Canadian engineers suggest that research is needed into the risks associated with the growing field of nanotechnology manufacture so that appropriate protective equipment can be developed urgently.
Researchers have conducted a basic chemistry experiment in what is perhaps the world's smallest test tube, measuring a thousandth the diameter of a human hair.
Scientists in Spain are working on optimizing a type of photovoltaic cell (Grätzel cell) that artificially mimics photosynthesis. Grätzel cells are photovoltaic devices that take advantage of the interaction of a structured semiconductor less than a nanometer in size and an organic dye that acts as a solar collector.
Researchers have discovered novel electronic properties in two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms called graphene that could one day be the heart of speedy and powerful electronic devices. The new findings, previously considered possible by physicists but only now being seen in the laboratory, show that electrons in graphene can interact strongly with each other. The physicists discovered that the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene is even more robust than in standard semiconductors.
A magnetic charge can behave and interact just like an electric charge in some materials, according to new research. The findings could lead to a reassessment of current magnetism theories, as well as significant technological advances.
Searching for biomarkers that can warn of diseases such as cancer while they are still in their earliest stage is likely to become far easier thanks to an innovative biosensor chip. The sensor is up to 1,000 times more sensitive than technology now in clinical use, accurate regardless of which bodily fluid is being analyzed and can detect biomarker proteins over a concentration range three times broader than existing methods.
Researchers have developed a new "plasmonic nanorod metamaterial" using extraordinarily tiny rods of gold that will have important applications in medical, biological and chemical sensors.
Silicon, the most important semiconductor material of all, is usually considered to be as brittle and breakable as window glass. On the nanometer scale, however, the substance exhibits very different properties, as Swiss researchers have shown by creating minute silicon pillars. If the diameters of the columns are made small enough, then under load they do not simply break off, as large pieces of silicon would, but they yield to the pressure and undergo plastic deformation, as a metal would. This discovery opens the way for completely new design techniques from a materials point of view for mechanical microsystems and in the watch industry.
Producing metallic hollow spheres is complicated: It has not yet been possible to make the small sizes required for new high-tech applications. Now for the first time researchers have manufactured ground hollow spheres measuring just two to ten millimeters.
Producing metallic hollow spheres is complicated: It has not yet been possible to make the small sizes required for new high-tech applications. Now for the first time researchers have manufactured ground hollow spheres measuring just two to ten millimeters.
