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Category: nanotechnology – Page 81

ICSPI, a leader in benchtop nanoscale imaging instruments, has announced the launch of its new Redux AFM, an automated atomic force microscope (AFM) designed to allow scientists and engineers to effortlessly collect 3-dimensional data at the nanoscale.

ICSPI’s mission is to expand access to nanoscale measurement with powerful, automated and intuitive imaging tools. Building on the success of its nGauge AFM, of which hundreds of units are in operation in over 30 countries, ICSPI is excited to introduce the Redux AFM and elevate the user experience of nanoscale imaging with automation.

Traditional AFM instruments, while powerful for nanoscale surface imaging, are often hindered by complex and time-consuming setup processes which are rooted in technology developed in the 1980s. Recognizing this challenge, ICSPI revolutionized the landscape with its unique AFM-on-a-chip technology. The Redux AFM, harnessing this breakthrough technology, makes nanoscale imaging effortless. By integrating multiple components onto a single chip, the Redux eliminates the cumbersome aspects of traditional AFM, such as silicon probe exchange, cantilever alignment, tip crashes, tip-sample approach, and controller tuning.

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Plasmonics are special optical phenomena that are understood as interactions between light and matter and possess diverse shapes, material compositions, and symmetry-related behavior. The design of such plasmonic structures at the nanoscale level can pave the way for optical materials that respond to the orientation of light (polarization), which is not easily achievable in bulk size and existing materials.

In this regard, “shadow growth” is a technique that utilizes vacuum deposition to produce nanoparticles from a wide range of 2D and 3D shapes at nanoscale. Recent research progress in controlling this shadow effect has broadened the possibilities for the creation of different nanostructures.

Now, in twin studies led by Assistant Professor Hyeon-Ho Jeong from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Republic of Korea, researchers have comprehensively shed light on the recent advances in shadow growth techniques for hybrid plasmonic nanomaterials, including clock-inspired designs containing magnesium (Mg).

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Steve P. Miller, PhD, has spent much of his career figuring out how to shut off autoimmune responses when he observed dying cells acting as carriers of autoantigens that could modulate the immune system. More than 20 years ago, while a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Miller discovered that dendritic cells (DCs), a subtype of antigen-presenting cells (APCs), could be changed or turned off to send the right signals to make immunologically tolerant T cells, also known as “tolerogenic.”

Miller’s attention turned toward investigating how best to mimic the apoptotic cells, overriding the expression of dendritic cells. So, Miller partnered with polymer chemist Lonnie D. Shea, PhD, who was at the McCormick School of Engineering, to develop a nanoparticle that interacts effectively with dendritic cells.

In 2013, Miller and Shea helped launch a company spun out of Northwestern University, when Shea was still in Chicago, called Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company, to develop innovative nanobiological therapeutics for acute inflammation, autoimmune, and allergic conditions. After years of experimentation, they developed a formula for nanoparticles of the right size and charge that interact well with the immune system, which is the foundation for their proprietary antigen-specific immune tolerance platform.

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The speed of light can be intentionally reduced in various media. Various techniques have been developed over the years to slow down light, including electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), photonic crystals, and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS).

Notably, researchers from Harvard, led by Lene Vestergaard Hau, reduced light speed to 17 m/s in an ultracold atomic gas using EIT, which sparked the interest in exploring EIT analogs in metasurfaces, a transformative platform in optics and photonics.

Despite the benefits, slow-light structures face a significant challenge: Loss, which limits storage time and interaction length. This issue is particularly severe for analogs of EIT due to scattering loss of nanoparticles and sometimes absorption loss of materials.

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Year 2017 face_with_colon_three

Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), that can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient’s own body. This technology may be used to repair injured tissue or restore function of aging tissue, including organs, blood vessels and nerve cells.

“By using our novel nanochip technology, injured or compromised organs can be replaced. We have shown that skin is a fertile land where we can grow the elements of any organ that is declining,” said Dr. Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State’s Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who co-led the study with L. James Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with Ohio State’s College of Engineering in collaboration with Ohio State’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.

Researchers studied mice and pigs in these experiments. In the study, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells to become vascular cells in badly injured legs that lacked blood flow. Within one week, active blood vessels appeared in the injured leg, and by the second week, the leg was saved. In lab tests, this technology was also shown to reprogram skin cells in the live body into nerve cells that were injected into brain-injured mice to help them recover from stroke.

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A collaborative research team co-led by Professor Shuang ZHANG, the Interim Head of the Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), along with Professor Qing DAI from National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China, has introduced a solution to a prevalent issue in the realm of nanophotonics – the study of light at an extremely small scale. Their findings, recently published in the prestigious academic journal Nature Materials, propose a synthetic complex frequency wave (CFW) approach to address optical loss in polariton propagation. These findings offer practical solutions such as more efficient light-based devices for faster and more compact data storage and processing in devices such as computer chips and data storage devices, and improved accuracy in sensors, imaging techniques, and security systems.

Surface plasmon polaritons and phonon polaritons offer advantages such as efficient energy storage, local field enhancement, and high sensitivities, benefitting from their ability to confine light at small scales. However, their practical applications are hindered by the issue of ohmic loss, which causes energy dissipation when interacting with natural materials.

Over the past three decades, this limitation has impeded progress in nanophotonics for sensing, superimaging, and nanophotonic circuits. Overcoming ohmic loss would significantly enhance device performance, enabling advancement in sensing technology, high-resolution imaging, and advanced nanophotonic circuits.

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Already, the graphene efforts have offered “a breath of fresh air” to the community, Alicea says. “It’s one of the most promising avenues that I’ve seen in a while.” Since leaving Microsoft, Zaletel has shifted his focus to graphene. “It’s clear that this is just where you should do it now,” he says.

But not everyone believes they will have enough control over the free-moving quasiparticles in the graphene system to scale up to an array of qubits—or that they can create big enough gaps to keep out intruders. Manipulating the quarter-charge quasiparticles in graphene is much more complicated than moving the Majoranas at the ends of nanowires, Kouwenhoven says. “It’s super interesting for physics, but for a quantum computer I don’t see it.”

Just across the parking lot from Station Q’s new office, a third kind of Majorana hunt is underway. In an unassuming black building branded Google AI Quantum, past the company rock-climbing wall and surfboard rack, a dozen or so proto–quantum computers dangle from workstations, hidden inside their chandelier-like cooling systems. Their chips contain arrays of dozens of qubits based on a more conventional technology: tiny loops of superconducting wires through which current oscillates between two electrical states. These qubits, like other standard approaches, are beset with errors, but Google researchers are hoping they can marry the Majorana’s innate error protection to their quantum chip.

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Quantum physicist Mickael Perrin uses graphene ribbons to build nanoscale power plants that turn waste heat from electrical equipment into electricity.

When Mickael Perrin started out on his scientific career 12 years ago, he had no way of knowing he was conducting research in an area that would be attracting wide public interest only a few years later: quantum electronics.

“At the time, physicists were just starting to talk about the potential of quantum technologies and quantum computers,” he recalls. “Today there are dozens of start-ups in this area, and governments and companies are investing billions in developing the technology further. We are now seeing the first applications in computer science, cryptography, communications, and sensors.”

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