Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

Illustration of the molecular structure of the graphene nanoribbons prepared by UCLA chemistry professor Yves Rubin and colleagues. Credit: Courtesy of Yves Rubin

Tiny structures could be next-generation solution for smaller electronic devices. As electronic devices have become smaller and smaller, creating tiny silicon components that fit inside them has become more challenging and more expensive. Now, UCLA chemists have developed a new method to produce nanoribbons of graphene, next-generation structures that many scientists believe will one day power electronic devices.

The nanoribbons are extremely narrow strips of graphene, the width of just a few carbon atoms...

3D printing with a new kind of ink which is containing living bacteria. (Illustration: science animated by Bara Krautz)

A group of ETH researchers has now introduced a new 3D printing platform that works using living matter. The researchers developed a bacteria-containing ink that makes it possible to print mini biochemical factories with certain properties, depending on which species of bacteria the scientists put in the ink. They used Pseudomonas putida and Acetobacter xylinum in their work. The former can break down the toxic chemical phenol, which is produced on a grand scale in the chemical industry, while the latter secretes high-purity nanocellulose. This bacterial cellulose relieves pain, retains moisture and is stable, opening up potential applications in the treatment of burns...

1. Left: The surface of Rosetta’s comet. As the comet approaches the Sun, frozen gases evaporate from below the surface, dragging tiny particles of dust along with them. Right: These dust grains can be captured and examined using the COSIMA instrument. Targets such as this one measuring only a few centimeters act as dust collectors. They retain dust particles of up to 100 microns in size. 2. Left: Overview of the chemical elements that make up Rosetta’s comet. Right: Average mass distribution of organic and mineral substances in Rosetta’s comet.

The dust that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko emits into space consists to about one half of organic molecules. The dust belongs to the most pristine and carbon-rich material known in our solar system and has hardly changed since its birth...

The microscopic ribbons lie criss-crossed on the gold substrate. Credit: EMPA

Transistors based on carbon nanostructures: what sounds like a futuristic dream could be reality in just a few years’ time. Scientists have now produced nanotransistors from graphene ribbons that are only a few atoms wide. Graphene ribbons have special electrical properties that make them promising candidates for the nanoelectronics of the future: While graphene is a conductive material, it can become a semiconductor in the form of nanoribbons. This means that it has a sufficiently large energy or band gap in which no electron states can exist: it can be turned on and off – and thus may become a key component of nanotransistors.

The smallest details in the atomic structure of these graphene bands, however, have m...