Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) In summer 2022, astronomers detected the most powerful fast radio burst (FRB) ever observed. And coming from a location that dates halfway back to the Big Bang, it also was the farthest known FRB spotted to date. Now, astronomers led by Northwestern University have pinpointed...
Status report on emerging photovoltaic technology
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy is emerging as a significant contributor to global sustainable energy production. Inspired by the continued technological progress of PV, and motivated by the challenges ahead, Journal of Photonics for Energy (JPE) recently published a status report on emerging photovoltaics written by...
Stimuli-responsive hydrogels enable new path to dynamic tunable photonics
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) From augmented reality visors to holographic projectors, visions of advanced photonics applications rely on the ability to actively control light’s behavior. But practical schemes to make optical properties reconfigurable and responsive have proven elusive. Conventional photonic components like lenses and spectral filters feature fixed, static...
Lateral force microscopy reveals previously unseen hydrogen atoms
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at the University of Regensburg and the Graz University of Technology have shown that hydrogen atoms at the sides of molecules lying on a surface can directly be seen. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ("Exploring in-plane...
Final supernova results from Dark Energy Survey offer unique insights into the expansion of the universe
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) In 1998, astrophysicists discovered that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, attributed to a mysterious entity called dark energy that makes up about 70% of our universe. While foreshadowed by earlier measurements, the discovery was somewhat of a surprise; at the time, astrophysicists...
A chemical reaction key to various industries just got greener
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) From alleviating your allergy symptoms to optimizing herbicide performance, alkylamines are molecules that have many uses. Unfortunately, common methods of producing alkylamines result in harmful waste byproducts. A method of synthesizing alkylamines in a sustainable yet cost-effective way has thus been highly sought after. Now,...
Creating novel amino acid nanoparticles with enhanced anticancer activity
Jan 09, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Amino acids, such as tyrosine and tryptophan, are the fundamental building blocks that make up proteins. These biomolecules have different chemical groups on each end and side chain, and so, have the natural ability to form a chain through the formation of an amide (peptide)...