Subscribe to our Nanotechnology Spotlight feed
Carbon onions, which are made of concentric graphene spherical shells, are a potential solid lubricant similar to Tungstenite (WS2) nanoparticles having an onion-like structure. In addition, carbon onion nanoparticles are expected to have good prospects for other applications, such as the reinforcement of composite materials, magnetic storage media and wear-resistant materials.
Lithography is a critical enabling technology for manufacturing nanoscale devices and structures. Suppose nanolithography tools cost just a few thousand dollars a piece instead of a few million dollars. These cheap tools would wide open the fields of nanotechnology to practically every university and industry researcher interested in the field.
Researchers in Canada used the electroless deposition process for self-assembling Palladium nanostructures, such as wires, from nanoparticles on a rough stainless steel substrate. This discovery holds a lot of potential for various engineering applications because the deposition process and the preparation of the substrate are simple and inexpensive.
Building reliable interconnections between carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and external electrical and mechanical systems is an essential prerequisite to exploring the potential of CNTs in various domains. The formation of a stable and low-resistance ohmic contact between CNTs and electrodes contributes to speeding up the development of applications with CNTs in nanoelectronic devices with small size, fast speed and low power dissipation.
Fabrication of nanowires arrays with different patterns and separations is a major concern of the nanowire community. For this purpose, a catalyst template, which is usually a metal nanoparticle array, is needed to guide the nanowire growth.
Recent work on bioinspired nanoscale colloidal systems is an example of the significant interest that the design and fabrication of nanostructured colloidal materials has created among scientists.
Polymeric hollow nanospheres with high stability and controllable permeability have interesting potential applications associated with the controlled release of encapsulated active ingredients (e.g., drugs, vaccines, antibodies, hormones, pesticides, and fragrances) under well-defined conditions. Researchers in Singapore are now fabricating hollow nanostructures with different shapes using a single template.
Spanish researchers have shown that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) constitute the ideal templates for the formation of one-dimensional strings of metal nanoparticles, with potential uses as waveguides, that would allow the miniaturization of devices below the diffraction limit and as catalytic motors.