The actual micro-scallop was made of a relatively hard plastic. The challenge was to make the shells extremely thin
As in the case of their plastic micro-scallop the researchers also envision medical applications for their nanosubmarine.
This crystal structure creates a more robust edge and the more edge the better for catalytic reactions
but traditionally employed to thicken natural oxide layers on metals. The film was exposed then to sulfur vapor at 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit) for one hour.
Zang and his team found a way to break up bundles of the carbon nanotubes with a polymer
"By modifying the surface of the nanotubes with a polymer, the material can be tuned to detect any of more than a dozen explosives,
#Researchers improve thermal conductivity of common plastic by adding graphene coating (Phys. org) A team of engineering
and physics researchers with members from the U s. the U k. and the Republic of Muldova has found that covering a common type of plastic with a graphene coating can increase its conductivity by up to 600 times.
Plastics are not very good conductors of heat they are generally in the 0. 15-0. 24 W/mk range
In this new effort the researchers sought to improve heat conduction in a plastic by applying graphene to its surface.
The type of plastic used PET is very common it's used to make soda bottles and a myriad of other products in a nearly limitless variety of shapes.
which are based on multiscale simulations that will shed light on which sorts of real-world applications the coated plastics might best be used in.
http://arxiv. org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1407/1407.1359. pdfabstractwe have investigated thermal conductivity of graphene laminate films deposited on polyethylene terephthalate substrates.
Coating plastic materials with thin graphene laminate films that have up to 600 higher thermal conductivity than plastics may have important practical implications s
and revealed the widespread transition from one crystal structure to another. The team also measured the amount of oxygen
depositing thin films of a uniquely designed polymer on a template so that it self-assembles into neat, precise, even rows of alternating composition just 10 or so nanometers wide.
and IBM Almaden Research center focuses on block copolymers a special class of polymers that under the proper conditions, will segregate on a microscopic scale into regularly spaced"domains"of different chemical composition.
and measure the shape and dimensions of the polymer rows in three dimensions. The experimental techniques can prove essential in verifying
Hence the polymers.""The issue in semiconductor lithography is not really making small featuresou can do thatut you can't pack them close together,
"Block copolymers take advantage of the fact that if I make small features relatively far apart, I can put the block copolymer on those guiding patterns
and sort of fill in the small details.""The strategy is called"density multiplication"and the technique,"directed self-assembly."
"Block copolymers (BCPS) are a class of materials made by connecting two or more different polymers that,
the BCPS in question will form a thin film in a pattern of narrow, alternating stripes of the two polymer compositions.
Alternatively, they can be designed so one polymer forms a pattern of posts embedded in the other.
Remove one polymer, and in theory, you have a near-perfect pattern for lines spaced 10 to 20 nanometers apart to become, perhaps, part of a transistor array.
although the basic technique was developed using short-wavelength"hard"X rays that have difficulty distinguishing two closely related polymers,
***Unlike the scattering technique, the TEM tomography can actually image defects in the polymer structureut only for a small area.
because its two-dimensional structure and unique chemical properties made it a promising candidate for new applications such as energy storage material composites as well as computing
Graphene is remarkably strong for its low weight-about 100 times stronger than steel -and it conducts heat and electricity with great efficiency.
The global market for graphene is reported to have reached US$9 million this year with most sales concentrated in the semiconductor electronics battery energy and composites.
however because conventional metal electrode technologies are too thick(>500 nm) to be transparent to light making them incompatible with many optical approaches.
The new device uses graphene a recently discovered form of carbon on a flexible plastic backing that conforms to the shape of tissue.
Moreover graphene is nontoxic to biological systems an improvement over previous research into transparent electrical contacts that are much thicker rigid difficult to manufacture and reliant on potentially toxic metal alloys.
To overcome this challenge the researchers from the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (icems) at Kyoto University borrowed a principle from polymer chemistry
By putting graphene oxide (an oxidized form of graphene) into contact with an oppositely charged polymer the two components could form a stable composite layer a process also known as interfacial complexation.
Interestingly the polymer could continuously diffuse through the interface and induce additional reactions which allowed the graphene-based composite to develop into thick multilayered structures.
Hence we named this process'diffusion driven layer-by-layer assembly'explained Jianli Zou a co-investigator in the project.
and genetic diseases by combining the chemical specificity of the DNA with the signal readout of the metal.
The system is built around a polyethylene-glycol-based polymer that carries a small peptide component that allows it to bind preferentially to specific cell types The polymer itself serves as a photosensitizer that can be stimulated by light to release reactive oxygen species (ROS.
The natural fluorescence of the polymer assists with diagnosis and monitoring of therapy as it shows where nanoparticles have accumulated.
The ROS additionally break the link between the polymer and the doxorubicin. Thus cancer cells can be subjected to a two-pronged attack from the ROS therapy
their crystal structure is influenced not by the process. The UT scientists present their#findings in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
because other patterning techniques have the risk of damaging the crystal structure and orientation and thus influence the properties of the material.
and consists of PDMS#a rubber like polymer with silicon in it. Via this mask a pattern of zinc oxide can be placed on the perovskite for example.
Using PLD a sandwich of different materials can be made. The properties of each layer are secured.
Kim tried adding different polymers to his nanosheets to make them responsive. For this experiment he incorporated a relatively simple polymer that responds to ph. He found that the resulting nanosheet would always curl in basic high ph conditions
and always flatten in acidic low ph conditions. Kim also made his nanosheets responsive to near-infrared light a wavelength of light that is harmless to humans.
creating a responsive nanosheet is just a matter of adding the right polymer. A nanosheet is like pizza dough Kim said.
A nanosheet with a heat-sensitive polymer could burn surrounding tumors to destroy them functioning as a kind of super-specific chemotherapy.
There are tons of smart polymers and metals Kim said explaining the many properties he hopes to incorporate into nanotechnology.
This new structure is composite which means it allows us to mix all different kinds of components.
Smart Composite Nanosheets with Adaptive Optical Properties Jeong-Hwan Kim Murtaza Bohra Vidyadhar Singh Cathal Cassidy and Mukhles Sowwan Applied materials & Interfaces2014.
The best carbon nanotubes (CNTS) have demonstrated conductivities far beyond those of the best metals. Thus future windings made of CNTS may have a double conductivity compared with the present-day copper windings.
which has the second best conductivity of metals at room temperature. Despite the high conductivity of copper a large proportion of the electrical machine losses occur in the copper windings.
Carbon nanotubes are rapidly becoming more common because of their usefulness in nanoelectric devices composite materials and biomedicine.
"Our study focused on a variety of crystals that have controlled differences in thermal transport properties, such as Si, doped Si,
and Sige alloys,"Wilson said.""We coated these crystals with a thin metal film, heated the surface with a laser beam,
and then recorded the temperature evolution of the sample.""On length-scales shorter than the phonon mean-free-paths of the crystal,
heat is transported ballistically, not diffusively. Interfaces between materials further complicate the heat-transfer problem by adding additional thermal resistance."
when the radius of the laser beam used to heat the metal coated crystals was above ten microns,
predicts that a cubic crystal like silicon will carry heat equally well in all directions.
In particularly for crystals with defects, the boundary resistance is distributed and strongly dependent on the defect concentration."
has taken a major step in developing long-sought polymer architecture to boost power-conversion efficiency of light to electricity for use in electronic devices.
but it also solves some instability problems where the materials in mixed blends of polymers tend to lose their phase-separated behavior over time degrading energy transfer the polymer chemist says.
and packing at electrode surfaces the team combined knowledge about graphene and organic crystals. Though it was difficult Briseno says they managed to get the necessary compounds to stack like coins.
when an undergraduate chose the wrong substrate to grow crystals on. For over a week the student was growing vertical crystals
and we didn't even realize until we imaged the surface of the substrate with a scanning electron microscope.
We were shocked to see little crystals standing upright! We ultimately optimized the conditions and determined the mechanism of crystallization the polymer chemist adds.
Vertical nanopillars are ideal geometries for getting around these challenges Briseno says because charge separation/collection is most efficient perpendicular to the plastic device.
#Nanoengineering enhances charge transport promises more efficient future solar cells Solar cells based on semiconducting composite plastics and carbon nanotubes is one of the most promising novel technology for producing inexpensive printed solar cells.
They can be mixed in a semiconducting polymer and deposited from solution by simple and inexpensive methods to form thin and flexible solar cells.
In this new study, Dr. Barbero and his team at Umeå University show that this threshold can be reduced by more than 100 times in a semiconducting polymer
Earlier lab demonstrations of similar systems could only produce devices a few centimeters on a side with expensive metal substrates so were not suitable for scaling up to commercial production he says.
While the team has demonstrated working devices using a formulation that includes a relatively expensive metal ruthenium we're very flexible about materials Chou says.
In theory you could use any metal that can survive these high temperatures. This work shows the potential of both photonic engineering
The group is now working to optimize the system with alternative metals. Chou expects the system could be developed into a commercially viable product within five years.
Molybdenum disulfide is a member of a family of materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides which are currently the focus of intense research because of the unusual electronic properties they display
Okuno and his colleagues fabricated silicon nanowire arrays by metal-assisted chemical etching an approach that is simple and cost-effective.
Another potential application comes from the fact that silicon crystals at dimensions of 5 nanometers
Guo's team drilled hundreds of 1-millimeter-diameter holes into the surface of a thin sheet of an aluminum alloy.
Placing the nanoparticles in the sheet prior to the friction stir processing step significantly increased the concentration of nanoparticles in the composite.
or crystals of the aluminum matrix that recrystallized after being plasticized were extremely small; smaller aluminum matrix grains can flow past each other more smoothly than larger particles enhancing the strength of the material.
The best nanoparticle distribution and smallest aluminum alloy grains were obtained after passing the rotating tool through the sheet four times.
The team then demonstrated that the composite made in this way had improved significantly hardness and tensile strength compared to untreated aluminum alloy sheets.
We plan to continue this research to further improve the mechanical and thermal properties as well as the wear resistance of the nanocomposites says Guo.
#Researchers uncover properties in nanocomposite oxide ceramics for reactor fuel Nanocomposite oxide ceramics have potential uses as ferroelectrics fast ion conductors
A composite is a material containing grains or chunks of several different materials. In a nanocomposite the size of each of these grains is on the order of nanometers roughly 1000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
In the context of nuclear energy composites have been proposed for the fuel itself as a way for example to improve the basic properties of the material such as the thermal conductivity.
Composites have also been created to store the by-products of the nuclear energy cycle nuclear waste where the different components of the composite can each store a different part of the waste.
However composites have much broader applications. The interfaces provide regions of unique electronic and ionic properties
#Experts create unique nanoparticles for aerospace industry A development of three universities enables improved thermal and electronic properties on devices with nickel-titanium alloys.
Federal Universities of Pernambuco and Campina Grande, both in Brazil, were responsible for obtaining physical media for the shape memory titanium-nickel metal alloy (with the ability to return to its original state after being deformed.
Manufacturing methods of the alloys are very specific, so the Brazilian universities obtained them by vacuum melting the titanium to make it react with oxygen.
Then nanoparticles were obtained by thermal evaporation techniques where the molecular bonds of the metals degraded as a powder
another goal of this proyect is to train high level human resources in the areas of metallurgy alloys with shape memory,
and mechanical strength but made from a metal (in this case molybdenum combined with sulphur). This new class of thin metal/sulphide materials known as transition metal di-chalcogenides (TMDCS) has become an exciting complimentary material to graphene.
However unlike graphene TMDCS can also emit light allowing applications such as photodetectors and light emitting devices to be manufactured.
The patch is attached to a polymer backbone that can hold a stitch and keep it in place to cover a hole in the heart.
Instead they grew graphene onto a silicon carbide substrate under extremely high temperatures and low pressure to form the basis of the biosensor.
which are made with gold and other precious metals. The second-generation technology could allow people to use noninvasive methods to test their glucose levels through saliva tears or urine.
and polyurethane paint to melt ice on sensitive military radar domes which need to be kept clear of ice to keep them at peak performance.
but can be used to coat glass and plastic as well as radar domes and antennas. In the previous process the nanoribbons were mixed with polyurethane
but testing showed the graphene nanoribbons themselves formed an active network when applied directly to a surface.
They were coated subsequently with a thin layer of polyurethane for protection. Samples were spread onto glass slides that were iced then.
Doping is the process of introducing different atoms into the crystal structure of a material, and it affects how easily electrons can move through ithat is,
"The occupancy of the orbitals and the ability of electrons to move in the crystal are tied very closely togetherr'correlated.'
'Fundamentally, that's what dictates whether the material behaves as an insulator or a metal."
To test picene's properties when juxtaposed with a metal as it would be in an electronic device the researchers deposited a single layer of picene molecules onto a piece of silver.
The combination of CNTS and graphene into 3d hybrid composites can usually mitigate the self-aggregation
#Ceramics don't have to be brittle: Materials scientists are creating materials by design Imagine a balloon that could float without using any lighter-than-air gas.
the Caltech researchers explain how they used the method to produce a ceramic (e g.,, a piece of chalk or a brick) that contains about 99.9 percent air yet is incredibly strong
"Ceramics have always been thought to be heavy and brittle, "says Greer, a professor of materials science and mechanics in the Division of Engineering and Applied science at Caltech."
"The researchers use a direct laser writing method called two-photon lithography to"write"a three-dimensional pattern in a polymer by allowing a laser beam to crosslink
and harden the polymer wherever it is focused. The parts of the polymer that were exposed to the laser remain intact
while the rest is dissolved away, revealing a three-dimensional scaffold. That structure can then be coated with a thin layer of just about any kind of material metal, an alloy, a glass, a semiconductor, etc.
Then the researchers use another method to etch out the polymer from within the structure
leaving a hollow architecture. The applications of this technique are practically limitless, Greer says. Since pretty much any material can be deposited on the scaffolds,
they coated the polymer scaffold with a ceramic called alumina (i e.,aluminum oxide), producing hollow-tube alumina structures with walls ranging in thickness from 5 to 60 nanometers and tubes from 450 to 1, 380 nanometers in diameter.
That was not surprising given that ceramics especially those that are porous, are brittle. However, compressing lattices with a lower ratio of wall thickness to tube diameterhere the wall thickness was only 10 nanometersroduced a very different result."
"To understand why, consider that most brittle materials such as ceramics, silicon, and glass shatter because they are filled with flawsmperfections such as small voids and inclusions.
In research funded with a grant from the National institutes of health, Saraf and Nguyen perfected a thin film made of nanoparticles and polymers
Using a silicone breast model identical to those used to train doctors in manual breast exams,
Teflon is fluorinated a carbon polymer so we thought fluorinated graphene might be like two-dimensional Teflon.
Researchers from Empa and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have developed now a new method to selectively dope graphene molecules with nitrogen atoms.
and negative charges across different regions of the semiconductor crystal thereby creating the basic structure allowing the development of many components used in the semiconductor industry.
Fasel's team and colleagues at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz have succeeded in showing that graphene nanoribbons can be transferred efficiently
to open up single layers of solid boron nitride, a compound with a structure similar to graphite.
"Mallouk believes the results of this new understanding of intercalation in boron nitride and graphene could apply to many other layered materials of interest to researchers in the Penn State Center for Two-dimensional and Layered Materials who are investigating
The light in these terahertz wavelengths can pass through materials that we normally think of as opaque such as skin plastics clothing and cardboard.
The prototype uses two electrical leads made of different metals which conduct electrons at different rates.
with the transistor and display processing steps that Plastic Logic has developed already for flexible electronics.
except it is made of flexible plastic instead of Glass in contrast to conventional displays, the pixel electronics,
Graphene is more flexible than conventional ceramic alternatives like indium-tin oxide (ITO) and more transparent than metal films.
The new 150 pixel per inch (150 ppi) backplane was made at low temperatures (less than 100°C) using Plastic Logic's Organic Thin Film Transistor (OTFT) technology.
"This demonstration puts Plastic Logic at the forefront of this development, which will soon enable a new generation of ultra-flexible and even foldable electronics"This joint effort between Plastic Logic
because it uses inert gold#silica SERS nanoparticles and a hand-held Raman scanner that can guide brain tumor resection in the operating room o
but immensely powerful batteries) and an array of new materials that could make many of today's common metals and polymers redundant.
which was key to creating the composite two-dimensional semiconductor. Collaborators from the electron microscopy center at the University of Warwick in England found that all the atoms in both materials formed a single honeycomb lattice structure, without any distortions or discontinuities.
and deposited as single-layer crystals in the shape of triangles. After a while, evaporated atoms from the second material then attached to the edges of the triangle to create a seamless semiconducting heterojunction."
On a small scale, it takes about five minutes to grow the crystals, with up to two hours of heating and cooling time."
MX2 monolayers consist of a single layer of transition metal atoms, such as molybdenum (Mo) or tungsten (W), sandwiched between two layers of chalcogen atoms,
Two-dimensional aluminum (Al) nanofiber networks offering transparent conductors were fabricated by simple wet chemical etching of Al metalized polymer films using an electrospun polystyrene nanofiber mask template.
Previous success in the field of ultra-lightweight"aerogel monoliths"has relied largely on the use of precious gold and silver nanowires.
"Aerogel monoliths are like kitchen sponges but ours are made of ultra fine copper nanowires, using a fabrication process called freeze drying,
"The copper aerogel monoliths are conductive and could be embedded further into polymeric elastomers extremely flexible,
stretchable materials to obtain conducting rubbers.""Despite its conductivity, copper's tendency to oxidation and the poor mechanical stability of copper nanowire aerogel monoliths mean its potential has been unexplored largely.
The researchers found that adding a trace amount of poly (vinyl alcohol)( PVA) to their aerogels substantially improved their mechanical strength
and robustness without impairing their conductivity. What's more, once the PVA was included, the aerogels could be used to make electrically conductive rubber materials without the need for any prewiring.
Reshaping was also easy.""The conducting rubbers could be shaped in arbitrary 1d, 2d and 3d shapes simply by cutting,
the researchers noted that devices using their copper-based aerogels were not quite as sensitive as those using gold nanowires,
In contrast to other dichroic effects produced by some crystals, such as precious opals, the colorful effects of the Lycurgus cup have little dependence on the position of the observer.
In fact, the dichroism found in the Lycurgus cup has a different origin than crystals and so far this'plasmonic effect'has not been observed in naturally occurring materials."
#Eco-friendly'prefab nanoparticles'could revolutionize nano manufacturing A team of materials chemists polymer scientists device physicists
For photovoltaics Venkataraman points out The next thing is to make devices with other polymers coming along to increase power conversion efficiency
The'seeds'are multiple crystals of elongated gold decahedrons, joined together by shared facesn arrangement known as multiply-twinning.
however, regardless of the ratio of metals used. The ability to control the size and composition of the nanorods means it is easier to control the properties of the bimetallic goldopper nanoparticles compared to nanoparticles made of just one metal,
Yang explains. Next, the team evaluated the catalytic activity of these goldopper nanorods in a carbonitrogen-bond-forming reactionhe direct alkylation of an amine using an alcohol."
The team used the key properties of zinc oxide, a material that when squashed or stretched creates a voltage by converting energy from motion into electrical energy, in the form of nanorods.
whereby they could spray on the nanorod chemicals almost like nanorod graffiti to cover a plastic sheet in a layer of zinc oxide.
and it's extremely strong its tensile strength is even stronger than steel Hunt said. Air doesn't damage it.
"Quite often, two-dimensional crystals have electronic properties that are completely different from those of thicker layers of the same material,
But a solar cell made only of tungsten diselenide would require countless tiny metal electrodes tightly spaced only a few micrometers apart.
graphene is a 2d sheet of carbon just one atom Thick with a'honeycomb'structure the'wonder material'is 100 times stronger than steel, highly conductive and flexible.
Under certain PH conditions they found that graphene behaves like a polymer-changing shape by itself.
made of silica and nickel, is only 70 nm in diameter; the entire propeller is 400 nm long.
The hyaluronan gel contains a mesh of long proteins called polymers; the polymers are large enough to prevent micrometer-sized propellers from moving much at all.
But the openings are large enough for nanometer-sized objects to pass through. The scientists were able to control the motion of the propellers using a relatively weak rotating magnetic field.
#Existence of two-dimensional nanomaterial silicene questioned Sometimes scientific findings can shake the foundations of what was held once to be true causing us to step back
A recent study at the U s. Department of energy's Argonne National Laboratory has called into question the existence of silicene thought to be one of the world's newest and hottest two-dimensional nanomaterials.
Silicene was proposed as a two-dimensional sheet of silicon atoms that can be created experimentally by super-heating silicon
Both silicene and silicon should react immediately with oxygen but they react slightly differently. In the case of silicon oxygen breaks some of the silicon bonds of the first one
Because it consists of only one layer of silicon atoms silicene must be handled in a vacuum.
After depositing the atoms onto the silver platform initial tests identified that alloy-like surface phases would form until bulk silicon layers
which has been mistaken as two-dimensional silicene. Some of the bulk silicon platelets were more than one layer thick said Argonne scientist Nathan Guisinger of Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials.
Each new series of experiments presented a new set of clues that this was in fact not silicene.
We found out that what previous researchers identified as silicene is really just a combination of the silicon
Their sample did not exhibit characteristic vibrations of silicene but it did match those of silicon.
if you are trying to grow silicene. Explore further: Wonder material silicene has suicidal tendencie e
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