Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2015

Invisibility cloaks are a staple of science fiction and fantasy, from Star Trek to Harry Potter, but don’t exist in real life, or do they? Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have devised an ultra-thin invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well.

Working with brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas, the Berkeley researchers fashioned a “skin cloak” barely 80 nanometers in thickness, that was wrapped around a three-dimensional object about the size of a few biological cells and arbitrarily shaped with multiple bumps and dents. The surface of the skin cloak was meta-engineered to reroute reflected light waves so that the object was rendered invisible to optical detection when the cloak is activated.

Continue reading “Making 3D objects disappear: Researchers create ultrathin invisibility cloak” »

Physicists from MIPT and the Russian Quantum Center, joined by colleagues from Saratov State University and Michigan Technological University, have demonstrated new methods for controlling spin waves in nanostructured bismuth iron garnet films via short laser pulses. Presented in Nano Letters, the solution has potential for applications in energy-efficient information transfer and spin-based quantum computing.

A particle’s spin is its intrinsic angular momentum, which always has a direction. In magnetized materials, the spins all point in one direction. A local disruption of this magnetic order is accompanied by the propagation of spin waves, whose quanta are known as magnons.

Unlike the electrical current, spin wave propagation does not involve a transfer of matter. As a result, using magnons rather than electrons to transmit information leads to much smaller thermal losses. Data can be encoded in the phase or amplitude of a spin wave and processed via wave interference or nonlinear effects.

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Magnetism offers new ways to create more powerful and energy-efficient computers, but the realization of magnetic computing on the nanoscale is a challenging task. A critical advancement in the field of ultralow power computation using magnetic waves is reported by a joint team from Kaiserslautern, Jena and Vienna in the journal Nano Letters.

A local disturbance in the magnetic order of a magnet can propagate across a material in the form of a wave. These waves are known as spin waves and their associated quasi-particles are called magnons. Scientists from the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Innovent e. V. Jena and the University of Vienna are known for their expertise in the research field called ‘magnonics,’ which utilizes magnons for the development of novel types of computers, potentially complementing the conventional electron-based processors used nowadays.

Continue reading “Magnonic nano-fibers opens the way towards new type of computers” »

Researchers from China continue in the quest to improve methods for bone regeneration, publishing their findings in “Cryogenic 3D printing of dual-delivery scaffolds for improved bone regeneration with enhanced vascularization.”

A wide range of projects have emerged regarding new techniques for bone regeneration—especially in the last five years as 3D printing has become more entrenched in the mainstream and bioprinting has continued to evolve. Bone regeneration is consistently challenging, and while bioprinting is still relatively new as a field, much impressive progress has been made due to experimentation with new materials, nanotubes, and innovative structures.

Cell viability is usually the biggest problem. Tissue engineering, while becoming much more successful these days, is still an extremely delicate process as cells must not only be grown but sustained in the lab too. For this reason, scientists are always working to improve structures like scaffolds, as they are responsible in most cases for supporting the cells being printed. In this study, the authors emphasize the need for both “excellent osteogenesis and vascularization” in bone regeneration.

A high-power laser, optimized optical pathway, a patented adaptive resolution technology, and smart algorithms for laser scanning have enabled UpNano, a Vienna-based high-tech company, to produce high-resolution 3D-printing as never seen before.

“Parts with nano- and microscale resolution can now be printed across 12 orders of magnitude—within times never achieved previously. This has been accomplished by UpNano, a spin-out of the TU Wien, which developed a high-end two-photon polymerization (2PP) 3D-printing system that can produce polymeric parts with a volume ranging from 100 to 10¹² cubic micrometers. At the same time the printer allows for a nano- and microscale resolution,” the company said in a statement.

Recently the company demonstrated this remarkable capability by printing four models of the Eiffel Tower ranging from 200 micrometers to 4 centimeters—with perfect representation of all minuscule structures within 30 to 540 minutes. With this, 2PP 3D-printing is ready for applications in R&D and industry that seemed so far impossible.

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen has found a way to prove a theory suggesting the possibility of cloaking a nanoparticle using a single molecule—by nearly doing it with a gold nanoparticle and a dibenzoterrylene molecule. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes their experiments with coupled nanoparticles and molecules, and what they learned from them.

For several years, scientists have been experimenting with coupling nanoparticles and molecules. In most such work, the nanoparticle (which is generally larger than the molecule) serves as an antenna of sorts, funneling light to the molecule. The goal has been to boost the emissions from the molecule or to absorb the light they receive—both of which can be used to detect biomolecules under certain circumstances. In other work, researchers have looked into the possibility of controlling the emissions coming from the molecule to match the wavelength of the incoming light. In theory, if they are in phase, the nanoparticle’s shadow should dissipate or disappear completely—a form of cloaking. In this new effort, the researchers sought to prove this theory by carrying out experiments with nanoparticles and molecules.

The work involved first getting a130-nm-wide gold nanoparticle to couple with a dibenzoterrylene molecule. This involved placing several of the gold nanoparticles on a surface and then covering them with a solution containing dibenzoterrylene molecules. The setup was then chilled to the point that the solution solidified. The team then used a laser to look for a test nanoparticle-molecule pairing until they found a pair that had closely coupled. They then focused a near-infrared beam on the pair, from the direction of the molecule.

Electroluminescence (EL), electrically produced luminescence, is crucial to the operation of many electronic devices that are designed to emit light. EL can theoretically be achieved in devices with a variety of structures and made of different materials. However, to be electroluminescent, these devices need to have a number of core features that allow them to support specific light-emitting materials.

These core features have so far limited the range of materials that can be used to build electroluminescent devices. This ultimately prevented the development of devices that can emit light at a wide range of wavelengths.

Researchers at University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have recently realized an electroluminescent device that can emit light from infrared to ultraviolet wavelengths. This new device, presented in a paper published in Nature Electronics, was built using carbon nanotubes (CNTs), large, cylindrical carbon-based structures that are often used to fabricate electronics.

Researchers have discovered how a protein in plant roots controls the uptake of minerals and water, a finding which could improve the tolerance of agricultural crops to climate change and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.

The research, published in Current Biology, shows that members of the blue copper proteins family, the Uclacyanins are vital in the formation of Casparian strips. These strips are essential structures that control mineral nutrient and water use efficiencies by forming tight seals between cells in plants, blocking nutrients and water leaking between.

This is the first evidence showing the implications of this family in the biosynthesis of lignin, one of the most abundant organic polymers on earth. This study reveals that the molecular machinery required for Casparian strip lignin deposition is highly ordered by forming nano-domains which can have a huge impact on plant nutrition, a finding that could help in the development of crops that are efficient in taking in the nutrients they need.

Methods: In this review, due to their promise, we focus on inorganic nanomaterials [such as hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs), tungsten sulfide quantum dots (WS2QDs), and gold nanorods (AuNRs)] combining PTT with CHT, RT or IT in one treatment, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of PTT-based combinational cancer therapy. Results: This review found much evidence for the use of inorganic nanoparticles for PTT-based combinational cancer therapy. Conclusion: Under synergistic effects, inorganic nanomaterial-based combinational treatments exhibit enhanced therapeutic effects compared to PTT, CHT, RT, IT or PDT alone and should be further investigated in the cancer field.

Applications of inorganic nanomaterials in photothermal therapy based on combinational cancer treatment — pubmed.