Feb 15, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Human skin can be considered as a performance benchmark for the development of artificial tactile systems. Important considerations for the development of electronic skin (e-skin) are the choice of materials used in its fabrication and the ability to confer the mechanical properties of human skin...
A new way to shape a material’s atomic structure with ultrafast laser light
Feb 15, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Thermoelectric materials convert heat to electricity and vice versa, and their atomic structures are closely related to how well they perform. Now researchers have discovered how to change the atomic structure of a highly efficient thermoelectric material, tin selenide, with intense pulses of laser light....
Disorder-engineered inorganic nanocrystals set a new efficiency record for ultrathin solar cells
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Displayed over roof tops and in solar farms, silicon-based solar cells are, so far, one of the most efficient systems in generating electricity from sunlight, but their fabrication can be expensive and energy demanding, aside from being heavy and bulky. The alternative solution of lower-cost...
A potent and economical anti-cancer therapeutic
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Nanoparticles, or particles whose size varies between 1 and 100 nanometers, have shown tremendous potential in many areas of science and technology, including therapeutics. However, conventional, synthetic nanoparticles are complicated and expensive to produce. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), which have emerged as an alternative option to...
Simulations reveal interesting geometric patterns
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) In today’s societies, the word “diamond” brings to mind a series of images. It entails stories of strength, wealth, and status. But strip away these associations, and the scientific uses of the material are revealed. Diamonds are transparent, extremely rigid, and don’t pose any danger...
Squeezing the noise out of microscopes with quantum light
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Lasers are often used to look at objects in microscopes. But even the best laser has “quantum noise” that makes a picture blurry and hides the details. This in turn results in measurements that are less precise than scientists need. Researchers have designed a new...
Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) In a new Nature Astronomy study ("Galaxies lacking dark matter produced by close encounters in a cosmological simulation"), an international team led by astrophysicists from the University of California, Irvine and Pomona College report how, when tiny galaxies collide with bigger ones, the bigger galaxies...
Temporal variation of light-matter interaction boosts photonic metamaterials
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) At the interface between two media, light is partly reflected backwards into the medium where it came from and partly transmitted into the neighboring medium, like a light ray entering a sparkling pool of water. The light wave patterns that arise from these processes can...
A new, sustainable way to make hydrogen for fuel cells and fertilizers
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A new sustainable and practical method for producing hydrogen from water has been discovered by a team of researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan led by Ryuhei Nakamura. Unlike current methods, the new method does not require rare metals...
Reducing animal testing with 3D bioprinting
Feb 14, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Biomedical research progress made it possible to tackle diseases and make great medical advances in recent decades. Unfortunately, to the largest extent, experimental research required animal models to move forward. The European Union, through the European Association for Animal Research, strongly regulates animal research following...