Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Stable packets of light waves – called optical solitons – are emitted in ultrashort-pulse lasers as a chain of light flashes. These solitons often combine into pairs with very short temporal separation. Introducing atomic vibrations in the terahertz range, researchers at the Universities of Bayreuth...
Microdrones with light-driven nanomotors
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Propelling micrometre-sized drones using light only and exerting precise control: Physicists at the University of Würzburg have succeeded at this for the first time. Their microdrones are significantly smaller than red blood cells. Artistic representation of a microdrone with two active light-driven nanomotors between red...
Light-driven membranes filter and destroy steroid hormone micropollutants
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Micropollutants in water often are hormones that accumulate in the environment and may have negative impacts on humans and animals. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) in Leipzig have now developed a process for the photocatalytic degradation...
Haber-Bosch at the atomic scale
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Industrial production of NH3 has been performed by the Haber-Bosch process for more than 100 years, in which dissociation of N2 feedstock molecules promoted by alkali atom co-catalyst is thought to be the rate limiting step. The Haber-Bosch synthesis consumes 1% of the world’s total...
Cheaper solar cells could be on the way thanks to new materials
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, which has good efficiency and stability, but is relatively expensive to make and can only be manufactured in stiff panels. Perovskite solar cells offer an intriguing alternative; they can be printed from inks, making them low cost, high...
A solution to perovskite solar cell scalability problems
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Perovskites are hybrid materials made from metal halides and organic compounds. They have attracted a lot of interest in the field of solar energy because of their light-harvesting capacities combined with a low cost of manufacturing, making them prime candidates for overtake the market from...
Researchers use gold nanoparticles to develop accurate rapid test for viruses
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) University of Texas at Dallas researchers have developed a rapid test for viruses that can deliver results as accurate as lab tests within 30 minutes. Dr. Zhenpeng Qin, associate professor of mechanical engineering and corresponding author of a new study demonstrating the method, called DIgitAl...
Researchers demonstrate label-free super-resolution microscopy
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers have developed a new measurement and imaging approach that can resolve nanostructures smaller than the diffraction limit of light without requiring any dyes or labels. The work represents an important advance toward a new and powerful microscopy method that could one day be used...
Wearable material can generate electricity by capturing energy from body movements
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Dr Ishara Dharmasena, of the School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering (MEME), and a team of researchers at the University of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka) have developed a new, scalable manufacturing technique to create wearable fabrics embedded with very small power generators known as ‘Triboelectric...
Scientists develop low-cost, high-precision fabrication method for thin mirrors and silicon wafers
Apr 21, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Technologies that depend on lightweight, high-precision optical systems, like space telescopes, X-ray mirrors, and display panels, have developed significantly over the past several decades, but more advanced progress has been limited by seemingly simple challenges. For example, the surfaces of mirrors and plates with microstructures...