co-senior author of a paper describing the work and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel hill.
The technology consists of an elastic film that is studded with biocompatible microcapsules. These microcapsules, in turn, are packed with nanoparticles that can be filled with drugs.
Heres how it works: The microcapsules stick halfway out of the film, on the side of the film that touches a patients skin.
The drugs leak slowly out of the nanoparticles and are stored in the microcapsules. When the elastic film is stretched,
it also stretches the microcapsules enlarging the surface area of the microcapsule and effectively squeezing some of the stored drug out onto the patients skin,
says Yong Zhu, co-senior author of the paper and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State.
the microcapsule is recharged by the drugs that continue to leak out of the nanoparticles. This can be used to apply drugs directly to sites on the skin,
such as applying anticancer medications to melanomas or applying growth factors and antibiotics for wound healing, says Jin Di,
co-lead author and a Ph d student in Gus lab. The researchers also incorporated microneedles into the system, applying them on top of the microcapsules.
In this configuration, the drugs can be squeezed through the microneedles. The microneedles are small enough to be painless,
and a Ph d student in Zhus lab. Were now exploring how this tool can be used to apply drugs efficiently
genomic profiling and environmental impact studies. However, since most cell-based assays rely on population-averaged measurements,
at least with respect to a chosen trait, could significantly aid basic biological research and development of high-throughput assays, says John Slater, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Delaware.
Now, Slater and a team of researchers from Duke university, Baylor College of Medicine and Rice university have developed an image-based,
cell-derived patterning strategy that produces arrays of homogeneous cells with anatomical properties that mimic the cells from
biomimetic patterning strategy that produces a more homogeneous cell population for high-throughput cellular assays.
The work is reported in a paper published in ACS Nano("Recapitulation and Modulation of the Cellular Architecture of a User-Chosen Cell of Interest Using Cell-Derived,
Biomimetic Patterning")."An important feature of the technique is that it could provide a means to decouple the influences of several factors on mechanotransduction-mediated processes,
a term that refers to the many mechanisms by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into biochemical activity.
These factors include cytoskeletal structure, adhesion dynamics and intracellular tension, which combine to govern signaling functions within cells and ultimately cell fate.
In addition, it could allow for direct recapitulation of the tension state of a user-chosen cell in a large population of patterned cells.
The ability to fine-tune cytoskeletal architecture, adhesion site dynamics and the distribution of intracellular forces through simple on the fly-fly pattern modifications provides an unprecedented level of control over cytoskeletal mechanics,
In contrast, with the new technique, a cell of interest can be chosen based on simple image analysis of protein expression
Such a tool could prove extremely useful in investigating the influence of subtle local environmental changes on cell behavior, for example, stem cell differentiation,
& Astronomy at Stony Brook University, is one outside earths solar system at 100 light years away.
Stanimir Metchev, a Physics & Astronomy Professor at Western University in Canada and at Stony Brook University, is a co-investigator on the scientific study,
along with Rahul I. Patel, a Phd student in Stony Brooks Department of physics & Astronomy. They are both members of the international Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) team
The new planet is called 51 Eridani b. The GPI is a new astronomy instrument operated by an international collaboration headed by Bruce Macintosh, a Professor of Physics in the Kavli Institute at Stanford.
and ice in the planetary system,"explains Professor Metchev. These are much like the dust
"Metchev's team conducted a study with data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE TO search for any thermal glow that such dust
who led the WISE study and whose previous work identifying recycled planetary dust, known as debris disks, around close to a hundred other star systems, puts the discovery of the exoplanet in context.
"And more data from the European space agency's Herschel Space observatory reveal that 51 Eridani is surrounded also by a more distant and colder cometary belt, much like the Kuiper belt of comets beyond Neptune in the Solar system."
a little more massive than our sun a perfect target,"says James Graham, a professor at UC Berkeley and Project Scientist for GPI.
"When planets coalesce, material falling into the planet releases energy and heats it up. Over the next hundred millions years they radiate that energy away,
mostly as infrared light,"says Macintosh. Once the astronomers zeroed in on the star, they blocked its light
#Black phosphorus surges ahead of graphene A Korean team of scientists tune BP's band gap to form a superior conductor,
and optoelectronics devices("Observation of tunable bandgap and anisotropic Dirac semimetal state in black phosphorus").The research team operating out of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH),
affiliated with the Institute for Basic Science's (IBS) Center for Artificial Low Dimensional Electronic systems (CALDES), reported a tunable band gap in BP,
and optimization of electronic and optoelectronic devices like solar panels and telecommunication lasers. black phosphorus To truly understand the significance of the team's findings,
a layered form of carbon atoms constructed to resemble honeycomb, called graphene. Graphene was heralded globally as a wonder-material thanks to the work of two British scientists who won the Nobel prize for Physics for their research on it.
Graphene is extremely thin and has remarkable attributes. It is stronger than steel yet many times lighter
more conductive than copper and more flexible than rubber. All these properties combined make it a tremendous conductor of heat and electricity.
A defect-free layer is also impermeable to all atoms and molecules. This amalgamation makes it a terrifically attractive material to apply to scientific developments in a wide variety of fields, such as electronics, aerospace and sports.
For all its dazzling promise there is however a disadvantage; graphene has no band gap. Stepping stones to a Unique State A material's band gap is fundamental to determining its electrical conductivity.
Imagine two river crossings, one with tightly-packed stepping-stones, and the other with large gaps between stones.
The former is far easier to traverse because a jump between two tightly-packed stones requires less energy.
A band gap is much the same; the smaller the gap the more efficiently the current can move across the material and the stronger the current.
Graphene has a band gap of zero in its natural state, however, and so acts like a conductor;
the semiconductor potential can't be realized because the conductivity can't be shut off, even at low temperatures.
This obviously dilutes its appeal as a semiconductor, as shutting off conductivity is a vital part of a semiconductor's function.
Birth of a Revolution Phosphorus is the fifteenth element in the periodic table and lends its name to an entire class of compounds.
Indeed it could be considered an archetype of chemistry itself. Black phosphorus is the stable form of white phosphorus
Like graphene, BP is a semiconductor and also cheap to mass produce. The one big difference between the two is BP's natural band gap
allowing the material to switch its electrical current on and off. The research team tested on few layers of BP called phosphorene
an amiable professor stationed at POSTECH speaks in rapid bursts when detailing the experiment, "We transferred electrons from the dopant-potassium-to the surface of the black phosphorus,
which is required what we to tune the size of the band gap.""This process of transferring electrons is known as doping
which tuned the band gap allowing the valence and conductive bands to move closer together, effectively lowering the band gap
and drastically altering it to a value between 0. 0 0. 6 Electron volt (ev) from its original intrinsic value of 0. 35 ev.
Professor Kim explained, "Graphene is a Dirac semimetal. It's more efficient in its natural state than black phosphorus
but it's difficult to open its band gap; therefore we tuned BP's band gap to resemble the natural state of graphene, a unique state of matter that is different from conventional semiconductors."
"The potential for this new improved form of black phosphorus is beyond anything the Korean team hoped for,
and very soon it could potentially be applied to several sectors including engineering where electrical engineers can adjust the band gap
#New optical chip lights up the race for quantum computer The microprocessor inside a computer is a single multipurpose chip that has revolutionised people's life,
allowing them to use one machine to surf the web, check emails and keep track of finances.
Now, researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in Japan, have pulled off the same feat for light in the quantum world by developing an optical chip that can process photons in an infinite number
of ways. It's a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs
superfast database searches, and performing otherwise intractable mathematics that aren't possible for super computers.
The fully reprogrammable chip brings together a multitude of existing quantum experiments and can realise a plethora of future protocols that have not even been conceived yet, marking a new era of research for quantum scientists and engineers at the cutting edge of quantum technologies.
The work is published in the journal Science on 14 august("Universal linear optics"."Since before Newton held a prism to a ray of sunlight and saw a spectrum of colour,
scientists have understood nature through the behaviour of light. In the modern age of research, scientists are striving to understand nature at the quantum level
"A whole field of research has essentially been put onto a single optical chip that is easily controlled.
The implications of the work go beyond the huge resource savings. Now anybody can run their own experiments with photons,
much like they operate any other piece of software on a computer. They no longer need to convince a physicist to devote many months of their life to painstakingly build
"The team demonstrated the chip's unique capabilities by reprogramming it to rapidly perform a number of different experiments, each
Bristol Phd student Jacques Carolan, one of the researchers, added:""Once we wrote the code for each circuit,
it took seconds to re-programme the chip, and milliseconds for the chip to switch to the new experiment.
We carried out a year's worth of experiments in a matter of hours. What we're really excited about is using these chips to discover new science that we haven't even thought of yet."
"The device was made possible because the world's leading quantum photonics group teamed up with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), the world's leading telecommunications company.
Professor Jeremy O'brien, Director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics at Bristol University, explained:""Over the last decade, we have established an ecosystem for photonic quantum technologies,
allowing the best minds in quantum information science to hook up with established research and engineering expertise in the telecommunications industry.
It's a model that we need to encourage if we are to realise our vision for a quantum computer."
"The University of Bristol's pioneering'Quantum in the Cloud'is the first and only service to make a quantum processor publicly accessible
and plans to add more chips like this one to the service so others can discover the quantum world for themselves s
#Scientists achieve major breakthrough in thin-film magnetism Recent work by a team of scientists working in Singapore, The netherlands,
Image of the magnetic fields recorded by scanning a tiny superconducting coil over the surface of a Lamno3 film grown on a substrate crystal.
NUS)( click on image to enlarge) The team from the National University of Singapore (NUS)- Mr Li Changjian, a graduate student from the NUS Graduate school for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, Assistant professor Ariando and Professor
T Venky Venkatesan led to the discovery of this new magnetic phenomenon by growing perfectly-crystalline atomic layers of a manganite, an oxide of lanthanum and manganese {Lamno3},
on a substrate crystal of nonmagnetic strontium titanate using a method pulsed laser deposition developed many years ago for high-temperature superconductors and multicomponent materials by Prof Venkatesan,
who now heads the NUS Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute (NUSNNI). The manganite is an antiferromagnet
when it is atomically thin and shows no magnetism. The new discovery is that its magnetism is switched on abruptly when the number of Manganese atomic layers changes from 5 to 6 or more.
The conjecture is that this arises from an avalanche of electrons from the top surface of the film to the bottom,
This shift of electric charge occurs as the manganese atomic layers form atomically charged capacitors leading to the build up of an electric field, known as polar catastrophe
inside the manganite. As a consequence of this charge transfer, the manganite layer switches to a strongly ferromagnetic state,
as could be visualised by a magnetic microscopy technique called Scanning SQUID Microscopy. This was conducted by Dr Xiao Renshaw Wang,
who is a Phd graduate from NUSNNI, working with Professor Hans Hilgenkamp at the MESA+Institute of the University of Twente in The netherlands.
The work validates the polar catastrophe model, and it shows how the addition of just one extra atomic layer can transform the magnetism.
The team plans to use local electric fields to controllably turn on/off the magnetism of its 5-layer films
and explore potential applications in microwave devices and magnetic recording. With magnetic memory elements approaching nano dimensions, this technique promises new approaches in magnetic recording and computing g
#Engineers'sandwich'atomic layers to make new materials for energy storage The scientists whose job it is to test the limits of what nature--specifically chemistry--will allow to exist, just set up shop on some new real estate on the Periodic table.
Drexel University researchers are testing an array of new combinations that may vastly expand the options available to create faster, smaller, more efficient energy storage, advanced electronics and wear-resistant materials.
Phd, a team from Drexel's Department of Materials science and engineering created the material-making method, that can sandwich 2-D sheets of elements that otherwise couldn't be combined in a stable way.
"By'sandwiching'one or two atomic layers of a transition metal like titanium, between monoatomic layers of another metal, such as molybdenum,
Double Transition metals Carbides (MXENES)")is significant because it represents a new way of combining elemental materials to form the building blocks of energy storage technology--such as batteries, capacitors and supercapacitors,
as well as superstrong composites--like the ones used in phone cases and body armor. Each new combination of atom-thick layers presents new properties
and researchers suspect that one, or more, of these new materials will exhibit energy storage and durability properties so disproportional to its size that it could revolutionize technology in the future."
it is safe to say that this discovery enables the field of materials science and nanotechnology to move into an uncharted territory,
"Anasori said. Mastering Materials Combining two-dimensional sheets of elements in an organized way to produce new materials has been the goal of Drexel nanomaterials researchers for more than a decade.
Imposing this sort of organization at the atomic level is no easy task.""Due to their structure and electric charge, certain elements just don t'like'to be combined,
"Anasori said.""It's like trying to stack magnets with the poles facing the same direction--you're not going to be very successful
which was discovered by Distinguished Professor Michel W. Barsoum, Phd, head of the MAX/MXENE Research Group, more than two decades ago.
That order was imposed by Michel W. Barsoum, Phd and Yury Gogotsi, Phd, Distinguished University and Trustee Chair professor in the College of Engineering and head of the Drexel Nanomaterials Group
was the first two-dimensional material to be touted for its potential energy storage capabilities. But, as it was made up of only one element, carbon,
The new MXENES have surfaces that can store more energy. An Elemental Impasse Four years later, the researchers have worked their way through the section of the Periodic table with elements called"transition metals"
producing MAX phases and etching them into MXENES of various compositions all the while testing their energy storage properties.
it can use this method to make as many as 25 new materials with combinations of transition metals, such as molybdenum and titanium,
"Anasori plans to make more materials by replacing titanium with other metals, such as vanadium, niobium,
"We see possible applications in thermoelectrics, batteries, catalysis, solar cells, electronic devices, structural composites and many other fields, enabling a new level of engineering on the atomic scale
#A new material for transparent electronics he performance of solar cells, flat panel displays, and other electronics are limited by today's materials.
A new material, created by modifying a transparent insulating oxide, replacing up to 25 percent of the lanthanum ions in the host material with strontium ions, offers considerable promise.
The new perovskite film, with the formula Srxla1-xcro3,(x up to 0. 25), conducts electricity more effectively than the unmodified oxide and yet retains much of the transparency to visible light exhibited by the pure material.
Materials that are both electrically conductive and optically transparent are needed for more efficient solar cells, light detectors, and several kinds of electronic devices that are by nature transparent to visible light.
Of particular importance are new materials that conduct electricity by using missing electrons, otherwise known as"holes."
"The new perovskite film falls into this category. The development of high-performance transparent conducting oxides (TCOS) is critical to many technologies ranging from flat panel displays to solar cells.
Although electron conducting (n-type) TCOS are presently in use in many devices, their hole-conducting (p-type) counterparts have not been commercialized as candidate materials
because they exhibit much lower conductivities. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory along with collaborators at Binghamton University and the Paul Drude Institute in Berlin show that La1-xsrxcro3 (LSCO) is a new p-type TCO with considerable potential.
The researchers demonstrate that crystalline LSCO films deposited on Srtio3 (001) by molecular beam epitaxy show figures of merit
which are highly competitive with best p-type TCOS reported to date, and yet are more stable and structurally compatible with the workhorse materials of oxide electronics,
as seen in the image. Being structurally and chemically compatible with other perovskite oxides, perovksite LSCO offers considerable promise in the design of all-perovskite oxide electronics s
#Unusual magnetic behavior observed at a material interface An exotic kind of magnetic behavior, driven by the mere proximity of two materials, has been analyzed by a team of researchers at MIT
which blocks electricity from flowing through all of its bulk but whose surface is, by contrast, a very good electrical conductor.
In the new work, a layer of topological insulator material is bonded to a ferromagnetic layer.
"written by MIT doctoral student Mingda Li, postdoc Cui-Zu Chang, professor of nuclear science and engineering Ju Li, senior scientist Jagadeesh Moodera,
This roximity magnetismeffect could create an energy gap, a necessary feature for transistors, in a topological insulator, making it possible to turn a device off and on as a potential building block for spintronics,
says Mingda Li, the lead author of the paper. owever, the proximity effect is usually weak,
Possible applications of the new findings include the creation of spintronics, transistors based on the spin of particles rather than their charge.
So having this precise control of the magnetic structure could lead to novel quantum spintronics.
in addition to near-term practical applications, rom a physics point of view, opens up a huge area of productive work.
he says. he significance of this work is threefold, says Qi-Kun Xue, a professor of physics at Tsinghua University in China who was involved not in this work.
The three areas, he says, are o demonstrate proximity magnetism, the enhancement of such magnetism and the tunability of this interfacial magnetic structure.
Now Northwestern University engineers have examined a wide variety of surfaces that can do just that--and, better yet,
The valleys in the surface roughness typically need to be less than one micron in width, the researchers found.
That's really small--less than one millionth of a meter--but these nanoscopic valleys have macroscopic impact.
Understanding how the surfaces deflect water so well means the valuable feature could be reproduced in other materials on a mass scale, potentially saving billions of dollars in a variety of industries,
That's science and engineering, not serendipity, at work for the benefit of the economy.""The trick is to use rough surfaces of the right chemistry
and demonstrate the nanoscale mechanics behind the phenomenon of staying dry underwater. In their experiments, the researchers used a variety of materials with
and without the key surface roughness and submerged them in water. Samples with the nanoscale roughness remained dry for up to four months
the duration of the experiment. Other samples were placed in harsh environments, where dissolved gas was removed from the ambient liquid,
and they also remained dry.""It was amazing and what we were hoping for, "said Patankar, a professor of mechanical engineering in the Mccormick School of engineering and Applied science."
"My lab likes to defy normal experience. In this work, we looked for properties that manipulate the water phase changes we know."
"The researchers also report that nature uses the same strategy of surface roughness in certain aquatic insects, such as water bugs and water striders.
Small hairs on the surfaces of their body have the less than-one-micron spacing, allowing gas to be retained between the hairs."
He is a Ph d. student in Patankar's research group. The researchers focused on the nanoscopic structure of surfaces,
which, at the nanoscale, are somewhat akin to the texture of a carpet, with tiny spike-like elevations separated by valley-shaped pores in between.
When submerged, water tends to cling to the top of the spikes, while air and water vapor accrue in the pores between them.
#Information storage and retrieval in a single levitating colloidal particle Thanks to this new technique developed by scientists at the University of Zurich,
colloidal nanoparticles may play a role in digital technologies of the future. Nanoparticles can be displaced rapidly,
require little energy and their small footprint offers large storage capacity all these attributes make them well suited to new data storage applications or high-resolution displays.
A nanorod is switched between two states bright (high signal) and dark (low signal) by an external electrical pulse (red trace).
The state of the rod can be readout instantaneously at any time using polarized light.
The rod stores the most recently written state until the arrival of the next'write pulse'.('click on image to enlarge) Colloids are minute particles that are distributed finely throughout a liquid.
Suspensions of colloidal particles are most familiar to us as beverages, cosmetics and paints. At a diameter in the range of ten to one hundred nanometres, a single such particle is invisible to the naked eye.
These nanoparticles are constantly in motion due to the principle of Brownian motion. Since the particles are charged electrically,
they experience forces of attraction and repulsion that can be harnessed to control and manipulate their behavior.
Professor of Physical chemistry at the University of Zurich, succeeded in the controlled spatial manipulation of matter on the nanometer scale.
In a new study, she and her colleagues have demonstrated now that it is not only possible to spatially confine nanoparticles,
Manipulation using electrical and optical signals The UZH researchers have developed a method that makes it possible to create nanostructures
This new approach using intermolecular interactions at room termperature does not require ultracold temperatures. The new technology also offers extremely fast and low-friction operation.
"Nanoparticles possess properties that are very useful for digital technologies, and each individual particle can now be used to store
and retrieve data, "explains Madhavi Krishnan. The targeted manipulation of individual nanoparticles opens up new options for their application,
including in future data storage media or in displays with resolutions that have thus far been hard to attain."
"This makes possible displays along the lines of the Kindle reader with a pixel size that is thousand times smaller and a much faster response time,
"the scientist explains s
#New research could help build computers from DNA Scientists have found a way to'switch'the structure of DNA using copper salts
and EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid)- an agent commonly found in shampoo and other household products. It was known previously that the structure of a piece of DNA could be changed using acid,
which causes it to fold up into what is known as an'i-motif'.'But new research published today in the journal Chemical Communications("Reversible DNA
The applications for this discovery include nanotechnology-where DNA is used to make tiny machines, and in DNA-based computing-where computers are built from DNA rather than silicon.
It could also be used for detecting the presence of copper cations, which are highly toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms, in water.
Lead researcher Dr Zo Waller, from UEA's school of Pharmacy, said:""Our research shows how the structure of our genetic material-DNA-can be changed
and used in a way we didn't realise.""A single switch was possible before -but we show for the first time how the structure can be switched twice."
"A potential application of this finding could be to create logic gates for DNA based computing.
Logic gates are an elementary building block of digital circuits-used in computers and other electronic equipment. They are made traditionally using diodes or transistors
which act as electronic switches.""This research expands how DNA could be used as a switching mechanism for a logic gate in DNA-based computing or in nano-technology
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