Science Daily February 25, 2019 The pygidial glands in Carabid beetles manufacture, store and propel toxic chemicals to ward off insect, amphibian and even small mammalian predators. A team of researchers in the US (Pennsylvania State University, University of New Hampshire) found that the tissues in the glandular system transporting the defensive chemicals to be rich in soft, rubbery resilin, a compound found in many insects and other arthropods. Resilin is a compound that is likely to be used in future bioengineering and biomedical applications due to its unusual properties. It has many similarities with elastin, a protein found in […]
Category Archives: Advanced materials
Researchers discover anti-laser masquerading as perfect absorber
Phys.org February 15, 2019 Researchers at Duke University constructed zirconia ceramic surface dimpled with cylinders like the face of a Lego brick. After computationally modeling the device’s properties by altering the cylinders’ size and spacing, the researchers realized that they had actually created a more fundamental kind of coherent perfect absorber (CPA) which can absorb both aligned and misaligned waves. Unlike typical CPAs the new material has three variables the cylinders’ radius, height and periodicity. This gives a lot of flexibility for tailoring the CPA model and put them in the frequency spectrum where needed…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Engineered metasurfaces reflect waves in unusual directions
Nanowerk February 16, 2019 An international team of researchers (Finland, USA – Duke University) introduced purely local reflective metasurfaces for arbitrary manipulations of the power distribution of reflected waves without excitation of any auxiliary evanescent field. The method is based on the analysis of the power flow distribution and the adaptation of the reflector shape to the desired distribution of incident and reflected fields. As a result, they found that these power-conformal metamirrors can be easily implemented with conventional passive unit cells. The results can be used for the design of reflecting surfaces with multiple functionalities and for waves of […]
Hydrophobic or hydrophilic? Aero-gallium nitride is both
Physics World February 6, 2019 Biological cell membranes are made up of phospholipid building blocks that both attract and repel water. An international team of researchers (Germany, Moldova, Australia, Italy, UK) developed a nanomaterial exhibiting hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties using nanoscopically thin membranes of gallium nitride shaped as hollow microtetrapods, called aerogalnite (AGaN). The material is extremely porous, mechanically flexible, stretchable, and exhibits hydrophilicity under tension and hydrophobicity when compressed against water. Self-assembling the AGaN tetrapods on water enabled them to develop self-healing waterproof rafts carrying liquid droplets 500-times as heavy as rafts, and to demonstrate self-propelled liquid marbles. Aerogalnite […]
Multitasking graphene ink printed into tiny flexible supercapacitors
Nanowerk January 23, 2019 Researchers in China developed an ink combining graphene and carbon black, both of which are conductive, with a polymer binder in a solvent. As it is applied, the force causes it to lose its viscosity, so it flows easily, but as soon as the force is removed, it thickens and keeps its shape. The ink can act as the microelectrodes, metal-free current collectors and interconnects, simultaneously. They applied the graphene ink to a substrate, such as glass or flexible PET plastic, using a patterned screen as a stencil. The resulting pattern includes all the conductive parts […]
Materials that open in the heat of the moment
Science Daily January 24, 2019 The porous nanomaterials that are currently used for gas separation and storage are not tunable: their pores are persistent and rigid. Researchers in Japan designed a porous coordination polymer with copper atoms linked by butterfly-shaped ligands made from isophthalic acid and phenothiazine-5,5-dioxide. The material was comprised of tiny nanocages with protruding channels. At very low temperatures, the channels were very narrow; as the temperature was increased, the channels opened more and more, allowing gas molecules to move between the cages. A gas could move or become locked within the material depending on the size of […]
Engineers develop novel strategy for designing tiny semiconductor particles for wide-ranging applications
Science Daily January 25, 2019 An international team of researchers (Singapore, China) has developed a cheaper and more scalable bottom-up synthesis strategy that can consistently construct TMD QDs (transition metal dichalcogenide quantum dots) of a specific size and properties. To demonstrate the proof-of-concept they synthesised MoS2 QDs with specific properties for biomedical applications. They have successfully synthesised a small library of seven TMD QDs and were able to alter their electronic and optical properties accordingly. They process can be used to optimize TMD QDs for applications such as the next generation TV and electronic device screens, advanced electronics components and […]
Artificial intelligence ARTIST instantly captures materials’ properties
Science Daily January 30, 2019 An international team of researchers (Finland, Denmark, Germany) has developed and trained the architecture ARTIST, made of three different neural network architectures: multilayer perceptron (MLP), convolutional neural network (CNN), and deep tensor neural network (DTNN), to predict molecular excitation using the coordinates and charges of the constituent atoms of each molecule as input. In demonstration they scanned the structures of 10k previously unseen organic molecules and obtained their spectra predictions to identify molecules for potential applications. The research has the potential to speed up the development of flexible electronics, produce better batteries and catalysts and […]
Lotus leaf inspires scientists to create world’s first self-cleaning metals
Nanowerk January 7, 2019 Taking their ideas from defense mechanisms found in plants such as the lotus leaf an international team of researchers (Italy, France, Germany, Spain, UK) has developed the first fluid-repellent, antibacterial, metal surface. Using high-power laser cutting devices they created microscopic ‘spikes’ and ‘ridges’ in sheet metal, causing liquids to ‘bounce off’ the rough micro-topography that mimics the surface of the lotus leaf. The process is useful for medical cutting tools, sterile surfaces, dishwashers, or even saucepans…read more.
A catalytic flying carpet
Nanowerk January 2, 2019 Catalyst-coated, hard particles can spontaneously generate fluid flows, which, in turn, propel the particles through the fluid. If it were a deformable sheet, then the self-generated flows could affect not only the sheet’s motion but also its shape. Researchers at Pittsburgh University developed models that capture the interrelated chemical, hydrodynamic, and mechanical interactions to uncover novel behavior emerging from the previously unstudied coupling between active, soft sheets and the surrounding fluid. The sheets can be tailored by modifying the sheet’s geometry, patterning the sheet’s surface with different catalysts, and using cascades of chemical reactions. The layers […]