Category Physics

University of Colorado Boulder researchers have discovered that minuscule, self-propelled particles called “nanoswimmers” can escape from mazes as much as 20 times faster than other passive particles, paving the way for their use in everything from industrial clean-ups to medication delivery.

The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe how these tiny synthetic nanorobots are incredibly effective at escaping cavities within maze-like environments...

A new electrode that could free up 20% more light from organic light-emitting diodes has been developed at the University of Michigan. It could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops, or make next-gen televisions and displays much more energy efficient.

The approach prevents light from being trapped in the light-emitting part of an OLED, enabling OLEDs to maintain brightness while using less power. In addition, the electrode is easy to fit into existing processes for making OLED displays and light fixtures.

“With our approach, you can do it all in the same vacuum chamber,” said L. Jay Guo, U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering and corresponding author of the study.

Unless engineers take action, about 80% of the light produced by an OLED gets tr...

Acoustoelectronic tweezers gently manipulate biological nanoparticles just a few nanometers wide. Engineers at Duke University have devised a system for manipulating particles approaching the miniscule 2.5 nanometer diameter of DNA using sound-induced electric fields. Dubbed “acoustoelectronic nanotweezers,” the approach provides a label-free, dynamically controllable method of moving and trapping nanoparticles over a large area...

The mystery of an exotic kind of superconductivity has been solved — by showing that it just does not exist. An effect, which has been celebrated since the 1990s has now been shown to be standard superconductivity. Still, this realization leads to important new ideas.

A single measurement result is not a proof — this has been shown again and again in science. We can only really rely on a research result when it has been measured several times, preferably by different research teams, in slightly different ways. In this way, errors can usually be detected sooner or later.

However, a new study by Prof...