Latest Nanomaterials Stories
Creative engineering produces hollow nanoshell whispering galleries that trap light to improve performance of thin solar films Visitors to Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building may have experienced a curious acoustic feature that allows a person to whisper softly at one side of the cavernous, half-domed room and for another on the other side to hear every syllable. Sound is whisked around the semi-circular perimeter of the room almost without flaw. The phenomenon is known as a...
Three-dimensional computer simulations reveal diffusional behavior Some of the recent advancements in nanotechnology depend critically on how nanoparticles move and diffuse on a surface or in a fluid under non-ideal to extreme conditions. Georgia Tech has a team of researchers dedicated to advancing this frontier. Rigoberto Hernandez, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, investigates these relationships by studying three-dimensional particle dynamics simulations on...
Tiny metallic nanoparticles that shimmer in the light like the scales on a butterfly's wing are set to become the color-change components of a revolutionary new approach to point-of-care medical diagnostics, according to a study published in International Journal of Design Engineering. Thomas Schalkhammer and colleagues at Attophotonics Biosciences GmbH in Austria are working with Roland Palkovits of the University of Applied Sciences, in Wiener Neustadt, to develop a nanoparticle...
In a paper published this week in Science, a Manchester team lead by Nobel laureates Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov has literally opened a third dimension in graphene research. Their research shows a transistor that may prove the missing link for graphene to become the next silicon. Graphene – one atomic plane of carbon – is a remarkable material with endless unique properties, from electronic to chemical and from optical to mechanical. One of many potential...
A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods - rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals - to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique should enable more effective use of nanorods in solar cells, magnetic storage devices and sensors. It should also help boost the electrical and...
Atomic-level defects in graphene could be a path forward to smaller and faster electronic devices, according to a study led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. With unique properties and potential applications in areas from electronics to biodevices, graphene, which consists of a single sheet of carbon atoms, has been hailed as a rising star in the materials world. Now, an ORNL study published in Nature Nanotechnology suggests that point defects,...
Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover Why Pure Quantum Dots and Nanorods Shine Brighter To the lengthy list of serendipitous discoveries – gravity, penicillin, the New World – add this: Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered why a promising technique for making quantum dots and nanorods has so far been a disappointment. Better still, they’ve also discovered how to correct the problem. A team of...
Air Force Research Laboratory experiment shows chirality of tube controls speed of growth The Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, has experimentally confirmed a theory by Rice University Professor Boris Yakobson that foretold a pair of interesting properties about nanotube growth: That the chirality of a nanotube controls the speed of its growth, and that armchair nanotubes should grow the fastest. The work is a sure step toward defining all the mysteries inherent in what...
According to a new study, membranes based on the material graphene can be used to distill alcohol. The researchers wrote in the journal Science that they created the membrane from graphene oxide, which is a chemical derivative of graphene. Graphene is the thinnest known material in the universe and the strongest ever measured. it conducts electricity and heat better the any other material as well. A University of Manchester academics won the Noble Prize in Physics in 2010 by...
The National Research Council said on Wednesday that in order to study the potential health hazards of nanotechnology, researchers will need to drum up an additional $24 million a year. The research council said in a study that a new federal oversight agency is also required to integrate research by private business, universities and international groups. Nanotechnology is being used in a fast-growing variety of consumer products, and involves designing and manufacturing materials on a...
