Dec 09, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Novel materials could revolutionise computer technology. Research conducted by scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI using the Swiss Light Source SLS has reached an important milestone along this path. Microchips are made from silicon and work on the physical principle of a semiconductor. Nothing...
A Janus carbon electrocatalyst can balance the intrinsic activity and electronic conductivity
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Carbon-based electrocatalysts are considered as promising alternatives to the state-of-the-art precious metal catalysts. Heteroatom doping can effectively create highly active catalytic centers, but unfortunately, resulting in lower electronic conductivity and thus hindering the electrocatalysis process. To address this issue, a team from South China University...
A ‘raspberry-shaped’ nanoparticle for precision drug delivery
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) A newly discovered technique, reported in the journal Nanoscale ("Silica nanoparticle remodeling under mild conditions: versatile one step conversion of mesoporous to hollow nanoparticles with simultaneous payload loading"), offers a low-cost way to enhance the effectiveness of existing drugs. “If you take sand and heat...
Oddball gamma-ray burst forces revision of theoretical framework
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) The mysteries of the cosmos continue to amaze astronomers, and with each new observation comes a chance to deepen – or upend – our understanding of the universe. In the journal Nature ("A long-duration gamma-ray burst with a peculiar origin"), an international team of astrophysicists...
Soft robot detects damage and heals itself
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) If robots are going to venture into remote environments that humans can’t reach, such as deep underwater or distant outer space, they won’t only require power and a means to get there. They’ll also need to take good care of themselves. To that end, a...
Wearable sensor could guide precision drug dosing
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) For some of the powerful drugs used to fight infection and cancer, there’s only a small difference between a healing dose and a dose that’s large enough to cause dangerous side effects. But predicting that margin is a persistent challenge because different people react differently...
Heart attack on a chip
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Southern California Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a “heart attack on a chip,” a device that could one day serve as a testbed to develop new heart drugs and even personalized medicines. “Our device replicates some key...
Single-electron devices could manage heat flow in electronic components
Dec 08, 2022 (Nanowerk News) RIKEN physicists have fabricated a nanoscale ‘heat engine’ that uses a property of electrons known as spin as the effective working medium (Physical Review Letters, "Real-time observation of charge-spin cooperative dynamics driven by a nonequilibrium phonon environment"). It is promising for exploring the development of...