Category Technology/Electronics

A solitary oxygen dopant (red sphere) covalently attached to the sidewall of the carbon nanotube (gray) can generate single photons (red) at room temperature when excited by laser pulses (green).

In optical communication, critical info eg credit card numbers to national security data needs to be secure. Eavesdropping can be prevented by encoding bits of information on quantum mechanical states (e.g. polarization state) of single photons. The ability to generate single photons on demand holds the key. Now, by incorporating single-walled carbon nanotubes, CNTs into a SiO2 matrix, it could lead to creation of solitary oxygen dopant state capable of fluctuation-free, room-temperature single photon emission, ie on-demand single photon generation.

Photons emitted from lasers are distributed rand...

Nanoporous gold is like a sponge of tiny pores. It could be used to make new devices to detect pathogens. Credit: Erkin ?eker, UC Davis

UC Davis Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering demonstrated that they could detect nucleic acids using nanoporous gold, a novel sensor coating material, in mixtures of other biomolecules that would gum up most detectors. This method enables sensitive detection of DNA in complex biological samples, such as serum from whole blood.

“Nanoporous gold can be imagined as a porous metal sponge with pore sizes that are a 1000X smaller than the diameter of a human hair,” said Assist. Prof Erkin Seker...

Rice University researchers have demonstrated an efficient new way to capture the energy from sunlight and convert it into clean, renewable energy by splitting water molecules. Credit: I. Thomann/Rice University

Process uses Light-harvesting Gold Nanoparticles, captures energy from ‘hot electrons’ (highly excited electrons). “Hot electrons have the potential to drive very useful chemical reactions, but they decay very rapidly, and people have struggled to harness their energy,” said lead researcher Assistant/Prof Isabell Thomann “For example, most of the energy losses in today’s best photovoltaic solar panels are the result of hot electrons that cool within a few trillionths of a second and release their energy as wasted heat.”

Capturing these high-energy electrons before they cool could a...

Schematic diagrams showing the synthesis and microstructures of a 3D graphene-RACNT fiber. (A) Aluminum wire. (B) Surface anodized aluminum wire (AAO wire). (C) 3D graphene-RACNT structure on the AAO wire. (D) Schematic representation of the pure 3D graphene-RACNT structure. (E to G) Top view SEM images of the 3D graphene-RACNT fiber at different magnifications. (I to K) SEM images of the cross-section of the 3D graphene-RACNT fiber. (H and L) AFM images of the 3D graphene-RACNT fiber. (M to P) SEM image (M) and corresponding EDX elemental mapping of (N) aluminum, (O) oxygen, and (P) carbon from the 3D graphene-RACNT fiber.

First 1-step process for making seamless carbon-based nanomaterials that possess superior thermal, electrical and mechanical properties in 3 dimensions...