Category Technology/Electronics

Gas molecules widening the gaps between rows of the team’s graphene nano-ribbons. Nebraska’s Alexander Sinitskii and his colleagues have proposed that this phenomenon partly explains how the nano-ribbons grant sensors an unprecedented boost in sensitivity. Credit: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Pinning DNA-sized ribbons of carbon to a gas sensor can boost its sensitivity far better than any other known carbon material, says a new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. When the researchers integrated a film of graphene nano-ribbons into the circuitry of a gas sensor, it responded about 100X more sensitively to molecules than did sensors featuring even the best-performing carbon-based materials...

A research team led by Associate Professor Christian Nijhuis from the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science (second from right) has recently invented a novel “converter” that can harness the speed and small size of plasmons for high frequency data processing and transmission in nanoelectronics.

Invention bagged 4 patents and could potentially make microprocessor chips work 1000X faster. Advancement in nanoelectronics has been fueled by the ever-increasing need to shrink the size of electronic devices in a bid to produce smaller, faster and smarter gadgets such as computers, memory storage devices, displays and medical diagnostic tools.

While most advanced electronic devices are powered by photonics – which involves the use of photons to transmit information – photonic e...

This is the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarization. Credit: Thor Balkhed

Ferroelectric self-assembled molecular materials. Scientists have developed the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarization. Professor Martijn Kemerink of Linköping University has worked with colleagues in Spain and the Netherlands to develop the first material with conductivity properties that can be switched on and off using ferroelectric polarisation. The phenomenon can be used for small and flexible digital memories of the future, and for completely new types of solar cells.

The research group shows the phenomenon in action in three specially built molecules, and proposes a model ...

Metallosphaera sedula. Credit: University of Vienna

Scientists around Tetyana Milojevic from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna are in search of unique biosignatures, which are left on synthetic extraterrestrial minerals by microbial activity. The biochemist and astrobiologist investigates these signatures at her own miniaturized “Mars farm” where she can observe interactions between the archaeon Metallosphaera sedula and Mars-like rocks. These microbes are capable of oxidizing and integrating metals into their metabolism.

The team investigates interactions between Metallosphaera sedula, a microbe that inhabits extreme environments, and different minerals which contain nutrients in form of metals...