Behind the buzz and beyond the hype:
Our Nanowerk-exclusive feature articles
Carbon nanotubes have been converted to diamonds before but a group of researchers in the PR China and the UK now managed to do this at a very low pressure of only 80 megapascal.
Researchers in India have demonstrated a reliable and eco-friendly biological process for synthesis of silver nanoparticles.
Notwithstanding all the recent publicity about the presumed or actual toxicity of nanomaterials, the detailed pharmacological knowledge of any nanomaterial is important in order to assess its level of toxicity in the living body. While in vivo toxicity assessment of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is still at the early stage, research in this area is well underway.
Carbon onions, which are made of concentric graphene spherical shells, are a potential solid lubricant similar to Tungstenite (WS2) nanoparticles having an onion-like structure. In addition, carbon onion nanoparticles are expected to have good prospects for other applications, such as the reinforcement of composite materials, magnetic storage media and wear-resistant materials.
Lithography is a critical enabling technology for manufacturing nanoscale devices and structures. Suppose nanolithography tools cost just a few thousand dollars a piece instead of a few million dollars. These cheap tools would wide open the fields of nanotechnology to practically every university and industry researcher interested in the field.
Nanowerk spoke with Professor Ted Sargent, professor and Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of Toronto and author of the recently published and highly acclaimed book The Dance of the Molecules.
As a novel superstructure, single-walled carbon nanorings exhibit interesting transport properties, such as Aharonov-Bohm effects, magnetotransport or establishment of persistent currents. Researchers in China have developed a new technique to produce large quantities of small-diameter single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) nanorings.
Researchers in Canada used the electroless deposition process for self-assembling Palladium nanostructures, such as wires, from nanoparticles on a rough stainless steel substrate. This discovery holds a lot of potential for various engineering applications because the deposition process and the preparation of the substrate are simple and inexpensive.