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Results are in from a study on the similarities and differences of the nanostructure surfaces.

There is a clear difference between a snake’s skin and moth’s eyes. Scientists at Kiel University have developed a new technique that brings this so-called ‘apples and oranges’ to a common level. This unique approach has given way to an entirely new and comparative outlook on biological surfaces, and provides a better understanding of how these surfaces actually work.

Cambridge’s new nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs.

At the University of Cambridge researchers have developed a nano-scale light-powered piston engine that may one day energize devices to treat diseases directly or deliver drugs in powerful new ways. The device consists of charged gold nanoparticles within a polymer that bends and relaxes in response to heat changes. The polymer absorbs water when cooled, expanding in size, while heating the gold nanoparticles using a laser raises the temperature of the polymer, shedding the absorbed water and relaxing in response. This process happens in a fraction of a second, and as long as a laser is made to flip between being on and off, the engine keeps working.

According to the researchers, the force generated given the weight of the device is quite huge, at least a hundred times greater than existing motors or even muscle cells.

Continue reading “Scientists Develop Powerful Bio-Compatible Nano-Motor” »

The Illinois-based Northwestern University has utilized 3D printing technology to research a variety of vital applications, from 3D printing fuel cells to 4D printing materials on the nanoscale. Now, researchers from the prestigious institution are looking at 3D printing technology through a unique lens—a terahertz lens, to be exact. Generally unknown within the electromagnetic spectrum, hidden in between the more commonly known wavelengths of microwaves and infrared, lies the information-packed terahertz spectrum. The terahertz is not only a forgotten frequency, it’s also rarely studied, let alone well understood, yet it has high value in applications regarding imaging and communications.

One research group, led by Northwestern University’s Cheng Sun, has used metamaterials and a unique style of SLA technology called projection micro-stereolithography to manufacture a novel lens capable of working with terahertz frequencies. The 3D printed terahertz gradient-refractive index lens has better imaging capabilities than other commonly used lenses, and also enables researchers to make more advances with the relatively unknown world of the terahertz.

Quantum Sensors enables precise imaging of magnetic fields of superconductors.

Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have developed a new method that has enabled them to image magnetic fields on the nanometer scale at temperatures close to absolute zero for the first time. They used spins in special diamonds as quantum sensors in a new kind of microscope to generate images of magnetic fields in superconductors with unrivaled precision. In this way the researchers were able to perform measurements that permit new insights in solid state physics, as they report in Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers in the group led by the Georg-H. Endress Professor Patrick Maletinsky have been conducting research into so-called nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV centers) in diamonds for several years in order to use them as high-precision sensors. The NV centers are natural defects in the diamond crystal lattice. The electrons contained in the NVs can be excited and manipulated with light, and react sensitively to electrical and magnetic fields they are exposed to. It is the spin of these electrons that changes depending on the environment and that can be recorded using various measurement methods.

Maletinsky and his team have managed to place single NV spins at the tips of atomic force microscopes to perform nanoscale magnetic field imaging. So far, such analyses have always been conducted at room temperature. However, numerous fields of application require operation at temperatures close to absolute zero. Superconducting materials, for example, only develop their special properties at very low temperatures around −200°C. They then conduct electric currents without loss and can develop exotic magnetic properties with the formation of so-called vortices.

A new water-based coating could be added to the production process of metals, ceramics or glass. This will prevent the spread of the deadly supergbugs and could also kill disease-causing pathogens.

DNA used in a thermometer.

A thermometer 20,000-times smaller than a human hair has been developed by researchers using DNA that is capable of measuring temperatures within living cells.

The thermometer, unveiled this week in the journal Nano Letters, was built by scientists at the University of Montreal and is expected to improve human understanding of nanotechnologies.

Continue reading “DNA used to build the world’s smallest thermometer” »

Nano-particles to treat Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

A new therapeutic strategy for treating Acute Myeloid Leukaemia could involve using nano-particles to deliver a genetic molecule to fight the disease.

The nanoparticles carrying microRNA miR-22, (a small non-coding RNA molecule that regulates gene expression), showed therapeutic potential in mouse models of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

Continue reading “Nanoparticles may help treat blood cancer” »

Many recent big technological advances in computing, communications, energy, and biology have relied on nanoparticles. It can be hard to determine the best nanomaterials for these applications, however, because observing nanoparticles in action requires high spatial resolution in “messy,” dynamic environments.

In a recent step in this direction, a team of engineers has obtained a first look inside phase-changing nanoparticles, showing how their shape and crystallinity—the arrangement of atoms within the crystal—can have dramatic effects on their performance.

The work, which appears in Nature Materials, has immediate applications in the design of energy storage materials, but could eventually find its way into data storage, electronic switches, and any device in which the phase transformation of a material regulates its performance.

Researchers at Rice University are working on self-assembling wires that can move matter, essentially “force fields” powered by Tesla coils.

They’ve been working “very quietly,” said adjunct assistant professor Paul Cherukuri. He describes the project, which incorporates Tesla coils and nano-scale filaments, as “self-assembly at a distance.” The project started when the researchers were working with nanotubes, just seeing what they could do when pairing the coils with the electrification from Tesla coils.

Continue reading “A New Use for Tesla Coils: Self-Assembling Nanotubes” »