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Category: nanotechnology – Page 299

Princeton’s answer to Quantum friction.

Abstract: Theoretical chemists at Princeton University have pioneered a strategy for modeling quantum friction, or how a particle’s environment drags on it, a vexing problem in quantum mechanics since the birth of the field. The study was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

“It was truly a most challenging research project in terms of technical details and the need to draw upon new ideas,” said Denys Bondar, a research scholar in the Rabitz lab and corresponding author on the work.

Quantum friction may operate at the smallest scale, but its consequences can be observed in everyday life. For example, when fluorescent molecules are excited by light, it’s because of quantum friction that the atoms are returned to rest, releasing photons that we see as fluorescence. Realistically modeling this phenomenon has stumped scientists for almost a century and recently has gained even more attention due to its relevance to quantum computing.

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New and improve fuel cells.

Fuel cells, which generate electricity from chemical reactions without harmful emissions, have the potential to power everything from cars to portable electronics, and could be cleaner and more efficient than combustion engines. Abstract: Fuel cells, which generate electricity from chemical reactions without harmful emissions, have the potential to power everything from cars to portable electronics, and could be cleaner and more efficient than combustion engines.

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EPA’s new rules on Carbon Nano Tubes.

On May 16, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated, through a direct final rule, significant new use rules (SNUR) for 55 chemical substances that were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN), including functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNT) (generic). EPA states that it determined that any use of the functionalized CNTs without the use of impervious gloves, where there is potential for dermal exposure; manufacturing the PMN substance for use other than as a thin film for electronic device applications; manufacturing, processing, or using the PMN substance in a form other than a liquid; use of the PMN substance involving an application method that generates a mist, vapor, or aerosol except in a closed system; or any release of the PMN substance into surface waters or disposal other than by landfill or incineration may cause serious health effects or significant adverse environmental effects. EPA states that the following tests would help characterize the health and environmental effects of the PMN substance: “a fish early-life stage toxicity test (OPPTS Test Guideline 850.1400); a daphnid chronic toxicity test (OPPTS Test Guideline 850.1300); an algal toxicity test (OCSPP Test Guideline 850.4500); a 90-day inhalation toxicity test (OPPTS 870.3465) with additional testing parameters beyond those noted at CFR 870.3465, for using the 90-day subchronic protocol for nanomaterial assessment; a two-year inhalation bioassay (OPPTS Test Guideline 870.4200); and a surface charge by electrophoresis (for example, using ASTM E2865-12 or NCL Method PCC-2 — Measuring the Zeta Potential of Nanoparticles).” The SNUR requires persons who intend to manufacture, import, or process any of the 55 chemical substances for an activity that is designated as a significant new use by the direct final rule to notify EPA at least 90 days before commencing that activity. The direct final rule will be effective July 15, 2016. If EPA receives written adverse or critical comments, or notice of intent to submit adverse or critical comments, on one or more of the SNURs before June 15, 2016, EPA will withdraw the relevant sections of the direct final rule before its effective date.

©2016 Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.

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The crew of the Proteus has one desperate chance to save a man’s life. Shrunk to the size of a large bacterium, the submarine contains a team of scientists and physicians racing to destroy a blood clot in the brain of a Soviet defector. The group journeys through the body, evading giant white blood cells and tiny antibodies while traveling through the heart, the inner ear and the brain to reach and destroy the blockage.

Although events in the film Fantastic Voyage were far-fetched when it was released in 1966, they’re now being realized every day in labs around the world, particularly in cancer treatment. A growing field called nanotechnology is allowing researchers to manipulate molecules and structures much smaller than a single cell to enhance our ability to see, monitor and destroy cancer cells in the body.

Tens of thousands of patients have already received chemotherapy drugs delivered by nanoparticles called liposomes, and dozens of other approaches are currently in clinical trials. Within the next five to 10 years, our bodies’ biggest defenders may be tinier than we could have ever imagined.

Illustration of scientists using nanotechnology on the body

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Improving energy efficiencies — nice.

The remarkable properties researchers at the Australian National University (ARC Centre of Excellence CUDOS) and the University of California Berkeley have discovered in a new nano-metamaterial could lead to highly efficient thermophotovoltaic cells. The new artificial material glows in an unusual way when headed.

As shown in the image, the metamaterial comprises 20 stacked alternating layers of 30-nm-thick gold and 45-nm-thick magnesium fluoride dielectric, perforated with 260 × 530 nm holes that are arranged into a 750 × 750 nm square lattice.

Thermophotovoltaics typically use a heated object as a source of radiation that is then converted to electricity by a photovoltaic cell. The caveat is that heated object emits light in all directions and over a broad spectral region, which reduces the efficiency of the light-to-electricity conversion. However, “The demonstrated metamaterial emits thermal radiation predominantly in particular directions and [within] a particular spectral region, which could make the conversion more efficient,” says Dr Sergey Kruk at the Nonlinear Physics Centre in the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.

Continue reading “Magnetic Hyperbolic Optical Metamaterial Could Advance Thermophotovoltaics” | >

This post is a status update on one of the most powerful tools humanity will ever create: nanotechnology (or nanotech).

My goal here is to give you a quick overview of the work going on in labs around the world, and the potential applications this nanotech work will have in health, energy, the environment, materials science, data storage and processing.

As artificial intelligence has been getting a lot of the attention lately, I believe we’re going to start to see and hear about incredible breakthroughs in the nanotech world very soon.

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This blog is a status update on one of the most powerful tools humanity will ever create: Nanotechnology (or nanotech).

My goal here is to give you a quick overview of the work going on in labs around the world, and the potential applications this nanotech work will have in health, energy, the environment, material sciences, data storage and processing.

As artificial intelligence has been getting a lot of the attention lately, I believe we’re going to start to see and hear about incredible breakthroughs in the nanotech world very soon.

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Today’s emergence of nano-micro hybrid structures with almost biological complexity is of fundamental interest. Our ability to adapt intelligently to the challenges has ramifications all the way from fundamentally changing research itself, over applications critical to future survival, to posing small and medium as well as truly globally existential dangers.

In this article I publish suppressed information that has been actually officially published, but is effectively kept unavailable (after being rejected from all higher impact factor journals in the relevant fields because the text is too critical, it was officially published [1], but the title, corresponding author list and text was altered, no proof copy having been given to the actual author, and it can also not be as normally downloaded, even for researchers who should have access. Since this text is highly interesting and relevant far beyond the narrow engineering sciences, I allow myself to actually publish the most interesting and critical parts (slightly edited) in a series of short posts. If citing, please cite [1] anyway in order to support the author.)

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Abstract: Physicists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the University of Basel have succeeded in measuring the very weak van der Waals forces between individual atoms for the first time. To do this, they fixed individual noble gas atoms within a molecular network and determined the interactions with a single xenon atom that they had positioned at the tip of an atomic force microscope. As expected, the forces varied according to the distance between the two atoms; but, in some cases, the forces were several times larger than theoretically calculated. These findings are reported by the international team of researchers in Nature Communications.

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Making Holographic Apps more secured and efficient.

Since its birth, holograms have been extensively used to serve security systems and related purposes. The making of a hologram, dissecting it to pieces and again rejoining the blocks involves a steady orientation of lenses which encodes the information with depth perception that could be deciphered later according to requirement.

It’s hard to imagine a 21st century city running smooth without an immense use of holograms, small or big sized 2D cards with 3D engraved pictures that are present in credit cards, grocery objects, books, biomedical devices and in other objects requiring retrievable information to be stored.

In terms of concealing product information, these sticker based fancy stuffs were up to the mark, until technology escalated beyond imagination. Even a previously measured safe encryption suffered from threat and these tools became fragile. Researchers initialized various approaches to hit the safest and complex path, among which nanotechnology had an answer in store for them. A research team from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences had recently forced polarization to concise holograms, comprising of tiny light-polarization sensitive nanostructures to generate numerous ones depending upon the polarization configuration of light.

Continue reading “Nanotechnology To Make Holographic Applications More Secure And Efficient” | >