Inorganic chalcogenide (WS2) nanotubes have shown revolutionary chemical and physical properties that offer a broad range of applications. They are ultra-strong impact-resistant materials. This makes them excellent candidates for producing bullet proof vests, helmets, car bumpers, high strength glues and binders, and other safety equipment. The unique nanotubes are up to four to five times stronger than steel and about six times stronger than Kevlar, the nowadays most popular material used for bullet proof vests.

An international team of researchers has succeeded in producing nanocrystals that build conductive two-dimensional nanostructures trough self-organisation ("Ultrathin PbS Sheets by Two-Dimensional Oriented Attachment").

In a development that holds potential for both data storage and biomedical imaging, Ohio State University researchers have used a new technique to obtain the highest-ever resolution MRI scan of the inside of a magnet.

TAU researchers develop improved MEMS devices for sport, electronics and defence.

Tiny sensors known as accelerometers are everywhere. The near-weightless technology can measure the impact of a dangerous tackle on a football player's helmet, control the flow of highway and runway traffic, analyze a golf pro's swing, orient the next generation of smart phones, and keeping fighter jets and missiles on target.

Researchers have overcome a fundamental obstacle in using new "metamaterials" for radical advances in optical technologies, including ultra-powerful microscopes and computers and a possible invisibility cloak.

In piezoresistive materials, mechanical stress influences the movement of charge available for conduction. The application of pressure to such materials translates into an easily measurable change in conductivity, making piezoresistives ideal for use in pressure and flow sensors. Chee Chung Wong and co-workers from the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have now demonstrated a method to increase the piezoresistive sensitivity of silicon nanowires using an applied electric field ("Electrically Controlled Giant Piezoresistance in Silicon Nanowires").

 

Tougher than a bullet-proof vest yet synonymous with beauty and luxury, silk fibres are a masterpiece of nature whose remarkable properties have yet to be fully replicated in the laboratory.

Thanks to their amazing mechanical properties as well as their looks, silk fibres have been important materials in textiles, medical sutures, and even armour for 5,000 years.

Surface tension isn't a very powerful force, but it matters for small things — water bugs, paint, and, it turns out, nanowires.

In the recent issue of Nature, scientists from Empa and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research report how they have managed for the first time to grow graphene ribbons that are just a few nanometres wide using a simple surface-based chemical method. Graphene ribbons are considered to be «hot candidates» for future electronics applications as their properties can be adjusted through width and edge shape.

Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in showing how it is possible to greatly expand the memory capacity of future computers through the use of memory units based on silica nanoparticles combined with protein molecules obtained from the poplar tree.

 

Engineers at Oregon State University have made a significant advance toward producing electricity from sewage, by the use of new coatings on the anodes of microbial electrochemical cells that increased the electricity production about 20 times.

"We can make you and we can break you." If Rice University scientists wrote country songs, their ode to graphene oxide would start something like that. But this song wouldn't break anybody's heart.

Researchers have shown that an advanced cooling technology being developed for high-power electronics in military and automotive systems is capable of handling roughly 10 times the heat generated by conventional computer chips.

University of Illinois engineers have developed a novel direct-writing method for manufacturing metal interconnects that could shrink integrated circuits and expand microelectronics.

 

Mass production of globally competitive electronics equipment relies heavily on the performance and availability of the latest microelectronics devices. The EUREKA MEDEA+ microelectronics Cluster FOREMOST project ensured that the advanced process modules and chip architectures required for full 45nm node CMOS logic and 50nm DRAM memory technologies are now being applied in European wafer-fabrication plants. This project enabled key European players in semiconductor manufacturing to develop these advanced technologies in line with market demands, thus safeguarding and boosting the position of Europe's chipmakers as well as their equipment and materials suppliers on the world stage. The 45nm technology developed in the first phase has already become the core process worldwide for mobile phone applications. Project results are also paving the way for future 32/28nm nodes.

 

Imec sets major step towards 20nm half pitch interconnects with the realization of electrically functional copper lines embedded into silicon oxide using a spacer-defined double patterning approach.ing a spacer-defined double patterning approach.

 

For the engineers who design cell phones, solar panels and computer chips, it's increasingly important to be able to control the way heat moves through the crystalline materials — such as silicon — that these devices are based on. In computer and cell-phone chips, for example, one of the key limitations to increasing speed and memory is the need to dissipate the heat generated by the chips.

 

Metallic carbon nanotubes show great promise for applications from microelectronics to power lines because of their ballistic transmission of electrons. But who knew magnets could stop those electrons in their tracks?

 

Powerful new microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, superfast computers that use light rather than electronic signals to process information, and Harry Potteresque invisibility cloaks are just some of the many thrilling promises of transformation optics. In this burgeoning field of science, light waves can be controlled at all lengths of scale through the unique structuring of metamaterials, composites typically made from metals and dielectrics - insulators that become polarized in the presence of an electromagnetic field. The idea is to transform the physical space through which light travels, sometimes referred to as "optical space," in a manner similar to the way in which outer space is transformed by the presence of a massive object under Einstein's relativity theory.

 

Since its discovery, graphene—an unusual and versatile substance composed of a single-layer crystal lattice of carbon atoms—has caused much excitement in the scientific community. Now, Nongjian(NJ) Tao, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University has hit on a new way of making graphene, maximizing the material's enormous potential, particularly for use in high-speed electronic devices.