Electronic skin: multisensory hybrid material

Even more sensitive than a human fingertip

18-May-2022 - The “smart skin” developed by Anna Maria Coclite is very similar to human skin. It senses pressure, humidity and temperature simultaneously and produces electronic signals. More sensitive robots or more intelligent prostheses are thus conceivable. The skin is the largest sensory organ and at the ...

A megalibrary of nanoparticles

A simple, modular chemical approach could produce over 65,000 different types of complex nanorods

28-Jan-2020 - Using straightforward chemistry and a mix-and-match, modular strategy, researchers have developed a simple approach that could produce over 65,000 different types of complex nanoparticles, each containing up to six different materials and eight segments, with interfaces that could be exploited in ...

All-in-one light-driven water splitting

10-Sep-2018 - Solar-powered water splitting is a promising means of generating clean and storable energy. A novel catalyst based on semiconductor nanoparticles has now been shown to facilitate all the reactions needed for “artificial photosynthesis”. In the light of global climate change, there is an urgent ...

Using gold nanoparticles to trigger sequential unfolding of 3D structures

21-Jun-2018 - Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that takes advantage of gold nanoparticles to trigger the sequential unfolding of three-dimensional structures using different wavelengths of light. Specifically, the technique makes use of the fact that different ...

Double-layered porous nanotubes with spatially separated photoredox surfaces

08-Jun-2018 - Solar energy conversion of water into H2 through photocatalysis is envisaged to be an attractive approach for H2 production. However, the separation efficiency of charge carriers is the key to improve the efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen production. A recent study reveals that the ...

A new Bose-Einstein condensate created

18-Apr-2018 - Nearly a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose predicted that quantum mechanics can force a large number of particles to behave in concert as if they were only a single particle. The phenomenon is called Bose-Einstein condensation, and it took until 1995 to create the first ...

A simpler way to deposit magnetic iron oxide onto gold nanorods

14-Dec-2017 - Researchers from North Carolina State University and MIT have found a simpler way to deposit magnetic iron oxide (magnetite) nanoparticles onto silica-coated gold nanorods, creating multifunctional nanoparticles with useful magnetic and optical properties. Gold nanorods have widespread potential ...

Flipping the switch on ferroelectrics

30-Aug-2017 - Many next-generation electronic and electro-mechanical device technologies hinge on the development of ferroelectric materials. The unusual crystal structures of these materials have regions in their lattice, or domains, that behave like molecular switches. The alignment of a domain can be ...

More solar power thanks to titanium

29-Aug-2017 - Earth-abundant, cheap metals are promising photocatalytic electrode materials in artificial photosynthesis. A team of Chinese scientists now reports that a thin layer of titania beneath hematite nanorods can boost the performance of the photoanode. As outlined in their report, the nanostructured ...

Hafnia dons a new face

17-May-2017 - It's a material world, and an extremely versatile one at that, considering its most basic building blocks -- atoms -- can be connected together to form different structures that retain the same composition. Diamond and graphite, for example, are but two of the many polymorphs of carbon, meaning ...