Science

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3D Printing on the Micrometer Scale: KIT Spin-off “Nanoscribe“ Presents High-speed 3D Printer

At the Photonics West, the leading international fair for photonics taking place in San Francisco (USA) this week, Nanoscribe GmbH, a spin-off of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), presents the world's fastest 3D printer of micro- and nanostructures. With this printer, smallest three-dimensional objects, often smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be manufactured with minimum time consumption and maximum resolution. The printer is based on a novel laser lithography method.

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Printing on the micrometer scale: Writing time for a miniaturized spacecraft is reduced to less than one minute without loss of quality.

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Is the ozone layer on the road to recovery?

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South Pole ozone

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Using single quantum dots to probe nanowires: Lighting up plasmonic wires with nanometer accuracy

Modern telecommunications happens because of fast electrons and fast photons. Can it get better? Can Moore's law---the doubling of computing power ever 18 months or so---be sustained? Can the compactness (nm-scale components) of electronics be combined with the speed of photonics? Well, one such hybrid approach is being explored at the Joint Quantum Institute (*), where scientists bring together three marvelous physics research fields: microfluidics, quantum dots, and plasmonics to probe and study optical nanostructures with spatial accuracy as fine as 12 nm.

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(a) This is an optical image of the microfluidic crossed-channel device. Flow in the center control region (dashed circle) is manipulated in two dimensions by 4 external electrodes (not shown). Scale bar is 500 μm. (b) This is a schematic of the positioning and imaging technique. A single QD is driven along a trajectory close to the wire by flow control. The inset shows a microcope image of a typical nanowire with 1 μm scale bar.

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Small Asteroid to Whiz Past Earth Safely

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Diagram depicting the passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system on Feb. 15, 2013.

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Penn Research Shows Mechanism Behind Wear at the Atomic Scale

Wear is a fact of life. As surfaces rub against one another, they break down and lose their original shape. With less material to start with and functionality that often depends critically on shape and surface structure, wear affects nanoscale objects more strongly than it does their macroscale counterparts.

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An illustration of a silicon AFM tip sliding over a diamond surface, with a TEM image of the tip inset.

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Tokyo Institute of Technology research: Photoactive micelles

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology produce new photoactive micelles with potential applications in photofunctional dyes and sensors.

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Schematic representation of spherical assemblies. a) A standard micelle composed of string-like detergents. b) An aromatic micelle composed of new detergents with bent aromatic panels.

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Production of Nanocomposite Films for Packaging Foodstuff with Photocatalytic Ability

Iranian researchers produced a new type of clay-titanium oxide nanocomposite films which improve the blocking properties of normal polyethylene films, control the production of polyethylene, postpone the aging, reduce pollutions after harvesting the products and increase the durability of agricultural products.

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Iranian researchers produced a new type of clay-titanium oxide nanocomposite films which improve the blocking properties of normal polyethylene films, control the production of polyethylene, postpone the aging, reduce pollutions after harvesting the products and increase the durability of agricultural products.

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Andromeda’s coat of many colours

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Cool Andromeda

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Cool Andromeda

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Rice technique points toward 2-D devices: Researchers create fine patterns that combine single-atom-thick graphene, boron nitride

An atom-thick Rice Owl (scale bar equals 100 micrometers) was created to show the ability to make fine patterns in hybrid graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). In this image, the owl is hBN and the lighter material around it is graphene. The ability to pattern a conductor (graphene) and insulator (hBN) into a single layer may advance the ability to shrink electronic devices.

46808_0.jpgAn atom-thick Rice Owl (scale bar equals 100 micrometers) was created to show the ability to make fine patterns in hybrid graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). In this image, the owl is hBN and the lighter material around it is graphene. The ability to pattern a conductor (graphene) and insulator (hBN) into a single layer may advance the ability to shrink electronic devices.