May 04, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Artificial muscles hold the promise of revolutionizing fields ranging from robotics and prosthetics to biomedical devices. These lightweight, flexible materials can mimic the behavior of natural muscles, exhibiting high efficiency and rapid responsiveness. However, despite significant advancements in recent years, the widespread adoption of artificial...
New quantum sensing scheme could lead to enhanced high-precision nanoscopic techniques
May 04, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have unveiled a quantum sensing scheme that achieves the pinnacle of quantum sensitivity in measuring the transverse displacement between two interfering photons. This new technique has the potential to enhance superresolution imaging techniques that already employ single-photon sources as...
Variety in building block softness makes for softer amorphous materials
May 04, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new model for disordered materials to study how amorphous materials resist stress. They treated groups of atoms and molecules as squishy spheres with varying softness. Putting their model under a load, they discovered unexpected disparities between harder...
Aligned peptide ‘noodles’ could enable lab-grown biological tissues
May 03, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A team of chemists and bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Houston have achieved a significant milestone in their work to create a biomaterial that can be used to grow biological tissues outside the human body. The development of a novel fabrication process...
Tweaking isotopes sheds light on promising approach to engineer semiconductors
May 03, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Research led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated that small changes in the isotopic content of thin semiconductor materials can influence their optical and electronic properties, possibly opening the way to new and advanced designs with the semiconductors....