Lifeboat Foundation

High-energy X-ray beams and a clever experimental setup allowed researchers to watch a high-pressure, high-temperature chemical reaction to determine for the first time what controls formation of two different nanoscale crystalline structures in the metal cobalt. The technique allowed continuous study of cobalt nanoparticles as they grew from clusters including tens of atoms to crystals as large as five nanometers.

After developing a method to control exciton flows at room temperature, EPFL scientists have discovered new properties of these quasiparticles that can lead to more energy-efficient electronic devices.

They were the first to control exciton flows at room temperature. And now, the team of scientists from EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) has taken their technology one step further. They have found a way to control some of the properties of excitons and change the polarization of the light they generate. This can lead to a new generation of electronic devices with transistors that undergo less energy loss and heat dissipation. The scientists’ discovery forms part of a new field of research called valleytronics and has just been published in Nature Photonics.

Excitons are created when an electron absorbs light and moves into a higher energy level, or “energy band” as they are called in solid quantum physics. This excited electron leaves behind an “electron hole” in its previous energy band. And because the electron has a negative charge and the hole a positive charge, the two are bound together by an electrostatic force called a Coulomb force. It’s this electron-electron hole pair that is referred to as an exciton.

Continue reading “Excitons pave the way to higher-performance electronics” »

A quick and easy test devised by scientists from the University of Queensland could transform cancer diagnosis as we know it.

Cancer is a difficult disease to diagnose because different types are characterised by different signatures. Until now, scientists have been unable to find a unique signature common to all forms of cancer that would set it apart from healthy cells.

That’s what University of Queensland researchers Dr Laura Carrascosa, Dr Abu Sina and Professor Matt Trau have addressed. They have discovered a unique DNA nanostructure that seems to be common to all types of cancer and is visible when cancer cells are placed in water.

Continue reading “Australian researchers have developed a test that can detect cancer cells in 10 minutes” »

Self-assembling silver tubes might someday wire up your clothes.

Inspired by blood vessels, the silver nanowires practically manufacture themselves.

Histology is used to identify structural details of tissue at the microscale in the pathology lab, but analyses remain two-dimensional (2D) as they are limited to the same plane. Nondestructive 3D technologies including X-ray micro and nano-computed tomography (nanoCT) have proven validity to understand anatomical structures, since they allow arbitrary viewing angles and 3D structural detail. However, low attenuation of soft tissue has hampered their application in the field of 3D virtual histology. In a recent study, now published on Scientific Reports, Mark Müller and colleagues at the Department of Physics and Bioengineering have developed a hematein-based X-ray staining method to specifically target cell nuclei, followed by demonstrations on a whole liver lobule of a mouse.

Imagine reading by plant light, and glow-in-the-dark trees instead of street lamps. That’s on the horizon thanks to these engineers.

Scientists have created a rubbery, shape-shifting material that morphs from one sophisticated form to another on demand.

The shapes programmed into a polymer appear in ambient conditions and melt away when under heat. The process also works in reverse.

Continue reading “Watch: Morphing material goes from flat to face” »

By coating nanoparticles with gold, researchers have successfully destroyed prostate cancer cells in people without damaging surrounding tissue.

Coming up with potent anti-cancer drugs is one thing, delivering them to the site of a tumor inside the body is very much another. With a complicated organism guarded by a highly evolved immune system to navigate, getting these particles to there target in one piece is a challenging task, and one that scientists are continuing to tackle from all angles. A promising new approach developed at Virginia Tech leans on the penetrative properties of a salmonella infection, which they’ve found can be used as a vehicle to smuggle cancer-fighting nanoparticles into a tumor in a huge abundance.