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Category: nanotechnology

Ultra-fast light-shaping technology could be ‘game-changer’ for future imaging

Scientists have developed a new type of “virtual” metasurface—capable of controlling light in ways traditional lenses and optics can’t—which they say is superior to the current approach, which relies on ultrathin engineered materials. The Nottingham Trent University team says the work will help fully optimize metasurface potential for a range of real-world applications and paves the way for a move from physical to virtual platforms in nanotechnology.

Metasurfaces are many times thinner than a human hair and can bend and focus light, change its color and steer it in different directions, meaning they can replace bulky optical elements in small devices such as lenses, mirrors and filters.

While they are powerful, however, the materials and dimensions of physical metasurfaces are fixed—once built, they can’t change their shape, which can limit how useful they are in real-world technologies.

Copper thin films reveal ballistic electron transport that could reshape future chip wiring

A joint research team has experimentally observed ballistic transport in single-crystalline copper thin films, demonstrating that ballistic transport is achievable in an industry-standard metal at interconnect-relevant dimensions. The study, titled “Ballistic transport in nanodevices based on single-crystalline Cu thin films,” was published in Nature Communications.

Ballistic transport refers to a phenomenon in which electrons travel along straight trajectories without scattering. Until now, this behavior has mainly been observed in special quantum materials such as graphene or semiconductor nanostructures. In copper, where electron scattering is pronounced, realizing ballistic transport has been considered practically impossible.

In this study, the team led by Professor Gil-Ho Lee of the Department of Physics at POSTECH, Professor Emeritus Se-Young Jeong of the School of Transdisciplinary Engineering at Pusan National University and Professor Seong-Gon Kim of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Mississippi State University, experimentally demonstrated that ballistic transport can occur in structures with a thickness of 80 nm and a linewidth of 150 nm, dimensions comparable to those used in semiconductor interconnects.

Inorganic nanoscale device behaves like a single neuron, opening doors for AI and retinal implants

McGill University researchers have developed a light-detecting nanoscale structure that mimics how a neuron processes information. The neuron-like behavior emerges from the materials themselves, reducing the energy demand associated with similar devices that rely on circuits or software.

Instead of capturing data first and processing it elsewhere, the device senses and interprets light in the same place, similar to how the eye processes visual information.

The researchers say the discovery could increase the efficiency of vision-based technologies like artificial retinas and smart optical sensors. It could also transform how artificial neural networks (ANNs), a foundation of machine learning, are built. The research is published in the journal Nanoscale.

Sugar-coated nanoparticles show promise for treating most aggressive form of brain cancer

Researchers at Oregon State University have potentially found a new way to treat the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, whose two-year survival rate is less than 30%.

The study, led by Oleh Taratula, Olena Taratula and Yoon Tae Goo of the OSU College of Pharmacy, addresses what they describe as the two most persistent obstacles to effective glioblastoma treatment: delivering therapeutic agents through the blood-brain barrier, the cell network that acts as a security checkpoint between the bloodstream and the central nervous system, and then getting those agents to preferentially target tumors.

In research published in the Journal of Controlled Release, the scientists demonstrate the novel treatment technique in a mouse model. They loaded lipid nanoparticles with genetic material that promotes tumor suppression, then coated the nanoparticles with a type of sugar. The result was a 50% median increase in glioblastoma survival time.

Nanotechnology: A New Frontier

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Synthetic DNA toolkit expands scientists’ ability to recognize genetic targets

A new method for recognizing and targeting DNA that dramatically expands the range of genetic sequences scientists can identify has been developed by experts at the University of Portsmouth. Published this week in Nature Communications, the research opens new possibilities for gene-targeting technologies, molecular diagnostics and DNA nanotechnology.

Dr. David Rusling, associate professor in bioengineering from the University of Portsmouth’s School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said, Our lab develops synthetic molecules that can recognize and bind to unique gene sequences. By introducing synthetic DNA bases into these molecules, we’ve been able to significantly improve how they recognize their targets.

I’ve worked in this area for around 20 years, and this is the first time we’ve had a system that combines strong recognition under physiological conditions with building blocks that are commercially available to other researchers.

Graphene plasmon cavities enable advanced and scalable terahertz photodetectors

How could we noninvasively distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissue? And how could we increase the speed of wireless communications? These two seemingly unrelated questions may share the same answer: terahertz (THz) light. Spanning frequencies between 0.3 and 20 THz, THz light interacts with matter without causing damage and allows for faster data transfer than radio waves. It is thus ideal for advancing many applications in biomedicine and telecommunications, for which simple yet sensitive and fast detectors are needed.

The challenge, however, is enormous: When detectors are fast enough and operate at room temperature, they suffer from high noise levels; and when noise is minimized, some work only within a narrow frequency range and under cryogenic cooling, while others offer broadband operation but at much slower response times. Far from defeated, researchers keep seeking ways to develop the (close to) ideal THz detector—one that could potentially turn noninvasive melanoma diagnosis or high-speed wireless communication into a reality.

ICFO researchers Dr. Domenico De Fazio, Dr. Sebastián Castilla, Dr. Karuppasamy P. Soundarapandian, Dr. Simone Marconi, Riccardo Bertini and Dr. Roshan K. Kumar, led by ICREA Prof. Frank Koppens, together with Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA), Universidad de Zaragoza, University of Ioannina, Queen Mary University of London, University of Manchester and Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), have now taken a step forward in that direction. The team designed a novel device based on monolayer graphene that, under liquid nitrogen cooling, emits a strong electric signal when struck by THz radiation. The results, published in ACS Photonics, open a route to build practical, tunable and selective THz detectors.

Investigating quantum and molecular plumbing in nanofluidics research

Our body contains an intricate system of tiny vessels through which blood, water and other molecules flow. When the size of the pipes shrinks to the nanoscale, where only a few molecules can fit side by side, the classical laws of physics governing the behavior of water are influenced by the atomic structure of the walls. “It’s not that classical hydrodynamics breaks down, but rather that it gets mixed with the condensed matter physics of the solid walls,” says Nikita Kavokine, tenure-track assistant professor and leader of the EPFL Quantum Plumbing Lab.

How liquids, and water in particular, behave at scales of a few nanometers is one of the big gaps in modern physics. For example, in some experiments, it has been observed that water flows through carbon nanotubes orders of magnitude faster than expected. Scientists are trying to understand phenomena that biology has mastered after millions of years of evolution.

“At the nanometer scale, our body leverages specific properties of water to filter molecules with high energy efficiency,” explains Kavokine. Aquaporins, for example, are protein channels embedded in cell membranes that use these molecular-scale interactions to let water pass while blocking ions and other molecules.

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