Nanotechnology News – Latest Headlines

Materials researchers get first look at atom-thin boundaries

Scientists have made the first direct observations of a one-dimensional boundary separating two different, atom-thin materials, enabling studies of long-theorized phenomena at these interfaces.

Nov 10th, 2014

New materials yield record efficiency polymer solar cells

Researchers have found that temperature-controlled aggregation in a family of new semi-conducting polymers is the key to creating highly efficient organic solar cells that can be mass produced more cheaply.

Nov 10th, 2014

Carbon-based nanomaterials could lower cost of solar energy

Mike Arnold, associate professor at UW-Madison, leads a research team that focuses on the study of advanced electronic materials for photovoltaic solar energy, energy storage, and semiconductor electronics. Developing materials that can bring down the cost of PV energy is his team's passion and primary goal.

Nov 10th, 2014

On-demand conductivity for graphene nanoribbons

Physicists have devised a theoretical model to tune the conductivity of graphene zigzag nanoribbons using ultra-short pulses.

Nov 10th, 2014

A new way to grow uniform nanowire arrays

Researchers have developed a new way to grow nanowire arrays with a determined diameter, length and uniform consistency. This approach to growing nanomaterials will improve the efficiency of various devices including solar cells and fuel cells.

Nov 10th, 2014

On the trail of proteins

Scientists have succeeded in electrochemically detecting protein binding on semiconductor materials for the first time, thanks to a newly developed investigative method based on differences in electrical charge. Now the physicists are working on an optical process to detect and localise protein binding directly under a microscope, for example, a method that could launch new applications in medical research and diagnostics.

Nov 9th, 2014

Tiny vehicles for medical applications

Micro- and nano-swimmers can be propelled through media similar to bodily fluids.

Nov 7th, 2014

New research lights the way to super-fast computers

New research has demonstrated how glass can be manipulated to create a material that will allow computers to transfer information using light. This development could significantly increase computer processing speeds and power in the future.

Nov 7th, 2014

Transitions between states of matter: It's more complicated, scientists find

A new study reveals the need to rethink one of science's building blocks and, with it, how some of the basic principles underlying the behavior of matter are taught in our classrooms. The researchers examined the way that a phase change, specifically the melting of a solid, occurs at a microscopic level and discovered that the transition is far more involved than earlier models had accounted for.

Nov 7th, 2014

New industrial research technique for analyzing nanoscale gallium nitride

Gallium nitride is difficult to produce and difficult to handle - and the key to the development of blue LEDs, which won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics. Now, researchers and engineers around the world are working on analyzing and optimizing this material.

Nov 7th, 2014

Biologisch abbaubare Silizium-Nanopartikel

Wissenschaftler des Leibniz-Institutes für Photonische Technologien konnten nachweisen, dass Silizium-Nanopartikel biologisch abbaubar sind. Damit eröffnen sich neue Anwendungsfelder in der Medizin - beispielweise in der Therapie und Diagnose von Krebs.