"Tour is Rice's T. T. and W. F. Chao Chair in Chemistry and professor of mechanical engineering and nanoengineering and of computer science.
To meet that need scientists at the U s. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed a method to fabricate nanocrystalline spinel that is 50%harder than the current spinel armor materials used in military vehicles.
With the highest reported hardness for spinel NRL's nanocrystalline spinel demonstrates that the hardness of transparent ceramics can be increased simply by reducing the grain size to 28 nanometers.
or consolidates commercial nanopowders into fully dense nanocrystalline materials. Sintering is a common method used to create large ceramic and metal components from powders.
and reposition nanoparticles very close to each other to help eliminate porosity in the sintered ceramic. NRL researchers then can exploit the increased surface potential of nanoparticles for surface energy-driven densification without coarsening.
Using this EHPS approach to create the nanocrystalline spinel the NRL research team did not observe any decline in density or fracture resistance due to residual porosity.
Other researchers have tried to make nanocrystalline spinel but they have had all problems with the final product such as a reduced density reduced fracture resistance or reduced transparency.
The reduced density in other researchers work is caused by voids that cannot be removed during processing
when you make a ceramic material nanocrystalline. However in their work the NRL researchers have shown that the fracture resistance does not change suggesting that nanocrystalline ceramics can have an equivalent toughness to microcrystalline ceramics
which is important for high window lifetimes. The Hall-Petch relationship has been used to describe the phenomenon where a material's strength
However prior experimental work had shown a breakdown in this relationship (where hardness starts reducing with decreasing grain size) for certain ceramics at 130 nanometers.
Remarkably the NRL researchers have disproved that a breakdown in the Hall-Perch effect exists at these nanoscale grain sizes by measuring an increasing hardness down to at least a 28 nanometer crystallite grain size.
and possibly replace sapphire windows with windows made out of nanocrystalline spinel. Also harder nanocrystalline spinel windows can be made thinner and still meet the current military specifications.
This thinness translates to weight savings on the vehicle. So the NRL-developed nanocrystalline spinel brings improvements in hardness window thickness and weight and cost.
A final benefit is that the NRL-developed nanocrystalline spinel is highly transparent making it useful in UV visible and infrared optics.
The armor material used by the military needs to be transparent so that both equipment and personnel can see.
A single window that could be produced using the NRL-developed nanocrystalline spinel would be transparent across many technologically important wavelengths easing design
#New Technique Increases Nanofiber Production Rate Fourfold Nanofibers polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells
In the latest issue of the journal Nanotechnology, MIT researchers describe a new technique for producing nanofibers that increases the rate of production fourfold
efficient nanofiber production. e have demonstrated a systematic way to produce nanofibers through electrospinning that surpasses the state of the art,
where you would be able to individually control each emitter to print deposits of nanofibers.
Tangled tale Nanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
Nanofibers can also yield materials that are permeable only at very small scales, like water filters,
The standard technique for manufacturing nanofibers is called electrospinning, and it comes in two varieties. In the first, a polymer solution is pumped through a small nozzle,
but on a much smaller scale, using techniques common in the manufacture of microelectromechanical systems to produce dense arrays of tiny emitters.
The work is n elegant and creative way of demonstrating the strong capability of traditional MEMS microelectromechanical systems fabrication processes toward parallel nanomanufacturing
arallel nanomanufacturing via electrohydrodynamic jetting from microfabricated externally-fed emitter arrays, Nanotechnology, 2015,26, 225301; doi:
Now physicists at MIT have developed an experimental technique to simulate friction at the nanoscale. Using their technique
Vuletic says that at the nanoscale, friction may exact a greater force for instance, creating wear and tear on tiny motors much faster than occurs at larger scales. here a big effort to understand friction and control it,
Learn about the technique MIT physicists developed to simulate friction at the nanoscale. Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT (with computer simulations from Alexei Bylinkskii) Friction and force fieldsthe team simulated friction at the nanoscale by first engineering two surfaces to be placed in contact:
an optical lattice, and an ion crystal. The optical lattice was generated using two laser beams traveling in opposite directions,
from the nanoscale to the macroscale. he applications and related impact of their novel method propels a huge variety of research fields investigating effects relevant from raft tectonics down to biological systems
Then they carefully injected into the mix individual water droplets that had been infused with tiny magnetic nanoparticles.
he reported in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, which was based on work Sahin had started as a Scholar in Residence at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard university.
#MIT Chemists Develop a Quantum dot Spectrometer Researchers from MIT have designed a quantum dot spectrometer that is small enough to function within a smartphone, enabling portable light analysis. Instruments that measure the properties of light,
using tiny semiconductor nanoparticles called quantum dots. Such devices could be used to diagnose diseases, especially skin conditions,
a former MIT postdoc and the lead author of a paper describing the quantum dot spectrometers in the July 2 issue of Nature.
Quantum dots, a type of nanocrystals discovered in the early 1980s, are made by combining metals such as lead
Broad spectrum The new quantum dot spectrometer deploys hundreds of quantum dot materials that each filter a specific set of wavelengths of light.
The quantum dot filters are printed into a thin film and placed on top of a photodetector such as the charge-coupled devices (CCDS) found in cellphone cameras.
The more quantum dot materials there are, the more wavelengths can be covered and the higher resolution can be obtained.
In this case, the researchers used about 200 types of quantum dots spread over a range of about 300 nanometers.
which vary greatly in their ability to damage skin. he central component of such spectrometers the quantum dot filter array is fabricated with solution-based processing and printing,
The research was funded by MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. Publication: Jie Bao & Moungi G. Bawendi, colloidal quantum dot spectrometer, Nature 523,670 (02 july 2015;
doi: 10.1038/nature1457 e
#New Technique Uses Regenerative Capacity of Stem Cells to Eliminate HIV Scientists at UCLA have developed a new technique that harnesses the regenerative capacity of stem cells to generate an immune response to HIV,
#Niobium Nanowire Yarns Make High-performance Supercapacitors Using yarns made from niobium nanowire, researchers at MIT have developed a new approach to making supercapacitors.
The new approach uses yarns, made from nanowires of the element niobium, as the electrodes in tiny supercapacitors (which are essentially pairs of electrically conducting fibers with an insulator between).
Nanotechnology researchers have been working to increase the performance of supercapacitors for the past decade. Among nanomaterials, carbon-based nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes and graphene have shown promising results,
but they suffer from relatively low electrical conductivity, Mirvakili says. In this new work, he and his colleagues have shown that desirable characteristics for such devices,
are not unique to carbon-based nanoparticles, and that niobium nanowire yarn is a promising alternative. magine youe got some kind of wearable health-monitoring system,
Hunter says, nd it needs to broadcast data, for example using Wi-fi, over a long distance. At the moment, the coin-sized batteries used in many small electronic devices have limited very ability to deliver a lot of power at once,
The new nanowire-based supercapacitor exceeds the performance of existing batteries, while occupying a very small volume. f youe got an Apple Watch and
Overall, niobium-based supercapacitors can store up to five times as much power in a given volume as carbon nanotube versions.
500 degrees Celsius so devices made from these nanowires could potentially be suitable for use in high-temperature applications.
individual niobium nanowires are just 140 nanometers in diameter 140 billionths of a meter across,
plants that are exposed to sunlight use carefully organized nanoscale structures within their cells to rapidly separate charges pulling electrons away from the positively charged molecule that is left behind,
The two components that make the UCLA-developed system work are a polymer donor and a nanoscale fullerene acceptor.
The polymer donor absorbs sunlight and passes electrons to the fullerene acceptor; the process generates electrical energy.
The plastic materials, called organic photovoltaics, are organized typically like a plate of cooked pasta a disorganized mass of long, skinny polymer paghettiwith random fullerene eatballs.
Some fullerene meatballs are designed to sit inside the spaghetti bundles, but others are forced to stay on the outside.
The fullerenes inside the structure take electrons from the polymers and toss them to the outside fullerene
Tolbert and Schwartz also are members of UCLA California Nanosystems Institute. The study other co-lead authors were UCLA graduate students Rachel Huber and Amy Ferreira.
#Nanoparticles and UV LIGHT Clean up Environmental Pollutants A new study from MIT shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants,
revealing that nanomaterials and UV LIGHT can rapchemicals for easy removal from soil and water. Many human-made pollutants in the environment resist degradation through natural processes,
researchers from MIT and the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil demonstrate a novel method for using nanoparticles
They initially sought to develop nanoparticles that could be used to deliver drugs to cancer cells. Brandl had synthesized previously polymers that could be cleaved apart by exposure to UV LIGHT.
Nanoparticles made from these polymers have a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic shell. Due to molecular-scale forces
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
If left alone, these nanomaterials would remain suspended and dispersed evenly in water. But when exposed to UV LIGHT,
according to the researchers, was confirming that small molecules do indeed adsorb passively onto the surface of nanoparticles. o the best of our knowledge,
it is the first time that the interactions of small molecules with preformed nanoparticles can be measured directly,
we showed in a system that the adsorption of small molecules on the surface of the nanoparticles can be used for extraction of any kind,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
The study also suggests the broader potential for adapting nanoscale drug-delivery techniques developed for use in environmental remediation. hat we can apply some of the highly sophisticated,
and an expert in nanoengineering for health care and medical applications. hen you think about field deployment,
or viscosell of which have been tested electrochemically by Drexel team at the A j. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, and knitted at the Shima Seiki Haute Tech Lab. The NFW process includes several steps
#Molecular electronics Takes Large Stride Forward Molecular electronics has promised long a day when individual molecules would serve as the basic building blocks for electronics.
In research published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers claim that they have not only produced a single-molecule diode,
in a press release. onstructing a device where the active elements are only a single molecule has long been a tantalizing dream in nanoscience.
which has been the'holy grail'of molecular electronics ever since its inception with Aviram and Ratner's 1974 seminal paper, represents the ultimate in functional miniaturization that can be achieved for an electronic device."
But it is unheralded in the area of energy savings that nanomaterials are perhaps making the biggest inroads.
and graphene-based on-chip optical communications. n work published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology researchers suspended graphene above a silicon substrate by attaching it to two metal electrodes
IBM researchers are trying to prop up Moore law using silicon-germanium transistor channels in effort to create a 7-nanometer chip within the next four years.
#Nanowires Boost Hydrogen Production from Sunlight Tenfold Using the energy of the sun to split water into hydrogen
when illuminated by sunlightade from an array of gallium phosphide nanowires. Previously, researchers used flat surfaces of the semiconductor gallium phosphide as the photocathode,
The Gap nanowires, about 500 nm long and 90 nm thick, increased enormously the surface of the photocathode exposed to light.
At the same time, the nanowires allowed a drastic reduction in the use of Gap material . or the nanowires we needed ten thousand times less precious Gap material than in cells with a flat surface.
That makes these kinds of cells potentially a great deal cheaper said Erik Bakkers of Eindhoven University of Technology,
but its conductivity increases. e make the inelastic carbon nanotube sheaths of our sheath-core fibers super stretchable by modulating large buckles with small buckles,
said Ray Baughman, senior author of the paper and director of the Alan G. Macdiarmid Nanotech Institute at UT Dallas,
and then another carbon nanotube sheath to create strain sensors and artificial muscles. In this setup, the buckled nanotube sheets act as electrodes
and the thin rubber coating serves as the dielectric. Voilà! You have a fiber capacitor. his technology could be well-suited for rapid commercialization,
The only exotic component is the carbon nanotube aerogel sheet used for the fiber sheath
#The First White Laser Scientists and engineers at Arizona State university, in Tempe, have created the first lasers that can shine light over the full spectrum of visible colors.
But now scientists say theye overcome that problem The heart of the new device is a sheet only nanometers thick made of a semiconducting alloy of zinc, cadmium, sulfur, and selenium.
and solid phases of the different materials that made up this nanosheet, they ensured that these different crystals could coexist.
The scientists can individually target each segment of the nanosheet with a light pulse. Varying the power of the light pulses that each section received tuned how intensely they shone,
They detailed their findings online 27 july in the journal Nature Nanotechnology N
#Spintronic Devices Possible Without Magnetic material Spintronics, which has offered a promising alternative to electronics, may have just been given a boost that moves it from mere promise to likely future backbone of computing.
#Solar cells Could Capture Infrared Rays for More Power Nanocrystals and organic materials convert low energy photons into visible light that a solar cell can capture.
Cadmium selenide nanocrystals with one kind of organic coating left produced violet light, while cadmium selenide nanocrystals with another type of organic coating right produced green.
Solar cell efficiencies could increase by 30 percent or more with new hybrid materials that make use of the infrared portion of the solar spectrum,
The hybrid materials are combinations of inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals, which capture the infrared photons, and organic molecules,
lead selenide nanocrystals captured near-infrared photons, and the organic compound rubrene emitted visible yellow-orange photons.
The researchers noted that lead selenide nanocrystals and rubrene were relatively inefficient at upconversion. However, in experiments with a hybrid material made of cadmium selenide nanocrystals and the organic compound diphenylanthracene,
which absorbs green light and emits violet light, the investigators could boost upconversion up to a thousandfold by coating the nanocrystals with anthracene, a component of coal tar.
This suggests that similar coatings on lead selenide nanocrystals might boost their upconversion efficiency as well.
The scientists added that the ability to upconvert two low energy photons into one high-energy photon has potential applications in biological imaging, high-density data storage,
#Nanometer-Sized Robots Can Now Take Colon Biopsies Researchers have invented a noninvasive way for thousands of nanometer sized robots to perform tissue biopsies.
The company is also developing another thermoelectric material based on silicon nanowires that could convert a higher percentage of the energy in waste heat to electricity.
It does this via nanoparticles that ease the transition for light as it passes between the parts of an OLED device.
nanometre scale particles mixed in water. These particles can be engineered chemically to bind together to form specific structures.
Nanopore Sequencing). ) It's built by a U k. company Oxford Nanopore that has raised $292 million and spent 10 years developing Deamer's idea into a DNA sequencer unlike any other now available.
It is four inches long and gets its power from a USB port on a computer.
and T. Scientists with early access to prototypes of the first commercial nanopore sequencer say it's glitchy
After testing it Mick Watson a bioinformatics researcher at the Roslin Institute in Scotland says nanopore sequencing is a disruptive technology that could potentially dominate the sequencing market for years to come.
But now some big companies are betting that nanopores could be the technology to break Illumina's lucrative monopoly.
Roche which made a failed attempt to acquire Illumina in 2012 this year spent $125 million to buy Genia Technologies a small nanopore company based in California
Hitachi is also working on nanopore technology as are startups like Electronic Biosciences. Deamer says the idea of nanopore sequencing occurred to him in 1989 just three years after the first automated DNA sequencers were introduced.
He had been trying to build artificial cells spherical blobs of fat that could pump molecules in
Each DNA letter is only about half a nanometer from the next and some differ by just an atom
By this spring Oxford had worked the bugs out enough at any rate to start mailing out beta versions of the nanopore sequencer to 500 hand-picked labs it is collaborating with.
To the technology s original inventors the arrival of any commercial nanopore sequencer is a milestone.
Yet nanopore sequencing is so different that even a machine that s error-prone might be a boon to science.
Nanopore sequencing may help because it produces what scientists call long reads. For instance Akeson says this summer his lab read across a continuous strand of human DNA that was 79000 letters long.
One was encasing RNA in bubbles of fat-like nanoparticles of lipids. They are made with the same materials that make up cell membranes the thought was that the cell would respond well to the familiar substance.
But Alnylam and partner companies notably the Canadian startup Tekmira were making steady progress in the lab. Researchers identified one part of the lipid nanoparticles that was keeping them from delivering its cargo of RNA to the right part of a cell.
Better nanoparticles improved the potency of a drug a hundredfold and its safety by about five times clearing the way for clinical trials for FAP a crucial event that kept the company alive.
The nanoparticle delivery mechanism is costly to make and requires frequent visits to the hospital for hour-long IV infusions something patients desperate to stay alive will put up with but likely not millions of people with high cholesterol.
They contain hundreds of vials each containing a unique type of nanoparticle that Dahlman synthesized painstakingly one at a time.
For a number of reasons the liver is a relatively easy target that s where all kinds of nanoparticles tend to end up.
Last month in two separate articles they published the results of studies showing that Dahlman s new nanoparticles are a powerful way to deliver RNAI to blood vessel cells
#A Super-Strong and Lightweight New Material A new type of material made up of nanoscale struts crisscrossed like the struts of a tiny Eiffel Tower is one of the strongest and lightest substances ever made.
Researchers led by Caltech materials scientist Julia Greer found that by carefully designing nanoscale struts and joints they could make ceramics metals
But at the nanoscale the same rules do not apply. In this size range the structural and mechanical properties of ceramics become less tied to properties such as weight
For ceramics smaller is tougher says Greer who was named one of MIT Technology Review s 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2008 for her work on nanoscale mechanics.
This means that nanoscale trusses made from ceramic materials can be both very light##unsurprising since they are mostly air##and extremely strong.
This required fine-tuning structures at the nanoscale meaning the materials are even more difficult to produce.
But trusses with thinner walls just 10 nanometers thick buckle when compressed and then recover their shape.
Nanostructures have a very high surface area and are lightweight a combination that could make for a fast-charging battery that stores a lot of energy in a convenient package.
Novel materials for touch screens that use flexible nanomaterials could also help. One patent application suggests Apple is already looking at this issue.
Tour process starts with a layer of silicon dioxide riddled with tiny holesach five nanometers wide.
The lubricant clings to the nanostructures and forms an extremely thin liquid film on the surfaces that is perfectly smooth,
The Sharp device relies on the ability to make high-quality nanometers-thick layers of semiconducting materials (such as gallium arsenide)
The tiny molecular machine threads the rings around a nanoscopic chain-a sort of axle-and squeezes the rings together,
with only a few nanometres separating them. At present, the artificial molecular pump is able to force only two rings together,
Using nanocellulose broken down from tree fibres, the researchers produced an elastic, foam-like battery material that can withstand shock and stress."
The nanocellulose is dissolved, frozen and then freeze-dried so that the moisture evaporates without passing through a liquid state.
Using nanocellulose broken down from tree fibres, the researchers produced an elastic, foam-like battery material that can withstand shock and stress."
The nanocellulose is dissolved, frozen and then freeze-dried so that the moisture evaporates without passing through a liquid state.
professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University in New york, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology."
professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University in New york, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology."
"said Paula M Mendes, professor of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at the University of Birmingham."
The filter is coated with a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst, which can be used in a smoking room to reduce
The research team has developed a nanocatalyst filter by evenly coating a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst powder onto a ceramic-based filter media.
The nanocatalyst filter uses a technology that decomposes elements of cigarette smoke using oxygen radical
which is generated by decomposing ozone in the air on the surface of the manganese-oxide-based nanocatalyst filter.
Also, from the convergence perspective, the new nanometre catalyst filter can be integrated with other air cleaning products such as air purifiers and air conditioners,
The filter is coated with a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst, which can be used in a smoking room to reduce
The research team has developed a nanocatalyst filter by evenly coating a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst powder onto a ceramic-based filter media.
The nanocatalyst filter uses a technology that decomposes elements of cigarette smoke using oxygen radical
which is generated by decomposing ozone in the air on the surface of the manganese-oxide-based nanocatalyst filter.
Also, from the convergence perspective, the new nanometre catalyst filter can be integrated with other air cleaning products such as air purifiers and air conditioners,
The filter is coated with a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst, which can be used in a smoking room to reduce
The research team has developed a nanocatalyst filter by evenly coating a manganese oxide-based nanocatalyst powder onto a ceramic-based filter media.
The nanocatalyst filter uses a technology that decomposes elements of cigarette smoke using oxygen radical
which is generated by decomposing ozone in the air on the surface of the manganese-oxide-based nanocatalyst filter.
Also, from the convergence perspective, the new nanometre catalyst filter can be integrated with other air cleaning products such as air purifiers and air conditioners,
so that it was capable of creating 3d patterns with a nanometer scale resolution in organic material.
and is currently the Head of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) Nanofabrication and Characterization Group.
Using their nanocellulose-based hydrogel, they reported proliferation and collagen type after just 21 days of culturing.
those focused on small nanoscale structures such as cell scaffolding for humans, wee rarely heard about the two coming together in one project.
#Swedish researchers create a nanoscale 3d printed bunny using folded DNA Among some of the more exciting developments that wee been seeing in additive manufacturing involve the creation of structures that you can even see at all-in the form of nanoscale assemblies.
Whether its for medical use or for other scientific purposes, the ability to create custom objects using additive manufacturing methods at the nanoscale is allowing experts to manipulate objects at even the smallest levels.
The new results will help pave the way for DNA NANOTECHNOLOGY in medicine over the next 10 years.
The complex structures are less than 50 nanometres wide and have been produced as part of a new study published this week in the journal Nature.
it hasn been until recently where new methods have opened up different possibilities for fine-tuning the folding process through automation-an important step for the near future of nanoscale 3d printing. ee developed a new slim lined method to fold DNA
Among other applications for the automated DNA folding process include helping researchers develop nanoscale structures for targeted drug delivery
but instead of reading by dots, the cells read by these nanoscale protein clusters on neighbouring cells,
using similar DNA NANOSTRUCTURES presented in this research, and these structures will be a guide for developing future research,
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