Nanoparticles
Twisted crystals point way toward active optical materials
September 29, 2011 2:16 pm | News | CommentsA Rice University laboratory led by chemist Stephan Link has discovered a way to use liquid crystals to control light scattered from gold nanorods. The technique took two years to refine to the point where light from the nanoparticles could be completely controlled.
New technique maps twin faces of smallest Janus nanoparticles
September 27, 2011 9:15 am | News | CommentsNew drug delivery systems, solar cells, industrial catalysts, and video displays are among the potential applications of special particles that possess two chemically distinct sides. These particles are named after the two-faced Roman god Janus and their twin chemical faces allow them to form novel structures and new materials. However, as scientists reduced the size of Janus particles their efforts have been hampered because they lacked an accurate way to map the particles surfaces. Until now.
Answered: Exactly how diamonds emerge from graphite
September 21, 2011 6:04 am | News | CommentsDiamonds can be produced artificially only under difficult conditions, and past predictions of the phase transitions involved have been theoretical because of simulation complexity. Advances in computing have allowed researchers in Switzerland to now show exactly how graphite is converted into diamond.
A new way to go from nanoparticles to supraparticles
September 19, 2011 5:40 am | News | CommentsControlling the behavior of nanoparticles can be just as difficult trying to wrangle a group of teenagers. However, a new study involving Argonne National Laboratory has given scientists insight into how tweaking a nanoparticle’s attractive electronic qualities can lead to the creation of ordered uniform "supraparticles."
Recovering valuable minerals from waste rock
September 16, 2011 8:30 am | News | CommentsResearchers report the discovery of a new technology for more efficiently separating gold, silver, copper, and other valuable materials from rock and ore. Their report on the process, which uses nanoparticles to latch onto those materials and attach them to air bubbles in a flotation machine, appears in Langmuir .
Carbon nanoparticles break barriers
September 16, 2011 8:22 am | News | CommentsA study by researchers from the schools of science and medicine at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis examines the effects of carbon nanoparticles on living cells. This work is among the first to study concentrations of these tiny particles that are low enough to mimic the actual exposure of an ordinary individual.
Researchers create nanoscale gold coating with largest-ever superlattice
September 16, 2011 5:19 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developed a new method for creating a layer of gold nanoparticles that measures only billionths of a meter thick. These self-assembling gold coatings with features measuring less than 10 nm could hold important implications for nanoelectronics manufacturing.
Nanoparticle purification system uses magnetic fields
September 7, 2011 4:27 am | News | CommentsA team of Penn State University scientists has invented a new system that uses magnetism to purify hybrid nanoparticles. The team explains that the never-before-tried method will not only help scientists to remove impurities from hybrid nanoparticles, it also will help researchers distinguish between hybrid nanoparticles that appear identical when viewed under an electron microscope, but that have different magnetism.
Nickel nanoparticles may contribute to lung cancer
August 24, 2011 6:00 am | News | CommentsAll the excitement about nanotechnology comes down to this: Structures of materials at the scale of billionths of a meter take on unusual properties. Technologists often focus on the happier among these newfound capabilities, but new research by Brown University finds that nanoparticles of nickel activate a cellular pathway that contributes to cancer in human lung cells.
New nano-scale parameter resolves dilemmas on silicon property
August 24, 2011 5:46 am | News | CommentsA new discovery by Aalto University can have major impact on the future nano-scale device design, such as ultraviolet photo detectors and drug delivery. In bulk size, many materials like silicon are as brittle as glass. In nanoparticle size, the same material can be compressed into half their size without breaking them.
Discovered: Nanoscale balancing act that mirrors forces in living systems
August 23, 2011 9:24 am | News | CommentsA delicate balance of atomic forces can be exploited to make nanoparticle superclusters that are uniform in size—an attribute that's important for many nanotech applications but hard to accomplish, University of Michigan researchers say.
Particle shape solves puzzle of coffee ring effect
August 18, 2011 5:02 am | News | CommentsIf you've ever spilled a drop of coffee on a surface, you might have noticed the curious way the color concentrates at the edges when the coffee dries. This is known as the "coffee ring effect". Researchers have determined that the shape of the particles in the liquid is an important factor in creating this pattern.
Quantum dot company lands DARPA award
August 17, 2011 2:57 pm | News | CommentsWith a $900,000 contract, QD Vision Inc. has been tasked to develop two prototype quantum dot-based devices, one electroluminescent and one photoluminescent, to serve as development tools for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Tiny gold particles help boost organic solar cell efficiency
August 17, 2011 4:25 am | News | CommentsUniversity of California, Los Angeles researchers and their colleagues from China and Japan have shown that by incorporating gold nanoparticles into organic photovoltaics—taking advantage of the plasmonic effect, by which metal helps to enhance the absorption of sunlight—they can significantly improve the cells' power conversion.
Wanted: 2011's Top Technologies
August 15, 2011 6:12 am | Blogs | CommentsThe editors of R&D Magazine have opened the nominations for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards competition, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards. If your organization introduced a new product this year, or is planning to, you can begin the entry process now.
Nanoscale secret to stronger alloys
August 8, 2011 5:44 am | News | CommentsAs long ago as the Wright Brothers' first airplane engine, metallurgists were using nanoparticles to make strong aluminum alloys. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now solved the mystery of one of the most promising alloys ever for strength, hardness, lightness, and resistance to corrosion and heat, one that includes core-shell nanoparticles all nearly the same size.
Gold nanoparticles diagnose flu in minutes
August 4, 2011 9:45 am | by Sam Fahmy | News | CommentsBy coating gold nanoparticles with antibodies that bind to specific strains of the flu virus and then measuring how the particles scatter laser light, a new technology from the University of Georgia can detect influenza in minutes at a cost of only a fraction of a penny per exam.
Hot bath improves catalytic ability of gold nanoparticles
August 3, 2011 5:30 am | News | CommentsGold, nanoparticles can be extremely good catalysts, but conventional methods of preparing them alter the morphology and catalytic activity of the particles. Now, an international team of researchers has developed a procedure that enhances the surface exposure of gold nanoparticles and their catalytic activity over a range of reactions.
Finding: Artificial nanoparticles influence the heart rate
August 1, 2011 12:23 pm | News | CommentsUsing a so-called Langendorff heart?an isolated rodent heart flushed with a nutrient solution in place of blood?scientists from Germany were for the first time able to show that nanoparticles have a clearly measurable effect on the heart.
Tug-of-war between electrons can lead to strange magnetism
June 30, 2011 4:58 am | News | CommentsAt the smallest scales, magnetism may not work quite the way scientists expected, according to a recent paper in Physical Review Letters by Rafal Oszwaldowski and Igor Zutic of the Univ. at Buffalo and Andre Petukhov of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. The three physicists have proposed that it would be possible to create a quantum dot that is magnetic under surprising circumstances.
Raman nanoparticle-aided imaging of tumors moves closer to human trials
June 28, 2011 12:29 pm | News | CommentsIn 2008, Stanford researchers demonstrated the use of nanoparticle-aided Raman spectroscopy to look at microscopic structures, including nascent tumors, deep inside the body. That team has now conducted extensive preclinical tests and shown that the gold nanoparticles can be safely administered into the colon and used with a Raman endoscope to image the inside of the large intestines.
Gold nanoparticles help earlier diagnosis of liver cancer
June 22, 2011 11:10 am | News | CommentsA research team led by Brown Univ. has devised a new technique to spot cancerous tumors in the liver as small as 5 mm. The technique, using gold nanoparticles, is the first to deploy metal nanoparticles as agents to enhance x-ray scattering of image tumor-like masses.
'Super sand' multiplies filtering power by factor of five
June 22, 2011 7:45 am | News | CommentsSand has been used to purify water for more than 6,000 years, but recent studies by scientists in the. U.S. and Australia suggest that a nanomaterial called graphite oxide might offer a better solution. The experiments involved coating sand grains with this material, greatly heightening the material’s saturation and heavy metal absorption capabilities.
Nano-electronics built with self assembly
June 20, 2011 7:55 am | News | CommentsIn an effort to supply the emergining electronics field of spintronics with a functional component, researchers in Germany took inspiration from self-organization processes in nature to build a magnetically-sensitive nano-component from terbium atoms arranged perfectly along a carbon nanotube.
Nanoparticles that work together
June 20, 2011 4:03 am | News | CommentsA team of researchers from MIT, the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, and the Univ. of California at San Diego have designed a new type of drug delivery system in which a first wave of nanoparticles homes in on the tumor, then calls in a much larger second wave that dispenses the cancer drug. This communication between nanoparticles, enabled by the body's own biochemistry, boosted drug delivery to tumors by more than 40-fold in a mouse study.
