Nanotechnology Spotlight – Latest Articles

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Showing Spotlights 145 - 152 of 616 in category All (newest first):

 

Batch-assembly of reconfigurable, multimodal 3D electronics (w/video)

e-whiskersWhiskers on animals allow them to build a rich understanding of their environment by feeling objects or even the flow of fluids. Many animals can also actively sweep, or 'whisk', their whiskers, enabling them to gather complex information about the architecture of their environment. Researchers have replicated this whisking action by exploiting the shape memory effect of a polymer substrate, which can be dynamically repositioned by modulating the temperature and air flow across the electronic whiskers (e-whiskers).

Apr 3rd, 2018

Single crystalline epitaxy of all inorganic lead-free halide perovskite paves the way for high-performance electronics

quantum_well_systemHalide perovskites have attracted tremendous interest due to their fascinating optoelectronic properties. Driven by the concerns of toxicity derived from lead and instability caused by organic components, researchers have turned to all-inorganic lead-free halide perovskites. However, compared to hybrid lead perovskite, lead-free compositions usually demonstrate poor crystallinity, low ordering, and high defects that suppress the performance of optoelectronic devices. Scientists now have deployed a new approach to grow all inorganic lead-free halide perovskites.

Mar 29th, 2018

Nanoengineered bioinks for 3D printing

Imagine being able to print out healthy tissue with just a sample of a patient's own cells. While printed replacement human body parts might seem like science fiction, the use of 3D printing technologies for medical applications is a relatively new but rapidly expanding research field, although still quite a way from clinical application for treating patients. However, currently available bioinks cannot 3D print self-sustaining anatomic-size structures containing live cells. To overcome the limitations of existing bioinks, researchers have developed a highly printable bioink for fabricating large scale, cell-laden, bioactive scaffolds.

Mar 20th, 2018

Nanopatterning below 5 nm - towards the design of molecular building blocks

nanofabricationGiven the vast, and still rising, cost of optical lithography tools, researchers have considered alternative patterning technologies such as electron beam lithography (EBL), and nanoimprint technology (NIL) in order to enable the manufacturing of next-generation integrated circuits, flash memory, and hard disk drives. Now that the length scales attainable by top-down lithography are approaching that of bottom-up self-assembly found in polymers and small molecules, scientists are increasingly looking at bottom-up patterning technologies based on self-assembly.

Mar 9th, 2018

Molecular printing with light-actuated pens

molecular_printingThe past two decades have witnessed the evolution of advanced physical probe-based nanolithography techniques for molecular printing such as for instance Dip-Pen Nanolithography. Now, researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, photo-actuated polymer pens for molecular printing. This represents an important step in the field of scalable nanofabrication. It paves the way for dynamic actuation of individual pens, making it possible to realize patterning and printing molecules or other soft materials such as polymers or biomaterials at high resolution and low cost.

Feb 23rd, 2018

Why burn bagasse when you can 3D print its nanocellulose

3D-printingBagasse, a waste plant matter obtained by food industry processes such as sugarcane processing, has great potential as raw material for the production of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) for a range of applications. Researchers now have developed a CNF ink from bagasse that has potential as component in bioinks for 3D printing. Bioinks are inks that contain living cells and that can be 3D printed in a cell-friendly manner, without compromising cell viability.

Feb 22nd, 2018

Creating highly tunable adhesives with Kirigami-inspired structures

kirigame_adhesiveTuning adhesion without relying on chemical treatment or micro or nanostructured surfaces is now closer with a novel, kirigami-inspired approach. New research shows that by carefully designing arrays of cuts in an adhesive film, the stickiness can not only be tuned by a factor of 100 across a single sheet, but also be decreased for an easy-release purpose. These kirigami-inspired structures at interfaces provide a mechanism to spatially control and enhance adhesion strength while providing directional characteristics for high-capacity, easy-release interfaces.

Feb 19th, 2018

Wood nanotechnology for selective oil/water separation

microporesCellulose aerogels, made from nanofibrils found in plants, have several unique features, one of which is super high oil absorption capacity that is several times higher than commercial sorbents available in the market. Researchers have created wood-based structures for oil/water separation, utilizing the native feature of wood, i.e. its tubular porosity and hierarchical organization. The novelty here is the development of new processing routes for hierarchical wood structures scaled from nano-, micro-, to macroscales.

Feb 14th, 2018