Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) successfully conducted in-situ studies with a plasma generated inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM). This marks the first-time live SEM imaging while treating the sample with a plasma was achieved. The work has been...
Webb Telescope reveals the central role of low-mass galaxies in the reionization process of the Universe
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)[1], developed by NASA and ESA, has just obtained the first spectra of very low-mass galaxies less than a billion years after the Big Bang. A technological feat made possible by the unique combination of JWST sensitivity and the gravitational...
New tool for precise measurement of superconductors
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Hydrogen (like many of us) acts weird under pressure. Theory predicts that when crushed by the weight of more than a million times our atmosphere, this light, abundant, normally gaseous element first becomes a metal, and even more strangely, a superconductor – a material that...
Study unlocks nanoscale secrets for designing next-generation solar cells
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Perovskites, a broad class of compounds with a particular kind of crystal structure, have long been seen as a promising alternative or supplement to today’s silicon or cadmium telluride solar panels. They could be far more lightweight and inexpensive, and could be coated onto virtually...
Light stimulates a new twist for synthetic chemistry
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at Hokkaido University, led by Assistant Professor Akira Katsuyama and Professor Satoshi Ichikawa at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, have extended the toolkit of synthetic chemistry by making a new category of molecules that can be induced to undergo an internal rotation on interaction...
New tech harvests both magnetic and ultrasound energy to safely power medical implants
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) The promise of implantable medical devices transforming healthcare has long been tempered by practical power limitations. Bulky batteries demand frequent charging or replacement surgery risking complications. These outcomes cause substantial cost, morbidity and frustration while stymying further miniaturization advances. Despite intense R&D, existing wireless power...
Quantum films on plastic
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A research team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Salerno in Italy has discovered that thin films of elemental bismuth exhibit the so-called non-linear Hall effect, which could be applied in technologies for the controlled use of terahertz high-frequency signals on electronic...
AI protects power grid from fluctuations caused by renewables and EVs
Feb 28, 2024 (Nanowerk News) They may be better for the planet but when combined, renewable energy and electric vehicles may also destabilize power grids, setting in motion a range of problems from malfunctioning laptops to regional blackouts. That’s because random variations in supply and demand place pressure on the...
Nanoparticles emitted from gas stoves
Feb 27, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A study ("Dynamics of nanocluster aerosol in the indoor atmosphere during gas cooking") quantifies the emission of extremely tiny particles by gas stoves and finds that the particles could harm human health. Airborne nanoparticles between 1–3 nm, referred to as nanocluster aerosol or NCA, are...
Grayscale nanolithography for 2D nanoelectronics
Feb 27, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Grayscale structured surfaces with nanometer-scale features are used in a growing number of applications in optics and fluidics. Thermal scanning probe lithography achieves a lateral resolution below 10 nm and a vertical resolution below 1 nm, but its maximum depth in polymers is limited. Now,...