Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) MIT physicists have metaphorically turned graphite, or pencil lead, into gold by isolating five ultrathin flakes stacked in a specific order. The resulting material can then be tuned to exhibit three important properties never before seen in natural graphite. Key Takeaways MIT physicists have created...
New laser setup probes metamaterial structures with ultrafast pulses
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Metamaterials are products of engineering wizardry. They are made from everyday polymers, ceramics, and metals. And when constructed precisely at the microscale, in intricate architectures, these ordinary materials can take on extraordinary properties. With the help of computer simulations, engineers can play with any combination...
Researchers precisely control nanoparticle growth using ion radiation
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) MIT researchers and colleagues have demonstrated a way to precisely control the size, composition, and other properties of nanoparticles key to the reactions involved in a variety of clean energy and environmental technologies. They did so by leveraging ion irradiation, a technique in which beams...
This 3D printer can watch itself fabricate objects (w/video)
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) With 3D inkjet printing systems, engineers can fabricate hybrid structures that have soft and rigid components, like robotic grippers that are strong enough to grasp heavy objects but soft enough to interact safely with humans. These multimaterial 3D printing systems utilize thousands of nozzles to...
New experimental technique developed to analyse the protection of 3D printed metal structures
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Scientists from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the IMDEA Materiales Institute have developed a new experimental technique in fragmentation tests to evaluate the energy absorption capacity in the event of impact of metallic structures manufactured using 3D printing. This technique, which is...
Riddle of Kondo effect solved in ultimately thin wires
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) A team of physicists at the University of Cologne has solved a long-standing problem of condensed matter physics: they have directly observed the Kondo effect (the re-grouping of electrons in a metal caused by magnetic impurities) visible in a single artificial atom. This has not...
Engineering bacteria to biosynthesize intricate protein complexes
Nov 15, 2023 (Nanowerk News) Protein cages found in nature within microbes help weather its contents from the harsh intracellular environment—an observation with many bioengineering applications. Tokyo Tech researchers recently developed an innovative bioengineering approach using genetically modified bacteria; these bacteria can incorporate protein cages around protein crystals. This in-cell...