Jul 21, 2023 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Manipulating light at dimensions smaller than its wavelength, a scale known as the subdiffractional scale, is a critical capability in various fields such as imaging, optical communication, integrated optical circuits, and molecular sensing. A promising way to control light at this tiny scale is through...
Simultaneous synthesis and fixing of covalent organic frameworks
Jul 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) An electrogenerated acid can catalyze the synthesis and simultaneous immobilization of imine-based covalent organic frameworks (COFs) onto electrodes, report scientists from Tokyo Tech. Starting with amine and aldehyde monomers, they obtained corresponding COF films, including three-dimensional ones, with high crystallinity, porosity, and controlled thickness. This...
Researchers put a new twist on a graphite-graphene interface
Jul 19, 2023 (Nanowerk News) For decades, scientists have been probing the potential of two-dimensional materials to transform our world. 2D materials are only a single layer of atoms thick. Within them, subatomic particles like electrons can only move in two dimensions. This simple restriction can trigger unusual electron behavior,...
New kind of superresolution explores cell division
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A new way to see details smaller than half the wavelength of light has revealed how nanoscale scaffolding inside cells bridges to the macroscale during cell division. Unlike earlier superresolution techniques, the one developed and tested at the University of Michigan doesn’t rely on molecules...
New catalyst could dramatically cut methane pollution from millions of engines
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A catalyst using a single or just a few palladium atoms removed 90% of unburned methane from natural gas engine exhaust at low temperatures in a recent study. While more research needs to be done, the advance in single atom catalysis has the potential to...
Discovery may lead to terahertz technology for quantum sensing
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Visible light is a mere fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the manipulation of light waves at frequencies beyond human vision has enabled such technologies as cell phones and CT scans. Rice University researchers have a plan for leveraging a previously unused portion of the...
Chemists recycle shrimp waste as catalyst for hydrogen generation
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Flexible spheres of the biomolecule chitosan, made from shrimp waste, can be used for catalysts that generate hydrogen gas from borohydride salts. In a paper in Green Chemistry ("From shrimp balls to hydrogen bubbles: Borohydride hydrolysis catalysed by flexible cobalt chitosan spheres"), a research team...
Researchers design multiclass cancer diagnostic tool using AI, MicroRNA
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Cancer is one of the most devastating diseases in the world. In 2023, more than 1.9 million new cancer cases and 609,820 deaths are projected to occur in the United States alone. As efforts are underway to improve diagnostic tools, microRNAs are at the forefront...
Probing the properties of vacuum in nuclei
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) By creating special atoms, RIKEN physicists have measured how the extremely high density of atomic nuclei influences the properties of vacuum (Nature Physics, "Chiral symmetry restoration at high matter density observed in pionic atoms"). This could help to shed light on where matter gets most...
How old are stars outside clusters?
Jul 20, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and Boston University have successfully established a connection between the rotation rates of stars in star clusters and those outside them, so-called field stars, enabling the ages of the latter to be derived. The results (Astronomy...