Science

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Researchers Develop New, Less Expensive Nanolithography Technique

Parallel dip-pen nanolithography is used to generate micrometer-scale patterns with protein and lipid dyes on both a glass surface and spore layer. Spore- and colloid-based tips are used to facilitate parallel patterning.

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This technique uses no electronic components to bring the cantilevers into contact with the substrate surface.

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Scientists Question Quake Map Prediction Methodology

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Tokyo University professor Robert Geller points to a poster of a soon-to-be-published document he co-authored asserting characteristic earthquake models developed in the past should be considered dead and buried.

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A breakthrough in Nylon characterization from Malvern Instruments

A novel gel permeation chromatography (GPC) method for characterizing Nylon, developed by researchers at Malvern Instruments, significantly reduces the cost of analysis while simultaneously improving safety, when compared with conventional techniques. The new method uses formic acid as a solvent for Nylon, in place of the traditional choice of hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIPA), a relatively expensive, aggressively corrosive solvent with poor health and safety characteristics. First presented at a recent webinar by Dr Wei Sen Wong, his breakthrough is expected to generate significant industrial interest. Revisit it at www.malvern.com/nylon_characterization

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Nylon molecular model

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Iranian, American Researchers Produce Nano-Cellulose Drug Carriers

Nano-cellulose drug carriers were produced by Iranian researchers from Islamic Azad University in association with their colleagues from Northern Carolina University of the US in a bid to fight various types of illness-causing bacteria such as the ones that are resistant to antiseptics.

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'Nanoresonators' might improve cell phone performance

Resonant nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) have the potential to have significant impact in mass sensing, signal processing and field detection applications if the challenges associated with processing, material and geometric variability can be mitigated. The research presented here details a breakthrough in the design and development of resonant NEMS aimed at addressing these challenges. Specifically, the work details the fabrication, characterization and tuning of dual-gate silicon nanoelectromechanical resonators, which are transduced electrostatically and realized with close to 100% yield. These devices are fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate using only top-down microfabrication techniques and can be easily integrated with SOI-CMOS transistors, enabling the development of fully integrated CMOS-NEMS with highly-tunable nonlinear frequency response characteristics.

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This image from a scanning electron microscope shows a tiny mechanical device, an electrostatically actuated nanoresonator, that might ease congestion over the airwaves to improve the performance of cell phones and other portable devices.

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NASA's Jupiter-Bound Juno Changes its Orbit

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This artist's concept depicts NASA's Juno spacecraft during a burn of its main engine.

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New technique could mean super thin, strong graphene-based circuits

Integrated circuits, which are in everything from coffeemakers to computers and are patterned from perfectly crystalline silicon, are quite thin -- but Cornell researchers think they can push thin-film boundaries to the single-atom level.

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Schematic illustration of single-atom-thick films with patterned regions of conducting graphene (gray) and insulating boron nitride (purple-blue).

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'Nano machine shop' shapes nanowires, ultrathin films

One-dimensional nanomaterials have attracted a great deal of research interest in the past few decades due to their unique mechanical, electrical and optical properties. Changing the shape of nanowires (NWs) is both challenging and crucial to change the property and open wide functions of NWs, such as strain engineering, electronic transport, mechanical properties, band structure and quantum properties, etc. Here we report a scalable strategy to conduct cutting, bending and periodic straining of NWs by making use of laser shock pressure. Three-dimensional shaping of silver NWs is demonstrated, during which the Ag NWs exhibit very good ductility (strain-to-failure reaches 110%). Meanwhile, the high electrical conductivity of Ag NWs could retain well under controlled laser shock pressure. The microstructure observation indicates that the main deformation mechanism in Ag NWs under dynamic loading is formation of twinning and stacking fault, while dislocation motion and pile-up is less obvious. This method could be applied to semiconductor NWs as well.

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This illustration depicts a new nano machine shop's ability to shape tiny wires, an advance that represents a possible future manufacturing method for applications ranging from high-speed electronics to solar cells.

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LGC is using Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis to characterize novel nanoscale reference materials

NanoSight, leading manufacturers of unique nanoparticle characterization technology, reports on the work of Principal Scientist Dr Damian Marshall and his colleagues at LGC as they develop new methods for characterizing new nanoscale reference materials.

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A new look at proteins in living cells

Proteins adorning the surfaces of human cells perform an array of essential functions, including cell signaling, communication and the transport of vital substances into and out of cells. They are critical targets for drug delivery and many proteins are now being identified as disease biomarkers—early warning beacons announcing the pre-symptomatic presence of cancers and other diseases.

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Figure 1a: Schematic illustration of the experimental set-up for surface plasmon resonance microscopy. A polarized laser beam is directed onto a gold-coated glass coverslip through an oil-immersion objective to create SPR on the gold surface, which is imaged with a CCD camera. 1b: From the bottom up, examples of bright-field, fluorescence (FL) and SPR images, respectively.