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Public Release: 23-Aug-2011

Nature Materials
Controlling magnetism with electric fields
An international team of researchers from France and Germany has developed a new material which is the first to react magnetically to electrical fields at room temperature. Previously this was only at all possible at extremely low and unpractical temperatures. The research group from Paris and Berlin with the participation of RUB scientists reported on their findings in Nature Materials.

Public Release: 22-Aug-2011

Carbon
Nano bundles pack a powerful punch
Rice University researchers have created a solid-state, nanotube-based supercapacitor that promises to combine the best qualities of high-energy batteries and fast-charging capacitors in a device suitable for extreme environments.

T.J. Wainerdi and Quantum Wired, Houston Area Research Council, Office of Naval Research, Wright Patterson Air Force Laboratory, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 22-Aug-2011

Nature Materials
Etch-a-sketch with superconductors
Reporting in Nature Materials this week, researchers from the London Center for Nanotechnology and the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome have discovered a technique to "draw" superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam. This ability to create and control tiny superconducting structures has implications for a completely new generation of electronic devices.

Public Release: 22-Aug-2011

Nature Materials
Locating the elusive
Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in close collaboration with colleagues in France and UK, have engineered a material that exhibits a rare and versatile trait in magnetism at room temperature. It's called a "multiferroic," and it means that the material has properties allowing it to be both electrically charged (ferroelectric) and also the ability to be magnetic (ferromagnetic), with its magnetization controlled by electricity.

Public Release: 22-Aug-2011

Science
Nanowires get into the groove
Weizmann Institute scientists have discovered that growing nanowires out, not up, can keep them in line.

Public Release: 20-Aug-2011

Applied Physics Letters
Tunable nano-suspensions for light harvesting
A Syracuse University researcher has developed a patent-pending robust process to manufacture stable suspensions of metal nanoparticles capable of capturing sunlight.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 19-Aug-2011
Office of Naval Research taking on challenges of unmanned underwater vehicles
As the Office of Naval Research (ONR) increases its science and technology (S&T) investment in unmanned systems, a number of hurdles need to be overcome including autonomy and littoral operations, ONR's director of innovation said at an Aug. 18 conference on unmanned systems.

Public Release: 17-Aug-2011

Angewandte Chemie
Why spiders don't drop off of their threads
It has five times the tensile strength of steel and is stronger then even the best currently available synthetic fibers: Spider thread. Scientists of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen and the Universitaet Bayreuth have now succeeded in unveiling a further secret of silk proteins and the mechanism that imparts spider silk with its strength. They have published the results of their work in the professional journal Angewandte Chemie.

Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Elitenetzwerk Bayern, German Federal Minstry of Education and Research

Public Release: 17-Aug-2011

IEEE Nano

Nanotechnology
NIST uncovers reliability issues for carbon nanotubes in future electronics
Carbon nanotubes theoretically can carry 1,000 times more electric current than a metal conductor of the same size, so researchers hope they might replace copper wiring in future nanoscale electronics, but recent tests at NIST suggest device reliability is a major issue.

Public Release: 17-Aug-2011

Langmuir
Researchers find way to align gold nanorods on a large scale
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a simple, scalable way to align gold nanorods, particles with optical properties that could be used for emerging biomedical imaging technologies.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 17-Aug-2011

Applied Physics Letters
New nanostructured glass for imaging and recording
University of Southampton researchers have developed new nano-structured glass, turning it into new type of computer memory, which has applications in optical manipulation and will significantly reduce the cost of medical imaging.

Public Release: 16-Aug-2011

ACS Nano
Nano Gold Rush: Researchers use tiny gold particles to boost organic solar cell efficiency
Reseachers demonstrate how they inserted a gold nanoparticle layer between two subcells to combine the tandem cell strategy with the plasmonic effect -- a process that concentrates light via scattering from nanoparticles. As a result, a 20 percent improvement of power conversion efficiency has been attained by the light concentration of gold nanoparticles.

Public Release: 16-Aug-2011

Nature Materials
A new look below the surface of nanomaterials
Scientists can now look deeper into new materials to study their structure and behavior, thanks to work by an international group of researchers led by UC Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and published Aug. 14 by the journal Nature Materials.

Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, DFG, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Public Release: 16-Aug-2011

Applied Materials and Interfaces
Ions control shape of nanofibers grown on clear substrate
Researchers from North Carolina State University have found a new way to develop straight carbon nanofibers on a transparent substrate. Growing such nanofiber coatings is important for use in novel biomedical research tools, solar cells, water repellent coatings and others. The technique utilizes a charged chromium grid, and relies on ions to ensure the nanofibers are straight, rather than curling -- which limits their utility.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 16-Aug-2011

Nature Chemistry
Carbon nanotube structures changed by 'attack' from within, researchers discover
A team of researchers involving scientists from The University of Nottingham has shown for the first time that chemical reactions at the nano-level which change the structure of carbon nanotubes can be sparked by an "attack" from within.

Public Release: 15-Aug-2011
ORNL microscopy generates new view of fuel cells
A novel microscopy method is helping scientists probe the reactions that limit widespread deployment of fuel cell technologies.

Public Release: 12-Aug-2011

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Caltech researchers find that disorder is key to nanotube mystery
Researchers have observed that water spontaneously flows into extremely small tubes of graphite or graphene, called carbon nanotubes. However, no one has managed to explain why. Now, using a novel method to calculate the dynamics of water molecules, Caltech researchers believe they have solved the mystery. It turns out that entropy, a measurement of disorder, has been the missing key.

Public Release: 11-Aug-2011

Optics Letters
Shooting light a curve
Paving the way for fast-as-light, ultra-compact communication systems and optoelectronic devices, Berkeley Lab scientists have developed a technique for steering the curved path of plasmonic Airy beams -- combinations of laser light and quasi-particles called surface plasmon polaritons.

National Science Foundation, US Army, US Air Force

Public Release: 11-Aug-2011

Science
Stick-on tattoos go electric
Through a combination of careful theoretical modeling and precise micro-manufacturing, a team of engineers and scientists has developed a new type of ultra-thin, self-adhesive electronics device that can effectively measure data about the human heart, brain waves and muscle activity -- all without the use of bulky equipment, conductive fluids, or glues.

National Science Foundation, US Air Force, US Department of Energy, Beckman Institute

Public Release: 10-Aug-2011
Consumers' close encounters with nanoparticles
The most personal encounter that many consumers have had so far with nanotechnology is the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical Society's weekly news magazine. Those encounters with fruits of the science of ultra-small particles -- so tiny that 50,000 could fit across the width of a human hair -- may come when sunbathers, golfers, bikers and others slather on sunscreen during these late summer days.

Public Release: 9-Aug-2011

Nano Conference 2011
A new line of defense against sexual assault
Professor Fernando Patolsky and Dr. Michael Ioffe of Tel Aviv University have developed an easy-to-use sensor that, when dipped into a cocktail, will instantly detect the presence of a date rape drug. When ready for commercial purchase in just a few years, the sensor will be lightweight and discreet, easily transportable in a pocket or purse.

Public Release: 9-Aug-2011
Teaming up to build 3-D nanomaterials
A national team of experts, led by a Case Western Reserve University researcher, has received a multi-million-dollar grant to bring unrivaled qualities found in one- and two-dimensional nanomaterials into three dimensions.

US Department of Defense

Public Release: 9-Aug-2011

Nature Materials
Nottingham scientists pioneer new method for nanoribbon production
Research involving scientists from the University of Nottingham is pioneering a new method of studying and making molecules.

Public Release: 8-Aug-2011

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Biology, materials science get a boost from robust imaging tool
Shape and alignment are everything. How nanometer-sized pieces fit together into a whole structure determines how well a living cell or an artificially fabricated device performs. A new method to help understand and predict such structure has arrived with the successful use a new imaging tool.

Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 8-Aug-2011

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Connecting the dots: Pitt School of Dental Medicine team describes how enamel forms
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine are piecing together the process of tooth enamel biomineralization, which could lead to novel nanoscale approaches to developing biomaterials. The findings are reported online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

National Institutes of Health, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania


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