Slow electrons for more efficient reactions

Jun 05, 2023 (Nanowerk News) What the international team of researchers actually set out to do was to detect a mysterious chemical object: a dielectron in solution. A dielectron is made up of two electrons, but unlike an atom, it has no nucleus. Up to now, scientists have been unable...

Shining a light on neuromorphic computing

Jun 05, 2023 (Nanowerk News) AI, machine learning, and ChatGPT may be relatively new buzzwords in the public domain, but developing a computer that functions like the human brain and nervous system - both hardware and software combined - has been a decades-long challenge. Engineers at the University of Pittsburgh...

Smart surgical implant coatings provide early failure warning while preventing infection

Jun 05, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Newly developed “smart” coatings for surgical orthopedic implants can monitor strain on the devices to provide early warning of implant failures while killing infection-causing bacteria, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report. The coatings integrate flexible sensors with a nanostructured antibacterial surface inspired by the wings...

Disks, spikes and clouds

Jun 05, 2023 (Nanowerk News) The detection of gravitational waves produced by the merger of black holes is teaching us a lot about the properties of these extreme objects. A team of researchers in the group of Gianfranco Bertone at the University of Amsterdam is devising new techniques to extract...

Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials: classification and application

Jun 05, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials are gaining much attention due to their versatility, including disease diagnosis and treatment. They work under endogenous (pH, temperature, enzyme, and redox) or exogenous (temperature, light, magnetic field, ultrasound) stimuli. Carbon-based stimuli-responsive nanomaterials can be used as smart materials with dynamically tunable...

Buckle up! A new class of materials is here

Jun 02, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Usually, the two characterizations of a material are mutually exclusive: something is either stiff, or it can absorb vibrations well – but rarely both. However, if we could make materials that are both stiff and good at absorbing vibrations, there would be a whole host...