Category Technology/Electronics

Duke University chemists have found that silver nanowire films like these conduct electricity well enough to form functioning circuits without applying high temperatures, enabling printable electronics on heat-sensitive materials like paper or plastic. Credit: Ian Stewart and Benjamin Wiley

By suspending tiny metal nanoparticles in liquids, Duke University scientists are brewing up conductive ink-jet printer “inks” to print inexpensive, customizable circuit patterns on just about any surface...

The researchers at Aalto University have made an array of nanoparticles combined with dye molecules to act as a tiny laser. The lasing occurs in a dark mode and the laser light leaks out from the edges of array. Credit: Antti Paraoanu

Researchers at Aalto University, Finland are the first to develop a plasmonic nanolaser that operates at visible light frequencies and uses so-called dark lattice modes. The laser works at length scales 1000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. The lifetimes of light captured in such small dimensions are so short that the light wave has time to wiggle up and down only a few tens or hundreds of times. The results open new prospects for on-chip coherent light sources, such as lasers, that are extremely small and ultrafast.

The laser operation in th...

This image shows levitating a 3cm diameter expanded polysterine sphere with a DIY portable tractor beam. Credit: Asier Marzo

Last year Asier Marzo, then a doctoral student at the Public University of Navarre, helped develop the first single-sided acoustic tractor beam – that is, the first realization of trapping and pulling an object using sound waves from only one direction. Now a research assistant at the University of Bristol, Marzo has lead a team that adapted the technology to be, for all intents and purposes, 3-D printable by anyone (with some assembly required, of course)...

In the Dionne lab at Stanford, a laser causes nanoparticles suspended in cyclohexane to emit light. The nanoparticles change color depending on the pressure around them and give real-time information about the forces they undergo. Credit: Alice Lay

Millimeter-long worms digesting a nanoparticle-laced meal of their favorite bacteria could eventually lead to a new way to see cellular forces at play within our own bodies, including processes like wound healing and cancer growth. The key is that these particular nanoparticles glow when struck by a near-infrared laser and change color depending on the pressure around them. So, they can give off real-time information about the forces they’re undergoing while they’re still inside the worm.

“Altered cellular-level forces underlie many disorders, i...