Materials Today News - 25 May 2010

Biomaterials Self powered sensors  Just 700 rows of piezoelectric nanowires could power a nanoscopic sensor, according to new research at the Georgia Institute of Technology. ... More

Carbon Graphene at home with defects  A team of researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) created a new defect that just might be a solution to a growing challenge in the development of future electronic devices. [Lahiri et al., Nature Nanotech., (2010), doi:10.1038/nnano.2010.53 Letter.]... More Graphene sees the light  Researchers at IBM have made the first photodetector from graphene. ... More

Characterization Breakthrough in fluorescent microscopy  A team of researchers has developed a new technique of fluorescence microscopy for observing objects on the nanoscale, and have also produced a new series of photostable dyes that can be used as fluorescent markers.... More

Electronic materials Stretchable electronics that map the heart  Scientists have developed a new electronic device that allows circuits to bend, stretch and twist, and that could be used in places where normal electronics would not work, such as in the heart or brain. ... More New shape ceramics  Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new way to shape ceramics using a modest electric field, making the process significantly more energy efficient.... More

Energy A safe reaction  Nuclear reactors might one day be constructed using materials that can self-heal following radiation damage, thanks to a materials study by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory.... More

Magnetic materials Quantum dots, and silicon herald new functionality  Researchers from UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science describe the creation of a new material incorporating spintronics that could help usher in the next generation of smaller, more affordable and more power-efficient devices. [Xiu et al., Nature Mat. (2010) 9, 337.]... More

Nanotechnology Nanoscale 'stealth' probe  Engineers at Stanford have created a nanoscale probe they can implant in a cell wall without damaging the wall. [Almquist and Melosh, PNAS (2010) 107, 5815.]... More

Surface science Pushing droplets around  Controlling the way liquids spread across a surface is important for a wide variety of technologies, including DNA microarrays for medical research, inkjet printers and digital lab-on-a-chip systems. But until now, the designers of such devices could only control how much the liquid would spread out over a surface, not which way it would go....More

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