Listening to nanoscale earthquakes

Aug 23, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A recent UNSW-led paper published in Nature Communications ("Crackling noise microscopy") presents an exciting new way to listen to avalanches of atoms in crystals. The nanoscale movement of atoms when materials deform leads to sound emission. This so-called crackling noise is a scale-invariant phenomenon found...

‘Topological gardening’ to achieve unexpected spin transport

Aug 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) ‘Trimming’ the edge-states of a topological insulator yields a new class of material featuring unconventional ‘two way’ edge transport in a new theoretical study from Monash University, Australia (Materials Today Physics, "Extracting unconventional spin texture in two dimensional topological crystalline insulator bismuthene via tuning bulk-edge...

Nanogenerator powered smart food packaging

Aug 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Case Western Reserve University researchers are leading the development of a “smart packaging” system to monitor temperature fluctuations, moisture changes and pathogens in perishable food products during transportation. Their energy-efficient approach may offer a more cost-effective supply chain for distributors, savings for food producers and...

New epoxy resin resists flames and reduces waste

Aug 22, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Epoxy resins are tough and versatile polymers. In combination with glass or carbon fibers, they are used, for example, to manufacture components for aircraft, cars, trains, ships and wind turbines. Such epoxy-based fiber-reinforced polymers have excellent mechanical and thermal properties and are much lighter than...

Rewriting the past and future of the Universe

Aug 21, 2023 (Nanowerk News) New research has improved the accuracy of the parameters governing the expansion of the Universe. More accurate parameters will help astronomers determine how the Universe grew to its current state, and how it will evolve in the future. It is well established that the Universe...