Category Technology/Electronics

Confining metal-halide perovskites in nanoporous thin films. Science Advances, 2017; 3 (8): e1700738 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700738 Foto: Foto Ruhrgebiet / fotolia.com

The color of the light emitted by an LED can be tuned by altering the size of their semiconductor crystals. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have now found a clever and economical way of doing just that, which lends itself to industrial-scale production. Unlike incandescent lightbulbs, light-emitting diodes produce light of a defined color within the spectral range from the infrared to the ultraviolet. The exact wavelength of the emission is determined by the chemical composition of the semiconductor, the crucial component...

Magnetic microbot capturing, dragging and releasing a live cell. Credit: Koohee Han and Dr. Wyatt Shields, provided by Prof. Orlin D. Velev, NC State University.

Researchers at North Carolina State University and Duke University have developed a way to assemble and pre-program tiny structures made from microscopic cubes – “microbot origami” – to change their shape when actuated by a magnetic field and then, using the magnetic energy from their environment, perform a variety of tasks – including capturing and transporting single cells.

The findings pave the way for microbots and micro-origami assemblies that can serve as cell characterization tools, fluid micromixers, and components of artificial muscles and soft biomimetic devices...

MIT researchers have developed a new design system that catalogues the physical properties of a huge number of tiny cube clusters. These clusters can then serve as building blocks for larger printable objects. Credit: Computational Fabrication Group at MIT

Designing the microstructure of printed objects. Today’s 3D printers have a resolution of 600 dots per inch, ie they could pack a billion tiny cubes of different materials into a volume that measures just 1.67 cubic inches. Such precise control of printed objects’ microstructure gives designers commensurate control of the objects’ physical properties – eg. density or strength, or the way they deform when subjected to stresses...

Carbon Nitride Aerogels for the Photoredox Conversion of Water. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2017; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201705926 © Wiley-VCH

Carbonitride aerogels mediate the photocatalytic conversion of water. Nanochemistry meets macrostructures: Chinese scientists report the synthesis of a macroscopic aerogel from carbonitride nanomaterials which is an excellent catalyst for the water-splitting reaction under visible-light irradiation. The study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie adds new opportunities to the material properties of melamine-derived carbonitrides.

Melamine can be polymerized with formaldehyde to give a highly durable and light resin, but it can also condensed to form nanostructures of carbonitride materials...