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Category: nanotechnology – Page 7

A small international team of nanotechnologists, engineers and physicists has developed a way to force laser light into becoming a supersolid. Their paper is published in the journal Nature. The editors at Nature have published a Research Briefing in the same issue summarizing the work.

Supersolids are entities that exist only in the quantum world, and, up until now, they have all been made using . Prior research has shown that they have zero viscosity and are formed in crystal-like structures similar to the way atoms are arranged in salt crystals.

Because of their nature, supersolids have been created in extremely cold environments where the can be seen. Notably, one of the team members on this new effort was part of the team that demonstrated more than a decade ago that light could become a fluid under the right set of circumstances.

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Researchers across 14 medical centers in China, including Peking University People’s Hospital, have found that an investigational drug, berberine ursodeoxycholate (HTD1801), significantly lowered blood sugar levels and improved metabolic and liver health in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The findings and an invited commentary, both published in JAMA Network Open, suggest that HTD1801 could serve as a new oral treatment option for T2D and its related complications.

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Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have developed an innovative tool that enhances surgeons’ ability to detect and remove cancer cells during cryosurgery, a procedure that uses extreme cold to destroy tumors. This breakthrough technology involves a specialized nanoscale material that illuminates cancer cells under freezing conditions, making them easier to distinguish from healthy tissue and improving surgical precision.

Detailed in the study “Freezing-Activated Covalent Organic Frameworks for Precise Fluorescence Cryo-Imaging of Cancer Tissue” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the Trabolsi research group at NYUAD designed a unique nanoscale covalent organic framework (nTG-DFP-COF) that responds to by increasing its fluorescence. This makes it possible to clearly differentiate between cancerous and healthy tissues during surgery.

The material, prepared by Gobinda Das, Ph.D., a researcher in the Trabolsi Research Group at NYUAD, is engineered to be biocompatible and low in toxicity, ensuring it interacts safely within the body. Importantly, it maintains its fluorescent properties even in the presence of ice crystals inside cells, allowing monitoring during cryosurgery.

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This method enables applications in photonics, electronics, and advanced materials for energy and environmental use.

This technique will control functional nanoparticle assembly into uniform monolayers over large surfaces.

Employing nanoparticle components is often challenging despite its versatility, especially when fabricating a device. Therefore, scientists presented an electrostatic assembly as a potential solution, where nanoparticles attach to oppositely charged surfaces.

However, this process can take a lot of work, and thus, the South Korean scientists devised the “mussel-inspired” one-shot nanoparticle assembly technique that transports materials from water in microscopic volumes to two-inch wafers in 10 seconds.

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The researchers indicate that several challenges remain. The current system operates at cryogenic temperatures, which limits practical applications. While photons themselves can function at room temperature, the quantum dot requires cooling to maintain stability. Researchers are exploring alternative materials and designs that could allow operation at higher temperatures.

Additionally, the experiment used a single quantum dot, which is not easily scalable to large numbers of qubits needed for universal quantum computing. Future work will need to integrate multiple quantum dots or alternative photon sources that can be mass-produced with high consistency.

Another limitation is the reliance on superconducting detectors with an efficiency of 79%. If detection efficiency is improved beyond 93.7%, the overall system efficiency could surpass the required threshold even further. Advancements in superconducting nanowire technology suggest this is feasible in the near future.

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This innovation sidesteps the usual size limitations, enabling strong signal reception despite its microscopic dimensions. With high tunability and real-world transmission tests proving its viability, the nano-antenna could transform communications in extreme environments.

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Stretchable display materials, which are gaining traction in the next-generation display market, have the advantage of being able to stretch and bend freely, but the limitations of existing materials have resulted in distorted screens and poor fit.

General elastomeric substrates are prone to screen due to the “Poisson’s ratio” phenomenon, in which stretching in one direction causes the screen to shrink in the vertical direction. In particular, electronics that are in close contact with the skin, such as , are at risk of wrinkling or pulling on the skin during stretching and shrinking, resulting in poor fit and performance.

A research team led by Dr. Jeong Gon Son of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Professor Yongtaek Hong of Seoul National University have developed a nanostructure-aligned stretchable substrate that dramatically lowers the Poisson’s ratio. The work is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

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The current microelectronics manufacturing method is expensive, slow and energy and resource intensive.

But a Northeastern University professor has patented a new process and printer that not only can manufacture and chips more efficiently and cheaply, it can make them at the nanoscale.

“I thought that there must be an easier way to do this, there must be a cheaper way to do this,” says Ahmed A. Busnaina, the William Lincoln Smith professor and a distinguished university professor at Northeastern University. “We started, basically, with very simple physical chemistry with a very simple approach.”

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