Tiny carbon tubes beam out stronger light by stealing a boost from internal vibrations—a discovery that could revolutionize solar power and advanced electronics.
Category: nanotechnology – Page 4
HKUST Scientists Achieve Breakthrough in Light Manipulation Using Gyromagnetic Zero-Index Metamaterials
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)-led research team has adopted gyromagnetic double-zero-index metamaterials (GDZIMs) — a new optical extreme-parameter material – and developed a groundbreaking method to control light using GDZIMs. This discovery could revolutionize fields like optical communications, biomedical imaging, and nanotechnology, enabling advances in integrated photonic chips, high-fidelity optical communication, and quantum light sources.
Published in Nature, the study was co-led by Prof. CHAN Che-Ting, Interim Director of the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study and Chair Professor in the Department of Physics, and Dr. ZHANG Ruoyang, Visiting Scholar in the Department of Physics at HKUST.
Zinc–iodine battery delivers double performance of lithium-ion batteries
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have developed a new dry electrode for aqueous batteries which delivers cathodes with more than double the performance of iodine and lithium-ion batteries.
“We have developed a new electrode technique for zinc –iodine batteries that avoids traditional wet mixing of iodine,” said the University of Adelaide’s Professor Shizhang Qiao, Chair of Nanotechnology, and Director, Center for Materials in Energy and Catalysis, at the School of Chemical Engineering, who led the team.
We mixed active materials as dry powders and rolled them into thick, self-supporting electrodes. At the same time, we added a small amount of a simple chemical, called 1,3,5-trioxane, to the electrolyte, which turns into a flexible protective film on the zinc surface during charging.
Nanogrid drug delivery systems developed for precise lung inflammation treatment
Understanding how drug delivery systems distribute in vivo remains a major challenge in developing nanomedicines. Especially in the lung, the complex and dynamic microenvironment often limits the effectiveness of existing approaches.
“Structural pharmaceutics” has been introduced as a new strategy to connect nanoparticle structures with physiological structures through advanced three-dimensional (3D) imaging and cross-scale characterizations.
In a study published in ACS Nano, a team led by Yin Xianzhen from the Lingang Laboratory and Zhang Jiwen from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a precise targeting strategy for tracheal inflammation.
A new form of molecular motion: Guest molecules cut through DNA polymer droplets in wave pattern
Researchers have identified a form of molecular motion that has not previously been observed. When what are known as “guest molecules”—molecules that are accommodated within a host molecule—penetrate droplets of DNA polymers, they do not simply diffuse in them in a haphazard fashion, but propagate through them in the form of a clearly-defined frontal wave. The team includes researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the University of Texas at Austin.
“This is an effect we did not expect at all,” points out Weixiang Chen of the Department of Chemistry at JGU, who played a major role in the discovery. The findings of the research team are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The new insights are not only fundamental to our understanding of how cells regulate signals, but they could also contribute to the development of intelligent biomaterials, innovative types of membranes, programmable carriers of active ingredients and synthetic cell systems able to imitate the organizational complexity of the processes in living beings.
Gyromagnetic zero-index metamaterials enable stable light vortices for advanced optical control
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)-led research team has adopted gyromagnetic double-zero-index metamaterials (GDZIMs)—a new optical extreme-parameter material—and developed a new method to control light using GDZIMs. This discovery could revolutionize fields like optical communications, biomedical imaging, and nanotechnology, enabling advances in integrated photonic chips, high-fidelity optical communication, and quantum light sources.
The study published in Nature was co-led by Prof. Chan Che-Ting, Interim Director of the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study and Chair Professor in the Department of Physics, and Dr. Zhang Ruoyang, Visiting Scholar in the Department of Physics at HKUST.
Ultrathin display technology shows dozens of images hidden in a single screen
From smartphones and TVs to credit cards, technologies that manipulate light are deeply embedded in our daily lives, many of which are based on holography. However, conventional holographic technologies have faced limitations, particularly in displaying multiple images on a single screen and in maintaining high-resolution image quality.
Recently, a research team led by Professor Junsuk Rho at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has developed a groundbreaking metasurface technology that can display up to 36 high-resolution images on a surface thinner than a human hair. This research has been published in Advanced Science.
This achievement is driven by a special nanostructure known as a metasurface. Hundreds of times thinner than a human hair, the metasurface is capable of precisely manipulating light as it passes through. The team fabricated nanometer-scale pillars using silicon nitride, a material known for its robustness and excellent optical transparency. These pillars, referred to as meta-atoms, allow for fine control of light on the metasurface.
First surface-emitting laser using quantum dots targets optical fiber communications
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology of Japan, in collaboration with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation (Sony), has developed the world’s first practical surface-emitting laser that employs quantum dot (QD) as the optical gain medium for use in optical fiber communication systems.
This achievement was made possible by NICT’s high-precision crystal growth technology and Sony’s advanced semiconductor processing technology. The surface-emitting laser developed in this study incorporates nanoscale semiconductor structures called quantum dots as light-emitting materials. This innovation not only facilitates the miniaturization and reduced power consumption of light sources in optical fiber communications systems but also offers potential cost reductions through mass production and enhanced output via integration.
The results of this research are published in Optics Express.
Retinal prosthesis woven from tellurium nanowires partially restores vision in blind mice
A team from Fudan University, the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Shaoxin Laboratory, all in China, has developed a retinal prosthesis woven from metal nanowires that partially restored vision in blind mice.
In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they created tellurium nanowires and interlaced them to create a retinal prosthesis. Eduardo Fernández, with University Miguel Hernández, in Spain, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.
Finding a way to cure blindness has been a major goal for scientists for many years, and such efforts have paid off for some types of blindness, such as those caused by cataracts. Other types of blindness associated with damage to the retina, however, have proven too difficult to overcome in most cases. For this research, the team in China tried a new approach to treating such types of blindness by building a mesh out of a semiconductor and affixing it to the back of the eye, where it could send signals to the optic nerve.