A new optical storage technique that records in five dimensions could hold up to 10,000 times what a standard DVD can store. The new technology could see a whopping 1.6 terabytes of information fit on a DVD-sized disc [BBC], whereas a DVD now can hold only 8.5 gigabytes and a Blu-ray disc up to 50.
Discs started out storing information in two dimensions and more recently have been stepped up to three. By using gold nanorods [the researchers] were able to add two additional dimensions, one based on the colour spectrum, and the other on polarisation [PhysOrg]. The key for his team was to find a material for the disk that could store this extra information…. That ideal material contains gold, rod-shaped nanoparticles of different sizes and orientations [Nature].
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Would you like to wear your Facebook profile on the sleeve of your T-shirt? Or maybe the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude would like to wrap a building in computer screens? Such marvels may one day be possible due to a stretchy display researchers created by connecting organic light-emitting diodes to a new rubbery conductor. Researchers say the display is remarkably durable–they bent it, folded it in half, and even crumpled it up without affecting its performance. What’s more, the display, which is thinner and less power-hungry than equivalent plasma and LCD screens, is produced through a cheap industrial printing process [Fast Company].
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are not yet familiar technology, but many researchers think they’ll play an important part in the next generation of electronics. The organic compounds in an OLED system emit light when an electric current is passed through them and need no backlight, which means they draw less power and can be thinner than a typical liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. But the real breakthrough in the current research is in the stretchy conductor underlying the OLEDs.
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In a masterful work of “DNA origami,” researchers have created a nanoscale DNA “box” which can be opened with DNA “keys”. One day, such structures could be filled with drugs, injected into the blood, and then unlocked when and where the drugs are required [New Scientist]. Researchers say the boxes could also be used as minuscule environmental sensors that open or close in response to a stimulus, or as the logic gates of a DNA-based computer.
To accomplish this feat, described in a paper in Nature, researchers exploited the fact that complementary DNA bases–the fundamental building blocks of DNA’s double helix–attach to each other. To design the box, the researchers developed a computer program to generate a continuous single-stranded DNA sequence that, along with smaller DNA fragments that act as staples, would self-assemble into the desired shape. The sequence was devised with many complementary regions so that it would automatically fold into six roughly square accordion-like sheets–the sides of the box–based on DNA’s natural tendency to pair into double strands. The DNA staples, also driven by the pairing of complementary sequences, stitched the sheets’ edges together to form a hollow cube with a hinged lid [Technology Review]. The final product was a box that measured 42 by 36 by 36 nanometers, and had a cavity big enough to hold enzymes or virus particles.
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Two groups of researchers have found ways to “unzip” carbon nanotubes to make nanoribbons of graphene, and experts say the development could point the way towards a new generation of electronics, including computer chips that are faster and tinier than the silicon-based chips used today.
Graphene, an atom-thick sheet of honeycombed carbon, is one of the hottest materials around. It conducts electrons well, but is thin, transparent and strong, making it potentially useful in displays and solar panels. Ribbons of graphene could be more useful still. At widths of around 10 nanometres or less, electrons are forced to move lengthwise, and make the graphene behave as a semiconductor [Nature News].
However, the ribbons have proved extremely difficult to produce. Previously, nanoribbons of graphene [were] cut from larger sheets using chemical methods that, like a blunt pair of scissors, offer little control over the width of the ribbons [New Scientist].
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The latest advance in battery technology comes from viruses working on the nanoscale. Researchers have constructed a lithium-ion battery, similar to those used in millions of devices, but one which uses genetically engineered viruses to create the negatively charged anode and positively charged cathode [BBC News]. The tiny workers are bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria but are harmless to humans.
Three years ago, the same researchers created viruses that collected negatively charged particles of cobalt oxide and gold, which “grew” on a film to create the anode. Now, the researchers have added to that achievement, tackling the trickier task of making cathodes. The work was more difficult because the material had to be highly conductive in order to be effective and most candidate materials for cathodes are highly insulating [BBC News]. The researchers engineered viruses that coat themselves with iron phosphate. Then they then latch onto carbon nanotubes to create a network of highly conductive material [ComputerWorld]. Iron phosphate is generally not a good conductor, but its properties change when it’s organized on the nanoscale.
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The mechanical energy produced when your body moves could be harnessed to power electronic gadgets thanks to what researchers are calling a “nanogenerator.” The nanotech device is made of tiny zinc oxide nanowires, which have piezoelectric properties–meaning that they generate a tiny electrical pulse when they’re bent, stretched, or otherwise subjected to mechanical stress. According to Zhong Lin Wang, lead researcher, the device could be used to charge gadgets such as iPods and BlackBerrys as well as having a impact on defence technology, environmental monitoring and biomedical sciences. “This technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement,” he said [Financial Times].
In a video demonstration, Wang attached a single nanowire to the back of a hamster and then hooked it up to an oscilloscope. As the rodent … scurried around, it generated 70 millivolts [the equivalent of .o7 volts]. When the critter stopped to lick itself, the power levels decreased [Wired].
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Lighter than air! Stronger than steel! More flexible than rubber! No, it’s not an upcoming superhero flick: It’s the latest marvelous formulation of carbon nanotubes–at least as reported by the creators of the new super-material. Researchers working on artificial muscles say they’ve created nanotech ribbons that make our human muscles look puny by comparison. The ribbons, which are made of long, entangled 11-nanometer-thick nanotubes, can stretch to more than three times their normal width but are stiffer and stronger than steel…. They can expand and contract thousands of times and withstand temperatures ranging from -190 to over 1,600 °C. What’s more, they are almost as light as air, and are transparent, conductive, and flexible [Technology Review].
The material is made from bundles of vertically aligned nanotubes that respond directly to electricity. Lengthwise, the muscle can expand and contract with tremendous speed; from side-to-side, it’s super-stiff. Its possibilities may only be limited by the imaginations of engineers. [The material's composition] “is akin to having diamond-like behavior in one direction, and rubber-like behavior in the others” [Wired], says material scientist John Madden, who wasn’t involved in the research.
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Sapphire crystals may be the next material to transform the electronics industry, thanks to nanotechnology researchers who have announced a new way of storing data that would fit the contents of 250 DVDs on a coin-sized surface. The study, published in Science, illustrates how nanoscale elements can organize themselves over a large sheet of semiconductor film. The researchers expect that when applied to electronic media, their discovery will improve the efficiency of data storage, savings which can then be transferred to improve other pieces of electronics besides just storage, like high-definition screens and solar cells.
Similar attempts have previously been made to improve data storage on semiconductor films, but have consistently failed because the polymers—which are known to link together, on their own, in precise patterns—lose their organized structure when the film being used increases in area, rendering them useless for storing memory. Lead researchers Ting Xu from the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Russell from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst overcame this by layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle—a common procedure known as a miscut—and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers [Science Daily].
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The joke about hydrogen-powered cars is that they’re about 10 years away–and always will be. The technology has been held up largely by the high cost of hydrogen fuel cells, but now researchers say they’ve found a way to bring down the cost dramatically by making a key component out of carbon nanotubes instead of platinum. More than half the cost of fuel-cell stacks comes from platinum, according to the Department of Energy. “Fuel cells haven’t been commercialized for larger-scale applications because platinum is too expensive,” says Liming Dai [Technology Review], the lead author of the new study.
Researcher found that tightly packed, vertically aligned carbon nanotubes doped with nitrogen were more effective as catalysts than platinum, which is usually used to help oxygen react within the fuel cell. That is a vital stage of the fuel cell cycle. Rather than burning fuel to create heat to power a turbine, fuel cells turn chemical energy directly into a flow of electricity. Hydrogen gas, for example, is pumped past one electrode (the anode), where it is split into its constituent electrons and protons. The electrons then flow out of the anode, providing electrical power, while the protons diffuse through the cell. Electrons and protons both end up at a second electrode (the cathode), where they combine with oxygen to form water [New Scientist].
That second reaction is very slow, so engineers have developed cathodes made out of materials that act as chemical catalysts and speed up the reaction. Until now, platinum was considered the best catalyst, but now carbon nanotubes with a trace of nitrogen (the critical ingredient) have left the precious metal in the dust.
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The future, according to author and technological soothsayer Ray Kurzweil, is going to be awesome. In his books, he maps out a future for humanity in which we live forever, supported by a fleet of cleverer-than-human artificial intelligences who solve such trivial problems as hunger and disease, while simultaneously creating ever more intelligent computer minds, racing technological progress forward according to his Law of Accelerated Returns [Telegraph]. Now, Kurzweil is opening a new school, Singularity University, that will gather smart people together and encourage them to bring that future to pass.
Kurzweil dreamed up the school with Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X Prize Foundation, and got backing from Google and NASA; it will be housed on the NASA Ames base in California. The university takes its name from Kurzweil’s recent book, The Singularity Is Near, in which he argues that exponential advances in technology will shortly transform human life beyond all recognition…. This is Kurzweil’s own take on the widespread science-fiction use of the term “singularity” to refer to the day when artificial “intelligence” and/or processing power surpasses that of the human race’s collective brains. Sci-fi writer Vernor Vinge probably did most to hijack the word “singularity” from its use in physics to describe the breakdown of normal principles near a black hole [The Register].
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Researchers who created the first so-called invisibility cloak in 2006, have made significant advances that could lead to an invisibility cloak for visible light in as little as six months. “A large number of folks are looking at it, and I think it’s a matter of coupling the right material to the right device,” [Discovery News] said researcher David Smith. His team has developed an algorithm that speeds up the design of materials that can bend light around an object. Using the new algorithm, they were able to create an invisibility cloak that can bend much wider spectrum of microwaves than previous versions.
Invisibility cloaks rely on metamaterials, ones with unique properties that derive from [their] physical structure, not [their] chemical make up [Discovery News]. Smith compares the effect of metamaterials on light to mirages that appear over a road on sweltering days. “You see what looks like water hovering over the road, but it is in reality a reflection from the sky,” Smith said. “In that example, the mirage you see is cloaking the road below. In effect, we are creating an engineered mirage with this latest cloak design” [AFP].
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Thin, translucent sheets of graphene may one day allow electronic displays that can be folded and rolled up like a newspaper. Previously, the only way to make graphene—thin layers of carbon atoms that can conduct electricity at stunning speeds—was to use sticky tape to pull off thin films of graphite. Now researchers are developing a technique that can create flexible sheets of graphene on a commercially useful scale. “Until now, everyone has been using our so-called ‘pencil technique’ (the sticky-tape method) but the disadvantage is that the graphite crystals are quite small—it’s really painstaking research,” [BBC News] said Andre Geim, who was the first to create graphene in 2004.
It was Geim who first proposed that graphene could be made more efficiently using a method called chemical vapor deposition. On that advice, South Korean researchers found a way to deposit graphene using CVD, which involves evaporating a mixture of large carbon-containing molecules and firing it over a heated metal surface. The molecules break down, releasing carbon that re-organises on the surface in neat graphene sheets. The precise conditions of the experiment determine how many sheets are produced [BBC News]. The researchers used extremely thin pieces of nickel as the metal surface on which to grow the graphene, the molecules of which forms a regular hexagonal pattern similar to chicken wire. Afterward, the nickel can be chemically dissolved away, leaving behind pure graphene.
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Never before has the nano-scale world of viruses and proteins been so visible. A team led by scientists at IBM Research has developed a new imaging technique based on the same principles used in magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which is routinely used in hospitals. But the new process has 100 million times better resolution than a conventional MRI, allowing researchers to construct 3-D images of individual tobacco mosaic viruses, which are only 18 nanometers in diameter. “This technology stands to revolutionize the way we look at viruses, bacteria, proteins, and other biological elements,” said IBM [researcher] Mark Dean…. This advancement was enabled by a technique called magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM), which relies on detecting ultrasmall magnetic forces [CNN].
The MRFM process hasn’t captured images of the smallest objects ever: Techniques like atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopes have provided images of individual atoms. (An atom is about one-tenth of a nanometer in diameter). But these techniques are more destructive of biological samples because they send a stream of electrons at the target in order to get an image. And these microscopes cannot peer beneath the surface of the Lilliputian structures [The New York Times]. Researchers say the new 3-D technique will be enormously valuable for the study of protein structures.
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By harnessing a quantum mechanic force of repulsion researchers have caused nanoparticles to repel each other, and in their next experiment they plan to levitate a tiny gold nanosphere. The quantum force is part of the Casimir effect, first predicted in 1948 by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir, which describes both the attraction and repulsion that occur between two tiny objects held close together in a vacuum. While the attractive force has previously been demonstrated, the new experiment marks the first time the repulsive force has been seen in a lab.
But the experiment wasn’t just a neat physics trick; the researchers say the repulsive force may one day be used in nanoscale devices. Lead author Jeremy Munday says the research may lend itself to producing ultrasensitive detectors and almost friction-free devices by separating their components via Casimir repulsion. “Where you would normally have friction,” he says, “you can start to greatly reduce that by having a repulsive interaction that doesn’t let the surfaces come into contact” [Scientific American].
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Federal research on the emerging field of nanotechnology has failed to adequately address health, safety, and environmental concerns, according to a critical new report from the National Research Council. With more than 600 products that use nanotech materials already on the market, the lag in research creates a risk to consumers, and could also fuel a “nanophobia” in which people assume that every product that uses the new technology is harmful. David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies … said the report echoed calls by industry and congressional leaders for a revamped research plan for nanotechnology. “The administration’s delay has hurt investor and consumer confidence,” Rejeski said in a statement. “It has gambled with public health and safety” [Reuters].
Nanomaterials are engineered on the scale of a billionth of a meter, perhaps 1/10,000 the width of a human hair. They are turning up in a range of items including consumer products like toothpaste and tennis rackets and industrial products like degreasers or adhesives [The New York Times]. Engineered nanoparticles can also be found in sunscreens, cosmetics, and the fabric used in “nano-pants” that resist stains.
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