#Quantum dot technology makes LCD TVS more colorful energy-efficient If LCD TVS start getting much more colorful and energy-efficient in the next few years,
it will probably be thanks to MIT spinout QD Vision, a pioneer of quantum dot television displays.
Quantum dots are light-emitting semiconductor nanocrystals that can be tuned by changing their size, nanometer by nanometer to emit all colors across the visible spectrum.
By tuning these dots to red and green, and using a blue backlight to energize them,
Last June, Sony used QD Vision product, called Color IQ, in millions of its Bravia riluminostelevisions, marking the first-ever commercial quantum dot display.
and others developed a pioneering technique for producing quantum dot LEDS (QLEDS). To do so, they sandwiched a layer of quantum dots, a few nanometers thick, between two organic thin films.
When electrically charged, the dots illuminated a light bulb 25 times more efficiently than traditional devices.
became a landmark in the quantum dot-devices field. oon venture capitalists were calling Vladimir, asking if we spin a company out,
quantum dot displays. aking a transition like that from lighting to displays tests the nerves of folks involved, from top to bottom,
and last year became the first to market with a quantum dot display. Today, QD Vision remains one of only two quantum dot display companies that have seen their products go to market.
Now, with a sharp rise in commercial use, quantum dot technologies are positioned to penetrate the display industry
Coe-Sullivan says. Along with Color IQ-powered LCD TVS, Amazon released a quantum dot Kindle last year,
and Asus has a quantum dot notebook. nd there nothing in between that quantum dots can address,
he says. In the future, Coe-Sullivan adds, QD Vision may even go back and tackle its first challenge:
and value proposition for quantum dot lighting. n
#Streamlining thin film processing saves time energy Energy storage devices and computer screens may seem worlds apart but they're not.
and the biochar nanoparticles can create an extremely large surface area which can then hold more charge.
The high-energy plasma can deposit highly transparent and conductive thin films create high quality semiconductors and pattern micro-or nanoscale devices thus making the display images brighter and clearer.
#New nanocomposites for aerospace and automotive industries The Center for Research in Advanced Materials (CIMAV) has developed reinforced graphite nanoplatelets seeking to improve the performance of solar cell materials.
These polymer-based nanocomposites are reinforced with graphite nanoplatelets for use in industry. Nanocomposites are formed by two
or more phases in this case by reinforced graphite nanoplatelets. The sectors focused on the use of these nanomaterials are diverse;
nanoplatelets impart new properties to materials; this allows us to move into the automotive construction aerospace textile and electronics sectors
which are demanding and where the use of nanomaterials is an opportunity explains Licea Jimenez.
According to the specialist at CIMAV the research is applied already in some concept testing for mechanical and thermal modification in the construction industry.
Additionally nanocomposite materials are used already in fenders and panels in the automotive and textile industry.
The development of nanocomposites in this research center is an opportunity for different industry sectors; graphite nanoplatelets give added value to the product as they improve its mechanical thermal and electrical properties.
And they have an impact on the industry because the business demands are increasing and the use of nanocomposites is an opportunity to improve the product.
Even some of the companies we have worked with mentioned in several forums that they have had a good response in the use of these nanomaterials.
She also affirms that the nanocomposites Laboratory in Monterey has achieved success but recognizes that they need to engage with sectors such as aeronautics among other areas.
Jimenez Licea indicates that in addition to companies in the northern state of Nuevo Leon there are companies in other states that have shown interest in polymer nanocomposites;
It is an advantage to work with research projects demanded by the industry because they have a specific function for each company.
This is because each nanocomposite is a material that has two or more constituents in this case the polymer and a nano-sized reinforcing material:
the graphite nanoplatelets s
#Graphene/nanotube hybrid benefits flexible solar cells Rice university scientists have invented a novel cathode that may make cheap, flexible dye-sensitized solar cells practical.
The Rice lab of materials scientist Jun Lou created the new cathode, one of the two electrodes in batteries,
from nanotubes that are bonded seamlessly to graphene and replaces the expensive and brittle platinum-based materials often used in earlier versions.
The discovery was reported online in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Dye-sensitized solar cells have been in development
"The breakthrough extends a stream of nanotechnology research at Rice that began with chemist Robert Hauge's 2009 invention of a"flying carpet"technique to grow very long bundles of aligned carbon nanotubes.
In his process, the nanotubes remained attached to the surface substrate but pushed the catalyst up as they grew.
The graphene/nanotube hybrid came along two years ago. Dubbed"James'bond"in honor of its inventor, Rice chemist James Tour, the hybrid features a seamless transition from graphene to nanotube.
The graphene base is grown via chemical vapor deposition and a catalyst is arranged in a pattern on top.
which lifts off and allows the new nanotubes to grow. When the nanotubes stop growing,
the remaining catalyst (the"carpet")acts as a cap and keeps the nanotubes from tangling.
The hybrid material solves two issues that have held back commercial application of dye-sensitized solar cells,
First, the graphene and nanotubes are grown directly onto the nickel substrate that serves as an electrode,
With no interruption in the atomic bonds between nanotubes and graphene, the material's entire area, inside and out, becomes one large surface.
Lou's lab built and tested solar cells with nanotube forests of varying lengths The shortest,
Other nanotube samples were grown for an hour and measured about 100-150 microns. When combined with an iodide salt-based electrolyte and an anode of flexible indium tin oxide,
Tests found that solar cells made from the longest nanotubes produced the best results and topped out at nearly 18 milliamps of current per square centimeter
"We're demonstrating all these carbon nanostructures can be used in real applications, "he said
#Bio-inspired bleeding control: Researchers synthesize platelet-like nanoparticles that can do more than clot blood (Phys. org) Stanching the free flow of blood from an injury remains a holy grail of clinical medicine.
Controlling blood flow is a primary concern and first line of defense for patients and medical staff in many situations from traumatic injury to illness to surgery.
By creating nanoparticles that mimic the shape flexibility and surface biology of the body's own platelets they are able to accelerate natural healing processes
That's where platelet-like nanoparticles (PLNS) come in. These tiny platelet-shaped particles that behave just like their human counterparts can be added to the blood flow to supply
According to Anselmo's investigations for the same surface properties and shape nanoscale particles can perform even better than micron-size platelets.
and wound healing in older patients by using nanoparticles that can target where clots are forming without triggering unwanted bleeding.
In other applications bloodborne pathogens and other infectious agents could be minimized with antibiotic-carrying nanoparticles.
#Engineers efficiently'mix'light at the nanoscale The race to make computer components smaller and faster
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have engineered a nanowire system that could pave the way for this ability,
the researchers needed a way to amplify the intensity of a light wave as it passed through a cadmium sulfide nanowire.
partially wrapping the nanowire in a silver shell that acts like an echo chamber. Agarwal's group had employed a similar design before in an effort to create photonic devices that could switch on and off very rapidly.
but, by changing the polarization of the light as it entered the nanowire, the researchers were able to better confine it to the frequency-altering, nonlinear part of the device:
the nanowire core.""By engineering the structure so that light is contained mostly within the cadmium sulfide rather than at the interface between it and the silver shell,
which can be done by altering the size of the nanowire and the shell.""Most important,
however, was that this frequency mixing was possible on the nanoscale with very high efficiency.
and push the device size into the nanoscale. c
#Patent awarded for genetics-based nanotechnology against mosquitoes insect pests Kansas State university researchers have developed a patented method of keeping mosquitoes and other insect pests at bay.
U s. Patent 8841272 Double stranded-rna RNA-Based Nanoparticles for Insect Gene Silencing was awarded recently to the Kansas State university Research Foundation a nonprofit corporation responsible for managing technology transfer activities
at the university. The patent covers microscopic genetics-based technology that can help safely kill mosquitos and other insect pests.
nanoparticles comprised of a nontoxic biodegradable polymer matrix and insect derived double-stranded ribonucleic acid or dsrna.
After testing a series of unsuccessful genetic techniques the team turned to a nanoparticle-based approach.
Once ingested the nanoparticles act as a Trojan horse releasing the loosely bound dsrna into the insect gut.
which the nanoparticle-based method was developed the technology can be applied to other insect pests Zhu said.
When you make baits containing gene-specific nanoparticles you may be able to kill the insects through the RNAI pathway.
of 2 nm creating a powerful and versatile nanoscale imaging tool with exciting promise and potential for the materials and biological sciences.
Working at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM)/ X-ray Science Division 26-ID beamline of the U s. Department of energy's Advanced Photon Source the researchers took advantage of some new technological innovations
Both that remarkable resolution and the precise chemical fingerprinting of individual nickel nanoclusters were also clearly evident in the topographic images of the sample surface even down to the height of a single atom.
Even in its present form the techniques demonstrated here can revolutionize nanoscale imaging in realms far beyond materials science including electronics and biology.
Researchers at Drexel University and Dalian University of Technology in China have engineered chemically a new electrically conductive nanomaterial that is flexible enough to fold
This flexible new material which the group has identified as a conductive polymer nanocomposite is the latest expression of the ongoing research in Drexel's Department of Materials science and engineering on a family of composite two-dimensional materials called MXENES.
To produce the flexible conductive polymer nanocomposite the researchers intercalated the titanium carbide MXENE with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)- a polymer widely used as the paper adhesive known as school
The uniqueness of MXENES comes from the fact that their surface is full of functional groups such as hydroxyl leading to a tight bonding between the MXENE flakes and polymer molecules while preserving the metallic conductivity of nanometer-thin
This leads to a nanocomposite with a unique combination of properties said Gogotsi. The results of both sets of MXENE testing were published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We have shown that the volumetric capacitance of an MXENE-polymer nanocomposite can be compared much higher to conventional carbon-based electrodes
The testing also revealed hydrophilic properties of the nanocomposite which means that it could have uses in water treatment systems such as membrane for water purification
These characteristics mark the trail heads of a variety of paths for research on this nanocomposite material for applications from flexible armor to aerospace components.
and polymer will affect the properties of the resulting nanocomposite and also exploring other MXENES and stronger and tougher polymers for structural applications.
'Last week US tech giants Google made a splash in the media announcing plans to develop new'disease-detecting magnetic nanoparticles'.
So we spoke to Professor Duncan Graham a UK-based nanoscientist from University of Strathclyde
The technical definition is that a nanoparticle is an object that is less than 100 nanometres wide along one of its edges Professor Graham told us.
A nanometre is a thousandth of a thousandth of a millimetre. In other words it's tiny.
Nanoparticles can be made of anything they can be metallic organic or inorganic and they come in all manner of different shapes
Nanoparticles have been around for centuries. Ancient art has used nanoparticles. They're in stained glass windows. The Lycurgus Cup in The british Museum looks so magical
because it's made of glass containing gold nanoparticles. And more immediately they're already used in medical detectors for example the pregnancy tests you buy over-the-counter work use gold nanoparticles attached to antibodies.
They're really nothing new although they're incredibly interesting to researchers. Another ubiquitous use is in antimicrobial products
which can contain suspensions of silver nanoparticles (but don't drink them you'll go blue). Why are they good for medical detection?
Nanoparticles have an extremely high surface area in relation to their volume. This means they can carry a lot of'stuff'on their surface proteins from blood for example.
And this means they're good for detecting things because they can really boost a signalfor example a protein that's relatively scarce in the blood
and therefore difficult to measure can collect on some nanoparticles in amounts large enough to detect.
There's a bewildering amount of modification that researchers around the world are adding to the surface of nanoparticles.
Google have been similarly vague about the precise form of nanotechnology they aim to use Graham points out:
How does all this fit into the wider field of nanotechnology and diagnostics? This isn't all about Google says Graham.
either using optical (light-based) detection where nanoparticles are used to either emit light directly or change the optical properties of their surroundings or magnetic systems.
His team are doing some really interesting stuff with regards imaging using nanoparticles says Graham.
it seems according to this article in Wired that Gambhir originally advised Google about nanotechnology. What are the current challenges facing nanodetectors?
In Professor Graham's view there are two serious hurdles for nanotechnologists to overcome before particle-based biosensing becomes a reality:
when you put nanoparticles into the body they tend to get removed from the body in the urine via the kidneys.
'This is where random nonspecific molecules stick to the nanoparticles and clog them up or deactivate them.
Are there any other applications of nanotechnology in the field of cancer? Of course it's not all about diagnostics.
There are other ways nanotechnology is being explored by cancer researchers. The other big focus of nanotech in cancer is to deliver treatments says Graham.
This is a field that's in its infancy lots of basic research in animals some of it promising
Professor Graham's'take-home'message is that it's a mistake to see Google as the only organisation focusing on nanotechnology to detect disease it's a vibrant active field with incredible potential but still in its early days.
By using one nanocarrier to contain two different drugs we can potentially reduce their dose
The nanocarriers are made from a polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG) to which researchers attach the cancer-killing drug camptothecin (CPT) like bunches of grapes on a vine.
The resulting nanocarrier is shaped like a flower#hence the term nanodaisy. The idea came from thinking actively about folding proteins in nature noted Gu referring to the way amino acids can assemble themselves into thousands of different shapes.
Gu has led other research that#has yielded a bio-inspired cocoon that tricks cells into consuming anticancer drugs and an injectable nanonetwork that controls blood sugar levels in diabetics.
When I moved into the cancer treatments with nanotechnology that's when my mum became really excited about my work.
The structure is called a nanopore: a tiny hole in a ceramic sheet that holds electrolyte to carry the electrical charge between nanotube electrodes at either end.
The existing device is a test but the bitsy battery performs well. First author Chanyuan Liu a graduate student in materials science & engineering says that it can be charged fully in 12 minutes
Many millions of these nanopores can be crammed into one larger battery the size of a postage stamp.
because each nanopore is shaped just like the others which allows them to pack the tiny thin batteries together efficiently.
Coauthor Eleanor Gillette's modeling shows that the unique design of the nanopore battery is responsible for its success. The space inside the holes is so small that the space they take up all added together would be no more than a grain of sand.
#Team grows uniform nanowires A researcher from Missouri University of Science and Technology has developed a new way to grow nanowire arrays with a determined diameter length and uniform consistency.
This approach to growing nanomaterials will improve the efficiency of various devices including solar cells and fuel cells.
These semiconducting nanowires could also replace thin films that cover today's solar panels. Current panels can process only 20 percent of the solar energy they take in.
By applying the nanowires the surface area of the panels would increase and allow more efficient solar energy capture and conversion.
The wires could also be applied in the biomedical field to maximize heat production in hyperthermia treatment of cancer.
In fuel cells these nanowire arrays can be used to lower production expenses by relying on more cost-efficient catalysts.
or outperform the current use of platinum and show that these nanowire arrays are better catalysts for the oxygen reduction reactions in the cells says Dr. Manashi Nath assistant professor of chemistry at Missouri S&t.
The nanowires which are grown on patterned nanoelectrodes are visible only through an electron microscope. Nath creates the nanowire arrays through a process that she calls confined electrodeposition on lithographically patterned nanoelectrodes.
To grow the nanowires Nath writes an image file that creates a pattern for the shape
and size she wants to produce. Using electron beam lithography she then stamps the pattern onto a polymer matrix
and the nanowires are grown by applying electric current through electrodeposition. Nath grows the nanowires in a parallel pattern
which resembles a series of nails protruding from a piece of lumber. One end is held secure to a metal conductor like copper
To increase the nanowires'surface area Nath can make them hollow in the middle much like carbon nanotubes found in optics and electronics.
The nanowires allow current to travel through them. The polymer which is nonconductive can be removed to allow the wires to stand freely
-or even nanorobots could someday perform medical tasks in the human body. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have taken now a first step towards this goal.
-or even nanorobots to carry out such tasks. The little helpers would accurately home in on targets in the body eliminating the need for more major surgery
Now for the first time the researchers in Stuttgart have succeeded in devising a suitable propeller with a diameter of around 100 nanometres or one-tenth of a micrometre.
The miniature swimmer measures just 400 nanometres in length. To make their nano-propeller the scientists used a technique they developed themselves.
As in the case of their plastic micro-scallop the researchers also envision medical applications for their nanosubmarine.
For the first time we have a nanorobot that's small enough to swim through this tight mesh.
Other liquids in which such nanovehicles could deliver drugs for example include the vitreous humor of the eye mucous membranes and even blood.
Of course to achieve this a way would have to be found to inject the nanosubmarines into cells.
#Researchers create unique graphene nanopores with optical antennas for DNA sequencing High-speed reading of the genetic code should get a boost with the creation of the world's first graphene nanopores pores measuring approximately 2 nanometers in diameter that feature a"built-in
one-step process for producing these nanopores in a graphene membrane using the photothermal properties of gold nanorods."
which a hot spot on a graphene membrane formed a nanopore with a self-integrated optical antenna.
The hot spot was created by photon-to-heat conversion of a gold nanorod.""We believe our approach opens new avenues for simultaneous electrical and optical nanopore DNA sequencing
and for regulating DNA translocation,"says Zettl, who is also a member of the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute (Kavli ENSI).
Nanopore sequencing of DNA, in which DNA strands are threaded through nanoscale pores and read one letter at a time,
has been touted for its ability to make DNA sequencing a faster and more routine procedure. Under today's technology, the DNA letters are"read"by an electrical current passing through nanopores fabricated on a silicon chip.
Trying to read electrical signals from DNA passing through thousands of nanopores at once, however, can result in major bottlenecks.
Adding an optical component to this readout would help eliminate such bottlenecks.""Direct and enhanced optical signals are obtained at the junction of a nanopore
and its optical antenna,"says Lee.""Simultaneously correlating this optical signal with the electrical signal from conventional nanopore sequencing provides an added dimension that would be an enormous advantage for high-throughput DNA readout."
"A key to the success of this effort is the single-step photothermal mechanism that enables the creation of graphene nanopores with self-aligned plasmonic optical antennas.
The dimensions of the nanopores and the optical characteristics of the plasmonic antenna are tunable, with the antenna functioning as both optical signal transducer and enhancer.
The atomically thin nature of the graphene membrane makes it ideal for high resolution, high throughput,
so that each base-pair fluoresces at a signature intensity as it passes through the junction of the nanopore and its optical antenna."
"In addition, either the gold nanoplasmonic optical antenna or the graphene can be functionalized to be responsive to different base-pair combinations,
#Measuring nano-vibrations In a recent paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, Joel Moser and ICFO colleagues of the Nanooptomechanics research group led by Prof.
Adrian Bachtold, together with Marc Dykman (Michigan University), report on an experiment in which a carbon nanotube mechanical resonator exhibits quality factors of up to 5 million,
30 times better than the best quality factors measured in nanotubes to date. Imagine that the host of a dinner party tries to get his guests'attention by giving a single tap of his oyster spoon on his crystal glass.
Nowadays, carbon nanotube mechanical resonators are in demand because of their extremely small size and their outstanding capability of sensing objects at the nanoscale.
Like a guitar string or a tightrope, a carbon nanotube resonator consists of a tiny, vibrating bridge-like (string) structure with typical dimensions of 1#m in length and 1nm in diameter.
and because of this trend it was unthinkable that nanotubes could exhibit giant quality factors. The giant quality factors that ICFO researchers have measured have not been observed before in nanotube resonators mainly
because their vibrational states are extremely fragile and easily perturbed when measured. The values detected by the team of scientists was achieved through the use of an ultra-clean nanotube at cryostat temperatures of 30mk(-273.12 Celsius-colder than the temperature of outerspace!
and by employing an ultra-low noise method to detect minuscule vibrations quickly while reducing as much as possible the electrostatic noise.
since"nanotube resonators are enormously sensitive to surrounding electrical charges that fluctuate constantly. This stormy environment strongly affects our ability to capture the intrinsic behavior of nanotube resonators.
For this reason, we had to take a very large number of snapshots of the nanotube's mechanical behavior.
Only a few of these snapshots captured the intrinsic nature of the nanotube's dynamics, when the storm momentarily relented.
During these short quiet moments, the nanotube revealed its ultra-high quality factor to us"."With the discovery of such high quality factors from this study, ICFO scientists have opened a whole new realm of possibilities for sensing applications,
and quantum experiments. For instance, nanotube resonators might be used to detect individual nuclear spins, which would be an important step towards magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a spatial resolution at the atomic level.
For the moment, Adrian Bachtold comments that"achieving MRI at the atomic level would be fantastic. But, for this, we would first have to solve various technological problems that are extremely challenging. n
#Method for symmetry-breaking in feedback-driven self-assembly of optical metamaterials (Phys. org) If you can uniformly break the symmetry of nanorod pairs in a colloidal solution you're a step ahead of the game toward achieving new and exciting metamaterial properties.
The results have been published in Nature Nanotechnology. The paper is titled Feedback-driven self-assembly of symmetry-breaking optical metamaterials in solution.
which could surpass the conventional thermodynamic limit in chemical synthetic systems explains Sui Yang lead author of the Nature Nanotechnology paper and member of Zhang's research group.
This led the group to produce nanostructures that have historically been considered impossible to assemble. The widely used method of metamaterial synthesis is top-down fabrication such as electron beam
Starting with a solution of colloidal nanorods Yang and Ni built on the common self-assembly technique used to build nanoparticles.
The desired product when synthesizing colloidal gold nanorods which are stabilized during growth to obtain preferential bonding along longitudinal facets is pairs of rods
You have a pair of nanorods with no shift at all relative to one another; or a pair that are shifted too much;
This allowed them to separate out the undesired resonances indicating nanorod pairs that are shifted not the desired amount
we use the material's own properties to drive nanostructure formation in solution. This has the intrinsic value of making many structures in one batch.
The method developed in Zhang's research group can be applied to many other nanoparticles; indeed almost any structure that can self-assemble could be produced in this way.
The unique feedback mechanism leads to precisely controlled nanostructures with beyond conventional symmetries and functionalities.
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