficiency of a car's pollutant-reducing catalytic converter.
Additionally, ZDDP does not work as well on the lightweight engine materials eyed as potential replacements for steels."
"Considering the massive use of vehicles, a small gain in efficiency has a big impact in saving energy and reducing carbon emissions annually."
"The surfaces of a piston and cylinder in a car engine may look perfectly smooth to the naked eye,
but, zoomed into the nanometer scale, they might look more like mountain ranges. Absent a buffering layer of a protective film, those peaks,
and quickly wear down due to very high local stresses through direct steel-on-steel contacts. The resulting debris can further increase the friction between the surfaces
An atomic force microscope uses a nanoscale tip much like a record needle. Mounted on a flexible arm,
simulating the environment surrounding a single asperity on a piston surface. They then slid the tip over an iron surface
Limiting it to a single point allows us to control the parameters, like contact stress and geometry,
This"stress activated"process meant that, the harder the tip squeezed and sheared the ZDDP-containing oil between the tip and sample,
"The film that grows is not as stiff as the steel. When you push on a stiff surface,
you get a high stress due to the concentration of force. When you push on a less stiff surface,
so the stress is lower. The thicker the film, the more it acts as a cushion to reduce the stress that is needed to cause the chemical reactions needed to keep growing.
It's self-limiting, or in other words, it has a way of cutting off its own growth".
"Such a discovery would not have been possible without the team's nanoscale approach. Without being able to control the stress
and geometry of a single point of contact and observe the film growth at the same time, there would be no way to connect the pressure threshold with the point at which the film begins to form
"The combination of friction and mechanical pressure enhances the probability of chemical reactions by reducing the energy needed to break
or form bonds. In this case, it helps break down the ZDDP molecules and also helps them react to form the tribofilm on the surface.
Being able to pinpoint the level of stress at which they begin to break down and form tribofilms allows researchers to compare various properties in a more rigorous fashion."
"Nanotechnology's not just for doing cool science, "Gosvami said.""You can bring your industrial products into the lab
there's a lot of opportunity to improve fuel economy in vehicles, but the scientific understanding of how all the additives work is still in development.
#Silicon photonics takes the next step toward a high-bandwidth future The computing and telecommunications industries have ambitious plans for the future:
Systems that will store information in the cloud, analyze enormous amounts of data, and think more like a brain than a standard computer.
Such systems are already being developed, and scientists at IBM Research have demonstrated now what may be an important step toward commercializing this next generation of computing technology.
They established a method to integrate silicon photonic chips with the processor in the same package,
avoiding the need for transceiver assemblies. The new technique, which will be presented 25 march at this year's OFC Conference and Exposition in Los angeles, California,
USA, should lower the cost and increase the performance, energy efficiency and size of future data centers, supercomputers and cloud systems.
Photonic devices, which use photons instead of electrons to transport and manipulate information, offer many advantages compared to traditional electronic links found in today computers.
Optical links can transmit more information over larger distances and are more energy efficient than copper-based links.
To optimally benefit from this technology, a tight integration of the electrical logic and optical transmission functions is required.
The optical chip needs to be as close to the electrical chip as possible to minimize the distance of electrical connection between them.
This can only be accomplished if they are packaged together.""IBM has been a pioneer in the area of CMOS integrated silicon photonics for more than 12 years,
a technology that integrates functions for optical communications on a silicon chip, "said Bert Offrein, manager of the photonics group at IBM Research-Zurich."
"In addition to the silicon technology advancements at the chip-level, novel system-level integration concepts are required also to fully profit from the new capabilities silicon photonics will bring,
"he continued. Optical interconnect technology is incorporated currently into data centers by attaching discrete transceivers or active optical cables,
which come in preassembled building blocks. The prepackaged transceivers are large and expensive, limiting their large-scale use,
Offrein said. Furthermore, such transceivers are mounted at the edge of the board, resulting in a large distance between the processor chip and the optical components.
Offrein and his IBM colleagues from Europe the United states and Japan instead proposed an integration scheme in which the silicon photonic chips are treated similarly to ordinary silicon processor chips
and are attached directly to the processor package without preassembling them into standard transceiver housings. This improves the performance
and power efficiency of the optical interconnects while reducing the cost of assembly. Challenges arise because alignment tolerances in photonics are critical (sub-micron range)
and optical interfaces are sensitive to debris and imperfections, thus requiring the best in packaging technology.
The team demonstrated efficient optical coupling of an array of silicon waveguides to a substrate containing an array of polymer waveguides.
The significant size difference between the silicon waveguides and the polymer waveguides originally presented a major challenge.
The researchers overcame this obstacle by gradually tapering the silicon waveguide, leading to an efficient transfer of the optical signal to the polymer waveguide.
The method is scalable and enables the simultaneous interfacing of many optical connections between a silicon photonic chip and the system.
The optical coupling is also wavelength and polarization insensitive and tolerant to alignment offsets of a few micrometers,
which will lead to computing systems that can process more information at higher performance levels and with better energy efficiency,
"Such systems will be key for future applications in the field of cloud-computing, big data analytics and cognitive computing.
In addition, it will enable novel architectures requiring high communication bandwidth, as for example in disaggregated systems,"Offrein said d
#Cyborg beetle research allows free-flight study of insects (w/video) Hardwiring beetles for radio-controlled flight turns out to be a fitting way to learn more about their biology.
Cyborg insect research led by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is enabling new revelations about a muscle used by beetles for finely graded turns.
By strapping tiny computers and wireless radios onto the backs of giant flower beetles and recording neuromuscular data as the bugs flew untethered,
scientists determined that a muscle known for controlling the folding of wings was also critical to steering.
The researchers then used that information to improve the precision of the beetles'remote-controlled turns.
to be published Monday, March 16, in the journal Current Biology, showcases the potential of wireless sensors in biological research.
"This is a demonstration of how tiny electronics can answer interesting, fundamental questions for the larger scientific community,"said Michel Maharbiz, an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Electrical engineering and Computer sciences and the study's principal investigator."
"Biologists trying to record and study flying insects typically had to do so with the subject tethered.
It had been unclear if tethering interfered with the insect's natural flight motions.""In particular, the researchers said,
"said study lead author Hirotaka Sato, an assistant professor at NTU's School of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering."
The beetle backpack is made up of a tiny, off-the-shelf microcontroller and a built-in wireless receiver and transmitter.
Six electrodes are connected to the beetle's optic lobes and flight muscles. The entire device is powered by a 3. 9-volt micro lithium battery
and weighs 1 to 1. 5 grams.""Beetles are ideal study subjects because they can carry relatively heavy payloads,
who began the work while he was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and has continued the project at NTU."
"We could easily add a small microphone and thermal sensors for applications in search -and-rescue missions.
With this technology, we could safely explore areas not accessible before, such as the small nooks and crevices in a collapsed building."
"During test flights, signals were transmitted to the beetle backpack every millisecond, directing the beetles to take off, turn left or right,
but in a closed room equipped with eight 3-D motion-capture cameras.""In our earlier work using beetles in remote-controlled flight,
#Spherical nucleic acids set stage for new paradigm in nanomedicine drug development A research team led by Northwestern University nanomedicine expert Chad A. Mirkin
and Sergei Gryaznov of Aurasense Therapeutics is the first to show spherical nucleic acids (SNAS) can be used as potent drugs to effectively train the immune system to fight disease,
The initial treatment triggers a cell-specific immune response all over the body. By increasing the body's immune response toward a specific cell type,
SNAS could be used to target anything from influenza to different forms of cancer. They also can be used to suppress the immune response
a tactic important in treating autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, where the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues."
"Once developed fully, SNAS will lay the foundation for developing an entire new pipeline of drugs to treat a range of diseases, from psoriasis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis to lymphoma, bladder cancer and prostate cancer."
"Mirkin is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering.
The study also shows that a spherical structure is the ideal architecture for delivering nucleic acids into cells for therapeutic purposes.
The spherical arrangement of approximately 100 DNA strands attached to a benign nanoparticle core made of lipid
which can result in toxicity. SNAS naturally go to the right place in cells. They enter via the endosome,
The single stranded-dna DNA on the nanoparticle core can be positioned ideally and oriented to specifically and fully interact with the targeted toll-like receptors.
targeting lymphoma and a form of autoimmune hepatitis.""The spherical nucleic acids always win from potency and speed standpoints,
In a study of mice, the researchers tested SNAS against lymphoma. For the animals treated with SNAS,
the researchers found a significant decrease in tumor growth and a doubling of lifespan. The potency was up to an 80-fold increase over linear nucleic acids of the same sequence.
and destroy lymphoma cells. Next, focusing on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the researchers found eightfold increases in potency when animals were treated with SNAS and a 30 percent greater reduction in the animals'fibrosis score.
This observation has significant implications for treating liver cancer and cirrhosis patients.""The beauty of the approach is that a very small amount of drug does a tremendous amount of work,
"Mirkin said.""The SNAS trigger the immune response and, without more drug, additional cells are trained to behave the same way as the initial cells.
This gives you a catalytic effect that grows into a systemic search for cells that look for example, like lymphoma cells."
"Mirkin invented SNAS, new spherical forms of DNA and RNA, at Northwestern in 1996. SNAS are nontoxic to humans,
making them a versatile tool in medicine. The current study's results show, Mirkin said,
that if you want to make vaccines out of nucleic acids or if you want to modulate the immune system using nucleic acids, for vaccines or systemic suppression therapies,
then the spherical nucleic acid architecture is likely the most potent t
#Nanospheres cooled with light to explore the limits of quantum physics A team of scientists at UCL led by Peter Barker
and Tania Monteiro (UCL Physics and Astronomy) has developed a new technology which could one day create quantum phenomena in objects far larger than any achieved so far.
The team successfully suspended glass particles 400 nanometres across in a vacuum using an electric field,
The study is published today in the journal Physical Review Letters("Cavity cooling a single charged nanoparticle".
"Nanospheres were cooled with light to explore the limits of quantum physics. Image: James Millen et al. Quantum phenomena are strange and unfamiliar.
where the position or energy of a particle exists in two or more states at the same time and entanglement,
Widely-used technologies, such as laser cooling, that work for atoms won't work for such large objects,
and draw motional energy out of it at the same time. However since the laser light can sometimes actually heat the objects up this method has not been shown to work before."
"Our solution was to combine the laser beam that cools the glass particle with an electric field
"The electric field also gently moves the glass particle around inside the laser beam, helping it lose temperature more effectively."
"The team are still a few degrees short of the temperature required to create quantum behaviour in the glass nanospheres,
And once sufficiently cooled, the team believes the nanospheres should behave according to quantum principles. Once successfully implemented, the technology could allow for highly accurate motion sensors that could detect the slightest tremor,
to key tools in quantum computer networks. Since the particles currently used in quantum experiments are tiny,
Observing quantum effects in large and heavy objects like these nanoparticles would also shed light on the role of gravity in quantum physics s
#Revolutionary 3-D printing technology uses continuous liquid interface production (w/video) A 3d printing technology developed by Silicon valley startup,
and creates previously unachievable geometries that open opportunities for innovation not only in health care and medicine,
Joseph M. Desimone, professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel hill and of chemical engineering at N c. State, is currently CEO of Carbon3d where he co-invented the method with colleagues Alex Ermoshkin, chief technology officer
at Carbon 3d and Edward T. Samulski, also professor of chemistry at UNC. Currently on sabbatical from the University, Desimone has focused on bringing the technology to market,
while also creating new opportunities for graduate students to use the technique for research in materials science and drug delivery at UNC and NCSU.
The technology called CLIP-for Continuous Liquid Interface Production-manipulates light and oxygen to fuse objects in liquid media,
It works by projecting beams of light through an oxygen-permeable window into a liquid resin.
including elastomers, silicones, nylon-like materials, ceramics and biodegradable materials. The technique itself provides a blueprint for synthesizing novel materials that can further research in materials science.
Rima Janusziewicz and Ashley R. Johnson, graduate students in Desimone's academic lab, are co-authors on the paper
and are working on novel applications in drug delivery and other areas.""In addition to using new materials,
dental implants or prosthetics to be 3d printed on-demand in a medical setting.""CLIP's debut coincides with the United Nation designating 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-Based Technologies,
#A nanomaterial to heal broken bones A new material that triggers stem cells to begin forming bone could enable a more effective treatment for hard-to-heal bone breaks
and defects, says a Texas A&m University biomedical engineer who is part of the team developing the biomaterial.
Its findings could change the way medical professionals treat fractured bones that experience difficulty in healing
says Akhilesh Gaharwar, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Texas A&m. The biomaterial, which consists of nano-sized,
forming a material that helps trigger bone formation within the body. We are trying to overcome these problems by avoiding the use of growth factors as we recapitulate the natural bone-healing process,
which by using minerals we can induce differentiation in stem cells and promote formation of bonelike tissue.
Those minerals, Gaharwar explains, are largely orthosilicic acid, magnesium and lithium combined in tiny nanosilicate particles that are 100,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper.
The ultrathin nanoparticles are embedded in a collagen-based hydrogel a biodegradable gel used in several biomedical applications because of its compatibility with the body.
When nanosilicates are incorporated into a gelatin matrix, several physical, chemical and biological properties of the hydrogel are enhanced,
Gaharwar explains. For example, the hydrogel can be designed to remain at the injury site for specific durations by controlling the interactions between the nanosilicates and gelatin,
Gaharwar adds. This customization, Gaharwar says, can allow the injected hydrogel to enter the defect cavity
In addition to its ability to be injected at the site of an injury, the material achieves three-to-four times higher stiffness once inside the body,
The dynamic and bioactive nanocomposite gels we have developed show strong promise in bone tissue engineering applications,
As part of future research, Gaharwar plans further investigation into the process by which the nanoplatelets trigger cell differentiation.
vascularized scaffolds that employ the material and could be inserted surgically at the site of more serious injuries where injection is not an option.
would allow the injury site to receive blood flow as part of the enhanced healing process initiated by the nanoparticles.
Based on our strong preliminary studies, we predict that these highly biofunctional particles have immense potential to be used in biomedical applications
#Energy-generating nanopatterened cloth could replace batteries From light up shoes to smart watches, wearable electronics are gaining traction among consumers,
but these gadgets'versatility is held still back by the stiff, short-lived batteries that are required. These limitations,
however, could soon be overcome. In the journal ACS Nano("Nanopatterned Textile-Based Wearable Triboelectric Nanogenerator"),scientists report the first durable,
flexible cloth that harnesses human motion to generate energy. It can also self-charge batteries
or supercapacitors without an external power source and make new commercial and medical applications possible.
A new kind of material can harness energy from human movement and use it to light up a small LCD display.
American Chemical Society) Sang-Woo Kim and colleagues point out that the potential of wearable electronics extends far beyond the flashy and convenient.
Small, lightweight devices could play life-changing roles as robotic skin or in other biomedical applications.
But to maximize their utility, such electronics need an ultra-flexible, long-lasting energy source that is seamlessly incorporated into the device's design.
For a possible solution, Kim's team turned to the emerging technology of"triboelectric nanogenerators,
"or TNGS, which harvest energy from everyday motion. The researchers created a novel TNG fabric out of a silvery textile coated with nanorods and a silicon-based organic material.
When they stacked four pieces of the cloth together and pushed down on the material,
it captured the energy generated from the pressure. The material immediately pumped out that energy,
which was used to power light-emitting diodes, a liquid crystal display and a vehicle's keyless entry remote. The cloth worked for more than 12,000 cycles.
Also read our Nanowerk Spotlight on this research: On route to self-powered smart suits s
#Breakthrough in nonlinear optics research A method to selectively enhance or inhibit optical nonlinearities in a chip-scale device has been developed by scientists,
led by the University of Sydney. The researchers from the Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems,(CUDOS) based at the University of Sydney published their results in Nature Communications today("Enhancing
and inhibiting stimulated Brillouin scattering in photonic integrated circuits")."from left: Professor Benjamin Eggleton, Thomas Bttner and Moritz Merklein, researchers from CUDOS at the University of Sydney with the chalcogenide photonic chip.
This breakthrough is a fundamental advance for research in photonic chips and optical communications, said Moritz Merklein,
lead author from the Universitys School of Physics. In optical communications systems optical nonlinearities are regarded often as a nuisance,
which corrupts the flow of information. But at the same time there are many useful applications that harness these nonlinear effects.
We showed that we can dramatically enhance the optical nonlinearity so that it can be made even more useful.
On the other hand we showed that we can completely suppress the same nonlinear optical effects using the same principle.
Importantly our experiments were performed in a photonic chip. To achieve their result the scientists investigated a specific optical nonlinearity that deals with the interaction between light
and sound on chip scale devices. The effect we looked at (known as stimulated Brillouin scattering) occurs
when two optical waves and an acoustic wave interact. If the optical wave travelling along a fibre is disrupted-scattered-by the acoustic wave,
it produces a backward traveling wave, called the Stokes wave. This nonlinear scattering process can cause signal distortions in fibre communications
and signal processing applications and is well known to limit the capacity of optical fiber communications networks. While we want to avoid this disruption this effect has also some unique properties
which can be harnessed for important applications in manipulating microwave signals and developing certain types of lasers.
So we have shown that we can selectively enhance or inhibit this interaction, depending on the context or application.
To address this, the researchers introduced a grating structure on to the chip. The grating,
which comprises a small modulation in the optical material properties, forms a bandgap for light,
which strongly effects the propagation of light, in the same way that semiconductors control the flow of electrons.
When the laser wavelength is tuned close to the edge of the bandgap the speed of light is reduced. This will greatly enhance the optical nonlinearity.
At a slightly different frequency, the bandgap will completely inhibit (or suppress) the optical nonlinearity.
On-chip optical research is a thriving and competitive area because of its importance to manipulating classical
computing and information processing applications, said CUDOS director and co-author Ben Eggleton. I am delighted our CUDOS team at the University of Sydney
in collaboration with our CUDOS colleagues at the Australian National University have achieved this fundamental important result t
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