Category Technology/Electronics

A microscopic garnet crystal was the key to unlocking the torque-mixing magnetic resonance spectroscopy technique. A focused gallium ion beam sculpted the single-crystal, one micrometer diameter yttrium iron garnet disk from within a much larger starting piece of the magnetic gemstone. The image is an angled-perspective scanning electron micrograph, showing the microdisk before it was placed on the nanomechanical sensor with which precise mechanical torque signatures of magnetic resonance were observed. Credit: D. Vick and F. Fani Sani (National Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Alberta)

Vanderbilt graduate student Anna Douglas holding one of the batteries that she has modified by adding millions of quantum dots made from iron pyrite, fool’s gold. Credit: John Russell, Vanderbilt University

Charge carriers in polymeric carbon nitrides always take paths perpendicular to the sheets, as Merschjann’s group has now shown. Light creates an electron-hole pair. The opposite happens when an electron and hole meet under certain conditions (forming a singlet exciton) and emit light (fluorescence). Credit: C. Merschjann.

An artist’s rendering shows the layers of a new, onion-like nanoparticle whose specially crafted layers enable it to efficiently convert invisible near-infrared light to higher energy blue and UV light. Credit: Kaiheng Wei (Davidwei_loga@foxmail.com)