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A group of scientists working on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has made a nanoruler to provide insight into the longitudinal plasmonic fields in nanocavities, according to research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

SERS is a highly sensitive and powerful spectral analysis technique applicable in various fields. In contrast to weak Raman scattering, SERS achieves a dramatically enhanced Raman signal of up to 10^10–15, allowing the analysis of single molecules.

“How we develop the technology depends, to a large extent, on what we know about plasmonic fields. In the experiments, we observed an uneven distribution in the plasmonic field at the nano-scale. But it lacks theoretic and experimental support. So we decided to figure it out,” said Yang Liangbao, who leads the team at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Quantum computers are one of the key future technologies of the 21^st century. Researchers at Paderborn University, working under Professor Thomas Zentgraf and in cooperation with colleagues from the Australian National University and Singapore University of Technology and Design, have developed a new technology for manipulating light that can be used as a basis for future optical quantum computers. The results have now been published in Nature Photonics.

New optical elements for manipulating light will allow for more advanced applications in modern information technology, particularly in quantum computers. However, a major challenge that remains is non-reciprocal light propagation through nanostructured surfaces, where these surfaces have been manipulated at a tiny scale.

Professor Thomas Zentgraf, head of the working group for ultrafast nanophotonics at Paderborn University, explains that “in reciprocal propagation, light can take the same path forward and backward through a structure; however, non-reciprocal propagation is comparable to a one-way street where it can only spread out in one direction.”

An international team of researchers has demonstrated a technique that allows them to align gold nanorods using magnetic fields, while preserving the underlying optical properties of the gold nanorods.

“Gold nanorods are of interest because they can absorb and scatter specific wavelengths of light, making them attractive for use in applications such as biomedical imaging, sensors, and other technologies,” says Joe Tracy, corresponding author of a paper on the work and a professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University.

It is possible to tune the wavelengths of light absorbed and scattered by engineering the dimensions of the gold nanorods. Magnetically controlling their orientation makes it possible to further control and modulate which wavelengths the nanorods respond to.

Cytoskeletons are essential components of cells that perform a variety of tasks, and artificial cytoskeletons that perform these functions are required for the bottom-up assembly of synthetic cells. Now, a multi-functional cytoskeleton mimic has been engineered from DNA, consisting of confined DNA filaments that are capable of reversible self-assembly and transport of gold nanoparticles and vesicular cargo.

Manufacturing with atoms has been the siren’s call for many researchers who believed it was the key that could unlock enormous new potential in how we build things. We could develop products that are perfectly precise, contain zero waste and that are 1000x more energy efficient. The problem has always been the same: How? Until now. Wolkow has taken a leading role in laying a new, stable foundation for the world to begin building on the tiniest of scales. Robert Wolkow is a Professor in the Department of Physics, iCORE Chair of Nanoscale Information and Communications Technology at the University of Alberta and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is also the Principal Research Officer and Nanoelectronics Program Coordinator at the NRC Nanotechnology Research Centre (NRC-NANO), AITF Industrial Chair in Atom Scale Fabrication and CTO of Quantum Silicon Inc.

An award-winning innovator, Wolkow has had a leading role in discovering, altering and deploying atom scale properties of silicon. His years of fundamental advances have laid a broad foundation for practical applications. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Developed in collaboration with colleagues from China, Germany and Singapore, the new technology uses nanoparticles, so small that about 12,000 of them can fit within a cross-section of a human hair. These tiny particles are arranged into unique patterns on the slides.

Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have developed tiny translucent slides capable of producing two very different images by manipulating the direction in which light travels through them.

As light passes through the slide, an image of Australia can be seen, but when you flip the slide and look again, an image of the Sydney Opera House is visible. The pair of images created is just one example of an untapped number of possibilities.

Continue reading “Nanoparticles that control flow of light like road signs direct traffic” »

Philip Glass to release a short silence on the matter.

The music vault is a parallel project to the Global Seed Vault (opens in new tab), which keeps the seeds of today’s trees and plants safe for the future, just in case we need to rebuild agriculture for any reason. The vault is located on the island of Spitsbergen, Norwegian territory, within the Arctic circle. It lacks tectonic activity, is permanently frozen, is high enough above sea level to stay dry even if the polar caps melt, and even if the worst happens, it won’t thaw out fully for 200 years. Just to be on the safe side, the main vault is built 120m into a sandstone mountain, and its security systems are said to be robust. As of June 2021, the seed vault had conserved 1,081,026 different crop samples.

The music is to be stored in a dedicated vault in the same mountain used by the seed vault. The glass used is an inert material, shaped into platters 75mm (3 inches) across and 2mm (less than 1/8th of an inch) thick. A laser encodes data in the glass by creating layers of three-dimensional nanoscale gratings and deformations. Machine learning algorithms read the data back by decoding images and patterns created as polarized light shines through the glass. The silica glass platters are fully resistant to electromagnetic pulses and the most challenging of environmental conditions. It can be baked, boiled, scoured and flooded without degradation of the data written into the glass. Tests to see if it really does last many thousands of years, however, can be assumed to be ongoing.

Continue reading “Microsoft Lasers Music into Glass for 1000 Years of Storage” »

A research team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology has developed ‘nanomachines,’ which use mechanical molecular movements to penetrate and destroy cells. Selective cancer cell penetration is also possible by using a latch molecule released near cancer cells. Cancer is a condition where some of the body’s cells grow out of control and spread to other bodily regions. Cancer cells divide continually, leading them to invade surrounding tissue and form solid tumors. The majority of cancer treatments involve killing the cancer cells.

According to 2020 estimates, 1.8 million new instances of cancer were diagnosed in the US, and 600,000 people passed away from the condition. Breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer are the most common cancers. The average age of a cancer patient upon diagnosis is 66, and individuals between the ages of 65 and 74 account for 25% of all new cancer diagnoses.

Proteins are involved in every biological process and use the energy in the body to change their structure via mechanical movements. They are referred to as biological ‘nanomachines’ since even minor structural changes in proteins have a substantial impact on biological processes. To implement movement in the cellular environment, researchers have focused on the development of nanomachines that imitate proteins. However, cells use a variety of mechanisms to defend themselves against the effect of these nanomachines. This restricts any relevant mechanical movement of nanomachines that could be used for medical purposes.

Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine have discovered a possible new approach in treating solid tumors through the creation of a novel nanoparticle. Solid tumors are found in cancers such as breast, head and neck, and colon cancer.

In the study, Xin Ming, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and his team used a nanoparticle to deliver a small molecule called ARL67156 to promote an anti-tumor immune response in mouse models of colon, head and neck, and metastatic breast cancer, resulting in increased survival.

The study is published online in the journal Science Translational Medicine.