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 […]
Category Archives: Advanced materials
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 […]
Scientists design new material to harness power of light
Phys.org December 17, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, University of Hartford, UK. France) found that several materials with poor nonlinear characteristics can be combined, resulting in a new metamaterial that can be “tuned” to change the color of light. The enhancement comes from the way the metamaterial reshapes the flow of photons. They describe the underlying physics, compare its predictions to the experimental results, and analyze the limits of its applicability. The work opens a new direction in controlling the nonlinear response of materials and may find applications in on-chip optical circuits, drastically improving on-chip communications…read […]
New megalibrary approach proves useful for the rapid discovery of new nanomaterials
Nanowerk December 18, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Northwestern University, AFRL at Wright-Patterson AFB) supports the efficacy of a potentially revolutionary new tool developed at Northwestern University to rapidly test millions (even billions) of nanoparticles to determine the best one for a specific use. The tool utilizes a combinatorial library, or megalibrary, of nanoparticles in a very controlled way. The libraries are created using Mirkin’s Polymer Pen Lithography (PPL) technique, which relies on arrays with hundreds of thousands of pyramidal tips to deposit individual polymer “dots” of various sizes and composition, each loaded with different metal salts […]
New quantum materials could take computers beyond the semiconductor era
Berkeley News December 3, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (UC Berkeley, industry) propose a way to turn multiferroics and topological materials, into logic and memory devices that will be 10 to 100 times more energy-efficient than foreseeable improvements to current microprocessors. MESO is based on a multiferroic material consisting of bismuth, iron and oxygen (BiFeO3) that is both magnetic and ferroelectric. They report that they have reduced the voltage needed for multiferroic magneto-electric switching from 3 volts to 500 millivolts and predict that it should be possible to reduce this to 100 millivolts: one-fifth to one-tenth that […]