Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) In recent years, engineers at ETH Zurich have developed the technology to produce liquid fuels from sunlight and air. In 2019, they demonstrated the entire thermochemical process chain under real conditions for the first time, in the middle of Zurich, on the roof of ETH...
Organic nanofilms transform resistive memory and electronics
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Researchers have been keenly interested in leveraging the useful properties of crystalline nanoporous materials for electronic applications. Ordered frameworks such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) have highly periodic structures and tunable functionality. Their unique characteristics make them...
Unlocking sugar to generate biofuels and bioproducts
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Plant biologists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have engineered enzymes to modify grass plants so their biomass can be more efficiently converted into biofuels and other bioproducts. As described in a paper just published in Plant Biotechnology Journal ("Simultaneous suppression...
Advances in chiral nanophotonics with anisotropic lattice and high-Q metasurfaces
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Chirality is an intrinsic property of an object that cannot coincide with its mirror image by translation or rotation. In order to realize strong chiral light-matter interactions which are usually weak in natural materials for practical applications, artificial sub-wavelength structures such as metamaterials, metasurfaces, and...
Tiny brick-busting ‘muscles’ for miniature robotics are sourced from wood
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Wood is the source for a brick-breaking mini robotic muscle material developed by researchers in Sweden and Germany. The material — a specially-developed hydrogel — can shape-shift, expand and contract on demand when controlled with electronic impulses of less than 1 volt. Robotics is just...
Deep learning speeds up galactic calculations
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Supernovae, exploding stars, play a critical role in the formation and evolution of galaxies. However, key aspects of them are notoriously difficult to simulate accurately in reasonably short amounts of time. For the first time, a team of researchers, including those from The University of...
Ultrathin crystals vibe with infrared light
Oct 27, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Combining electronics with infrared light can enable small, fast, and sensitive devices for sensing, imaging, and signaling at the molecular level. However, in the infrared spectrum, materials must meet strict quality requirements for their crystals in order to meet the requirements for these functions. Now,...
DNA Origami nanoturbine sets new horizon for nanomotors
Oct 26, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A collaborative team of researchers led by prof. Cees Dekker at TU Delft, in partnership with international colleagues, introduces a pioneering breakthrough in the world of nanomotors – the DNA origami nanoturbine. This nanoscale device could represent a paradigm shift, harnessing power from ion gradients...
Shape-shifting fiber can produce morphing fabrics
Oct 26, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Instead of needing a coat for each season, imagine having a jacket that would dynamically change shape so it becomes more insulating to keep you warm as the temperature drops. A programmable, actuating fiber developed by an interdisciplinary team of MIT researchers could someday make...
Uranus aurora discovery offers clues to habitable icy worlds
Oct 26, 2023 (Nanowerk News) The presence of an infrared aurora on the cold, outer planet of Uranus has been confirmed for the first time by University of Leicester astronomers. The discovery could shed light on the mysteries behind the magnetic fields of the planets of our solar system, and...