Nanotechnology and Emerging Technologies

Nanotechnology Spotlights

A pH-responsive nanoscale vaccine with tailored immune responses

Nanomaterials hold promise as synthetic vaccines. They have the ability to deliver cargo to specific immune cells and modulate the resulting immune response. Compared to natural vaccine vectors, including engineered viruses or attenuated pathogens, synthetic nanoscale vaccines are safer, more controlled, and have the potential to be more effective. Nanoscale vaccines may also prevent, or even treat a wider range of diseases,...

Posted: May 24th, 2013

Nanothermometers may aid in the treatment of cancer with heat

Nanotechnology is helping to revolutionize cancer hyperthermia - the treatment of cancer with heat. Certain types of nanoparticles, in particular those made of gold or iron oxide, act as transducers that absorb electromagnetic radiation and generate heat. If the nanoparticles are delivered selectively to a tumour, heat can be generated within the tumour tissue by irradiating it with an external energy source. This results...

Posted: May 23rd, 2013

A nanotechnology use for hemp

Researchers have come up with various electrode materials to improve the performance of supercapacitors, focussing mostly on porous carbon due to its high surface areas, tunable structures, good conductivities, and low cost. Graphene and carbon nanotubes show great potential but are costly. Researchers in Canada have now reported the successful hydrothermal-based synthesis of two-dimensional, yet interconnected, carbon nanosheets...

Posted: May 15th, 2013

Probing the behavior of single nanomagnets

Ferromagnetic materials exhibit the so-called anomalous Hall effect (AHE), whereby the electrons flowing through the material experience a lateral force pushing them to one side as a result of the material's intrinsic magnetization. Although the AHE has been used in the field on nanotechnology to measure the magnetic behavior of nanoparticles (with sizes larger than 50 nm), nobody so far had tried to separate the signals of...

Posted: May 14th, 2013

Unusual behavior of graphene under irradiation: More damage - less noise

The low-frequency 1/f noise is a ubiquitous phenomenon found everywhere from fluctuations of human heart rates to fluctuations of electrical currents in semiconductor devices. An acceptable level of flicker 1/f noise is one of the key metrics that each new material has to pass before it can be used for practical devices. Graphene has shown a great potential for applications in high-frequency communications, analog circuits...

Posted: May 10th, 2013

Single-molecule nanopore research made easy

Nanopores are an exciting class of single molecule nanosensors. For several years now, nanopore technology has been developed as a biosensor at the single-molecule resolution to detect an array of biomedical molecules, such as DNA, RNA, protein, biotoxin, and various nanopore projects have been funded to develop the next generation of DNA sequencing technology. The sensing principle is based on the resistive pulse technique...

Posted: May 9th, 2013

Nanoelectronic modeling for noninvasive spatial metrology

For a transistor to work properly, it must contain impurity atoms - called dopants - replacing the silicon atoms at certain places in the device. Given that modern transistor are approaching the atomic scale, the exact location of a single dopant atom becomes critical in determining the device functionality. In a different context, single dopant atoms in semiconductors have now proved to be an excellent platform to encode...

Posted: May 8th, 2013

Artificial organelles decontaminate polluted waters

Every year, large quantities of antibiotics are released into lakes and rivers as a byproduct of their use in farming and medicine. Antibiotics in the environment can select for antibiotic-resistant bacterial populations, which can cause severe infections if they come into contact with humans or animals. In addition, antibiotics can disrupt the natural bacterial flora that plays a vital role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems....

Posted: May 7th, 2013