Category Physics

This photograph shows high throughput bioprinting of cells into microwells. Credit: Ozbolat Lab at Penn State

Now that 3D printing has made it easier to generate custom-made prosthetics, bioengineers are looking ahead at manufacturing actual cellular material. Such technology could be the basis for personalized biomedical devices; tissue-engineered skin, cartilage, and bone; or even working bladders. In a Trends in Biotechnology special issue on biofabrication, publishing August 17, researchers review and consider the progress made in 3D bioprinting and what might be possible in the decades — or years — ahead.

1. Made-to-Order Organs-on-a-Chip: inexpensive and efficient personalized medicine...

Circularly polarized light passed through silicon nanorods creates a multilayer image. Lower right inset: SEM image of the material. Credit: WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Silicon holograms harness the full visible spectrum to bring holographic projections one step closer. We can’t yet send holographic videos to Obi-Wan Kenobi on our droid, but researchers at A*STAR, Singapore, have got us a little bit closer by creating holograms from an array of silicon structures that work throughout the visible spectrum.

Many recent advances in hologram technology use reflected light to form an image; however the hologram made by Dong Zhaogang and Joel Yang from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering uses transmitted light...

Atmospheric-pressure (left) and high-pressure (right) 2D layered Lawrencite-type crystal structures of magnesium chloride. Blue and green spheres indicate magnesium cations and chlorine anions respectively. Credit: Image courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

High-pressure structural behavior of magnesium chloride could work to neutralize biological weapons. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have combined X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy measurements together with first-principle calculations to examine the high-pressure structural behavior of magnesium chloride.

Magnesium chloride (MgCl2) is well known to be an effective de-icing agent, for example, in the aviation industry...

Photon upconversion: Energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange (Dexter electron transfer). Credit: Illustration: Michael Oldenburg

The upconversion of photons allows for a more efficient use of light: 2 photons are converted into a single photon having higher energy. Researchers at KIT now showed for the first time that the inner interfaces between surface-mounted metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs) are suited perfectly for this purpose – they turned green light blue. The result opens up new opportunities for optoelectronic applications such as solar cells or LEDs.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are highly ordered molecular systems that consist of metallic clusters and organic ligands...