Oct 24, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A historical supernova documented by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 has been lost for centuries, until very recently. Yet, the newly found remnant shows some stunning characteristics that are puzzling astronomers. Now, it surrenders its secrets. A team led by Tim Cunningham from the...
Photonic crystals with dynamic color change and self-healing capabilities
Oct 24, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Structural colors – the vibrant hues that arise not from pigments but from the interaction of light with microscopic structures – are among nature’s most captivating phenomena. From the shimmering wings of butterflies to the color-changing skin of chameleons, these colors are not merely ornamental;...
Monolayer graphene-based memristors achieved at wafer scale
Oct 24, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from Queen Mary University of London and Paragraf Limited have demonstrated a significant step forward in the development of graphene-based memristors and towards unlocking their potential for use in future computing systems and artificial intelligence (AI). This innovation, published in ACS Advanced Electronic Materials...
Deep learning-enabled probing of materials reactions at the nanoscale
Oct 24, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Kory Burns, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, is a leader in materials science who is using artificial intelligence to improve materials characterization. He and his collaborators, representing multiple universities and national labs, detailed their innovative new...
Ultrafast synthesis of MXenes enables scalable production
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) The discovery and development of MXenes, a class of two-dimensional materials composed of transition metal carbides or nitrides, have attracted significant attention due to their potential applications in fields such as energy storage, electronics, and sensing technologies. Despite this promise, one of the major obstacles...
Mechano-spectroscopic AFM technique combines high-res imaging with machine learning classification
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Take a photo with your phone and you might see wonderful details—leaves on a tree, strands of hair blowing in the wind. The width of that strand of hair is 100,000 nanometers wide. The best traditional laboratory microscope that uses light may capture details as...
Capturing carbon from the air just got easier
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Capturing and storing the carbon dioxide humans produce is key to lowering atmospheric greenhouse gases and slowing global warming, but today's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide...
Ultra-small spectrometer yields the power of a 1,000 times bigger device
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Spectrometers are technology for reading light that date back to the era of famed 17th-century physicist Isaac Newton. They work by breaking down light waves into their different colors — or spectra — to provide information about the makeup of the objects being measured. UC...
Physicists discover first ‘black hole triple’
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Many black holes detected to date appear to be part of a pair. These binary systems comprise a black hole and a secondary object — such as a star, a much denser neutron star, or another black hole — that spiral around each other, drawn...
The dynamic dance of nanoplastics and natural organic matter
Oct 23, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Nanoplastics, emerging as persistent environmental pollutants, pose significant threats due to their durability and wide distribution in water bodies. Their interactions with natural organic matter are critical, influencing pollutant retention, microbial processes, and the carbon cycle. However, the structural complexity of both aged nanoplastics and...