Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) New research, conducted at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, illuminates the strange behavior of gold when zapped with high-energy laser pulses. When certain materials, such as silicon, are subjected to intense laser excitation, they quickly fall apart. But gold does the opposite:...
First-ever atomic freeze-frame of liquid water
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) In an experiment akin to stop-motion photography, scientists have isolated the energetic movement of an electron while “freezing” the motion of the much larger atom it orbits in a sample of liquid water. The findings, reported in the journal Science ("Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe x-ray spectroscopy of...
Thermally engineering templates for highly ordered self-assembled materials
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Self-assembled solidifying eutectic materials directed by a template with miniature features demonstrate unique microstructures and patterns as a result of diffusion and thermal gradients caused by the template. Despite the template trying to force the material to solidify into a regular pattern, when the template...
Spiking photodetectors mimic retina to enable energy-efficient visual recognition
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Effectively mimicking the unmatched visual capacities of the human brain while operating within stringent energy constraints poses a formidable challenge for artificial intelligence developers. The human visual system elegantly processes optical data using brief electrical pulses termed spikes, transmitted among neurons. This spiking neural code...
A star like a Matryoshka doll: New theory for gravastars
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) The interior of black holes remains a conundrum for science. In 1916, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild outlined a solution to Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity, according to which the center of a black hole consists of a so-called singularity, a point at which space...
Understanding electron guidance by proteins for enhanced solar cell eficiency
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Cells need energy to function. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg can now explain how energy is guided in the cell by small atomic movements to reach its destination in the protein. Imitating these structural changes of the proteins could lead to more efficient solar...
A new method for precision delivery of nanoparticles to individual cells
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) The delivery of materials to individual cells with exactness and exclusivity has long been a much sought-after ability in biology. With it comes the promise of deciphering many longstanding secrets of the cell. A research team at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, Erlangen led...
Nanodiamonds could hold key to cool clothing
Feb 15, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from RMIT University are using nanodiamonds to create smart textiles that can cool people down faster. The study (Polymers for Advanced Technologies, "Immobilization of nanodiamonds onto cotton fabric through polyurethane nanofibrous coatings for summer clothing") found fabric made from cotton coated with nanodiamonds, using...
A new optical metamaterial makes true one-way glass possible
Feb 14, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A new approach has allowed researchers at Aalto University to create a kind of metamaterial that has so far been beyond the reach of existing technologies. Unlike natural materials, metamaterials and metasurfaces can be tailored to have specific electromagnetic properties, which means scientists can create...
Nanoparticles ‘hitchhike’ on immune cells to catch cancer metastasis early
Feb 14, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Our lymph nodes are the canaries in the coal mine of our immune system – firing into gear at the first indication of illness, then sending immune cells where they’re needed in the body to fight infection and disease. For the nearly 20 million patients...