News & Views in 2013

By incorporating photosensitive switches, protein nanocages can be made to open and close on demand with light.

Complexes made of carbon nanotubes and polymers can potentially be used to selectively detect almost any molecule.

Self-sustaining electromechanical oscillators can be built from graphene membranes that vibrate at radiofrequencies and can be tuned by a gate voltage.

Images of individual carbon nanotubes with their respective optical spectra for chirality characterization are acquired directly on devices and growth substrates using a reflective polarized light microscopy set-up.

The strength of the magnetic exchange interaction at the buried interface between a magnetic film and a substrate can be measured using spin-polarized electrons scattered from the top surface of the film.

Single magnetic skyrmions — topological whirls in the magnetization of certain ferromagnets — can be created and manipulated in nanostructures using electrical currents.

Increasing the molecular weight of the core of a polymeric nanoparticle significantly improves its use in gene delivery.

Super-low friction between centimetre-long concentric carbon nanotubes has been observed in ambient conditions.

Hot electrons can be efficiently injected into a semiconductor using a metallic tip that focuses surface plasmons, and can be used to carry out nanoscale chemical mapping.

The local electronic properties of graphene grain boundaries can be obtained by deciphering the interference patterns produced by surface plasmons.

By using lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles, fibre-optic sensors can display sensitivities several orders of magnitude greater than those of existing fluorescent techniques.

DNA molecules can be programmed to execute any dynamic process of chemical kinetics and can implement an algorithm for achieving consensus between multiple agents.

A theoretical study proposes the use of molecular magnets in a type of transistor in which the flow of collective spin excitations transports and processes information.

Protein corona form rapidly around nanoparticles mixed with human plasma and can affect nanoparticle pathophysiology.

Magnetic ordering in two-dimensional arrangements of nanomagnets can be repeatedly obtained by annealing an artificial spin ice.

Extremely sensitive and ultrasmall superconducting quantum interference devices can be fabricated on sharp nanoscale tips.

Condensed-matter physicists are steadily closing in on exotic excitations known as Majorana modes that could advance both fundamental science and quantum computing.

The conductance of an electronic nanodevice can be switched by an applied current between two well-defined values, which correspond to atomic configurations that differ as a result of the rearrangement of a single atom.

A combination of self-assembly and jet printing can be used to create block copolymer films with complex structures and tunable periodicities across a large substrate.