Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) For machines with mechanical elements, friction is an unavoidable enemy. It is a major source of service failure and can reduce the lifespan of any machinery, from bicycles and cars to airplanes and assembly lines. New research led by the University of Pittsburgh unveils the...
Bioinspired protein creates stretchable 2D layered materials
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Nature creates layered materials like bone and mother-of-pearl that become less sensitive to defects as they grow. Now researchers have created, using biomimetic proteins patterned on squid ring teeth, composite layered 2D materials that are resistant to breaking and extremely stretchable. "Researchers rarely reported this...
Researchers explre the structure of the smallest semiconductor with only 27 atoms
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A semiconductor is a material whose conductivity lies somewhere between that of a conductor and an insulator. This property allows semiconductors to serve as the base material for modern electronics and transistors. It is no understatement that the technological progress in the latter part of...
Nanoparticle catalyst destroys ‘forever chemicals’ with sunlight
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Rice University chemical engineers have improved their design for a light-powered catalyst that rapidly breaks down PFOA, one of the world’s most problematic “forever chemical” pollutants. llustration showing how a composite material containing sheets of boron nitride (lattice of blue and silver balls) and nanoparticles...
Fundamentals underpinning future atomic and close-to-atomic scale manufacturing
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Atomic and close-to-atomic scale manufacturing (ACSM) represents the processing techniques for high-end products, which requires not only the atomic-level manufacturing precision and functional feature size, but also the material removal, migration, or addition at the atomic or close-to-atomic scale. Benefiting from the special quantum, electromagnetic,...
Powder kit for more flexibility and material diversity in 3D printing
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Powder-based laser beam melting (LPPF) is probably the best-known AM process and has great potential for industrial applications. But how can the limited range of materials for this process be circumvented and the market potential further expanded? This question was addressed by the IWM of...
Novel platform allows five types of programmable optothermal manipulation of micro- and nanoparticles
Jul 25, 2022 (Nanowerk Spotlight) The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 was awarded for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics with one half to Arthur Ashkin 'for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems'. What Ashkin had found back in the 1970s was that radiation pressure...