A joint study led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has built an ultralow-power consumption artificial visual system to mimic the human brain, which successfully performed data-intensive cognitive tasks. Their experiment results could provide a promising device system for the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The research team is led by Professor Johnny Chung-yin Ho, Associate Head and Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at CityU. Their findings have been published in the scientific journal Science Advances, titled “Artificial visual system enabled by quasi-two-dimensional electron gases in oxide superlattice nanowires.”
As the advances in semiconductor technologies used in digital computing are showing signs of stagnation, neuromorphic (brain-like) computing systems have been regarded as one alternative. Scientists have been trying to develop the next generation of advanced AI computers, which could be as lightweight, energy-efficient and adaptable as the human brain.
Finding alternatives to antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges facing the research community. Bacteria are increasingly resistant to these drugs, and this resistance leads to the deaths of more than 25,000 around the world. Now, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the University of Grenoble (France), the University of Saarland (Germany) and RMIT University (Australia) have discovered that the mechanical deformation of bacteria is a toxic mechanism that can kill bacteria with gold nanoparticles. The results of this research have been published in the journal Advanced Materials and are a breakthrough in researchers’ understanding the antibacterial effects of nanoparticles and their efforts to find new materials with bactericide properties.
Since the times of Ancient Egypt, gold has been used in a range of medical applications and, more recently, as for diagnosing and treating diseases such as cancer. This is due to the fact that gold is a chemically inert material, that is, it does not react or change when it comes into contact with an organism. Amongst the scientific community, nanoparticles are known for their ability to make tumors visible and for their applications in nanomedicine.
This new research shows that these chemically inert nanoparticles can kill bacteria thanks to a physical mechanism that deforms the cell wall. To demonstrate this, the researchers have synthesized in the laboratory gold nanoparticles in the shape of an almost perfect sphere and others in the shape of stars, all measuring 100 nanometres (8 times thinner than a hair). The group analyzed how these particle interact with living bacteria. “We find that the bacteria become deformed and deflate like a ball that is having the air let out before dying in the presence of these nanoparticles,” explained Vladimir Baulin, researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the URV. The researchers state the bacteria seem to have died after a massive leak, “as if the cell wall had spontaneously exploded.”
Dr yu shrike zhang phd is assistant professor at harvard medical school and associate bioengineer at brigham and women’s hospital.
Dr. Zhang’s research interests include symbiotic tissue engineering, 3D bio-printing, organ-on-a-chip technology, biomaterials, regenerative engineering, bioanalysis, nanomedicine, and biology.
His scientific contributions have been recognized by over 40 regional, national and international awards. He has been invited to deliver more than 110 lectures worldwide, and has served as reviewer for more than 500 manuscripts for as many as 50 journals.
Dr. Zhang is serving as Editor-in-Chief for Microphysiological Systems, and is Associate Editor for Bio-Design and Manufacturing, Nano Select, Aggregate, and Essays in Biochemistry.
He is also on the Editorial Board of Biofabrication, Bioprinting, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Discover Materials, BMC Biomedical Engineering, Materials Today Bio, and Chinese Chemical Letters, the Editorial Advisory Board of Heliyon and Biomicrofluidics, the International Advisory Board of Advanced NanoBiomed Research and Advanced Materials Technologies, and the Advisory Panel of Nanotechnology.
Dr. Zhang has his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology / Emory, his M.S. in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and his B.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering Southeast University in China.
A new label-free optical imaging technique based on unscattered light can detect nanoparticles as small as 25 nm in diameter. The technology overcomes several limitations of other advanced methods for imaging tiny particles, and its developers at the University of Houston and the University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center in the US say it might be used to study viruses and other structures at the molecular level.
Imaging nanoscale objects via optical techniques is difficult for two reasons. First, the objects’ small size means that they scatter little light, making it hard to distinguish them from the background. Second, individual nano-objects within a close-packed group tend to be separated by distances that are smaller than the diffraction limit for visible light (around a few hundred nanometres) making it impossible to resolve them with conventional methods.
In groundbreaking new research, an international team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has developed a unique process for producing a quantum state that is part light and part matter.
The discovery provides fundamental new insights for more efficiently developing the next generation of quantum-based optical and electronic devices. The research could also have an impact on increasing efficiency of nanoscale chemical reactions.
The research is published in Nature Photonics.
Serena Corr looks at the science behind batteries, discusses why we are hunting for new ones and investigates what tools we use to pave this pathway to discovery.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/lZjqiR0czLo.
The hunt is on for the next generation of batteries that will power our electric vehicles and help our transition to a renewables-led future. Serena shows how researchers at the Faraday Institution are developing new chemistries and manufacturing processes to deliver safer, cheaper, and longer-lasting batteries and provide higher power or energy densities for electric vehicles.
Serena Corr is a Chair in Functional Materials and Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She works on next-generation battery materials and advanced characterisation techniques for nanomaterials.
This event was generously supported by The Faraday Institution.
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Columbia team discovers 6-nanometer-long single-molecule circuit with enormous on/off ratio due to quantum interference; finding could enable faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient devices.
Researchers, led by Columbia Engineering Professor Latha Venkataraman, report today that they have discovered a new chemical design principle for exploiting destructive quantum interference. They used their approach to create a six-nanometer single-molecule switch where the on-state current is more than 10,000 times greater than the off-state current–the largest change in current achieved for a single-molecule circuit to date.
This new switch relies on a type of quantum interference that has not, up to now, been explored. The researchers used long molecules with a special central unit to enhance destructive quantum interference between different electronic energy levels. They demonstrated that their approach can be used to produce very stable and reproducible single-molecule switches at room temperature that can carry currents exceeding 0.1 microamps in the on-state. The length of the switch is similar to the size of the smallest computer chips currently on the market and its properties approach those of commercial switches. The study is published today in Nature Nanotechnology.
A 15-year-old Colorado high school student and young scientist who has used artificial intelligence and created apps to tackle contaminated drinking water, cyberbullying, opioid addiction and other social problems has been named Time Magazine’s first-ever “Kid of the Year.”
Gitanjali Rao, a sophomore at STEM School Highlands Ranch in suburban Denver who lives in the city of Lone Tree, was selected from more than 5,000 nominees in a process that culminated with a finalists’ committee of children, drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, inspired her work to develop a way to detect contaminants and send those results to a mobile phone, she said.
“I was like 10 when I told my parents that I wanted to research carbon nanotube sensor technology at the Denver Water quality research lab, and my mom was like, ” A what?” Rao told Jolie. She said that work ” is going to be in our generation’s hands pretty soon. So if no one else is gonna do it, I’m gonna do it.”
Graphene, an atomically thin carbon layer through which electrons can travel virtually unimpeded, has been extensively studied since its first successful isolation more than 15 years ago. Among its many unique properties is the ability to support highly confined electromagnetic waves coupled to oscillations of electronic charge—plasmon polaritons—that have potentially broad applications in nanotechnology, including biosensing, quantum information, and solar energy.
However, in order to support plasmon polaritons, graphene must be charged by applying a voltage to a nearby metal gate, which greatly increases the size and complexity of nanoscale devices. Columbia University researchers report that they have achieved plasmonically active graphene with record-high charge density without an external gate. They accomplished this by exploiting novel interlayer charge transfer with a two-dimensional electron-acceptor known as α-RuCl3. The study is available now online as an open access article and will appear in the December 9th issue of Nano Letters.
“This work allows us to use graphene as a plasmonic material without metal gates or voltage sources, making it possible to create stand-alone graphene plasmonic structures for the first time” said co-PI James Hone, Wang Fong-Jen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia Engineering.