Category Technology/Electronics

SANDIA BIOENGINEERS Marlene and George Bachand show off their new method for encrypting and storing sensitive information in DNA. Digital data storage degrades and can become obsolete and old-school books and paper require lots of space. (Photo by Lonnie Anderson)

Experiments at CERN’s LHC generate 15 million Gb of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the “cloud.” George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Tape- and disk-based data storage degrades and can become obsolete, requiring rewriting every decade or so...

Optically imaging of on-surface and suspended carbon nanotube devices.

Technion researchers have developed a method for growing carbon nanotubes that could lead to the day when molecular electronics replace silicon chip as the building block of electronics.Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have long fascinated scientists because of their unprecedented electrical, optical, thermal and mechanical properties, and chemical sensitivity. But significant challenges remain before CNTs can be implemented on a wide scale, including the need to produce them in specific locations on a smooth substrate, in conditions that will lead to the formation of a circuit around them.

Prof. Yuval Yaish et al have developed a technology that addresses these challenges...

Three types of large-area solar cells made out of two-dimensional perovskites. At left, a room-temperature cast film; upper middle is a sample with the problematic band gap, and at right is the hot-cast sample with the best energy performance. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory

In a step that could bring perovskite crystals closer to use in the burgeoning solar power industry, researchers have tweaked their crystal production method and developed a new type of 2D layered perovskite with outstanding stability and more than triple the material’s previous power conversion efficiency.

“Crystal orientation has been a puzzle for more than two decades, and this is the first time we’ve been able to flip the crystal in the actual casting process,” said Hsinhan Tsai, a Rice graduate student at L...

Microscopy of self-oscillation of the crystalline assembly. A crystalline assembly of azobenzene derivative and oleate showed oscillatory bending-unbending motion under continuous 435-nm light irradiation. The frequency of oscillation increased with increasing light intensity. Credit: Copyright Ikegami T. et. al., Angewandte Chemie International Edition, May 19, 2016

Scientists have developed light-powered molecular motors that repetitively bend and unbend, bringing us closer to molecular robots. Researchers are working on mimicking cellular systems to develop molecular motors that can move or even deliver drugs to target tissues. Engineering such motors may ultimately lead to molecular robots that can execute more complex tasks...