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Single silicon nanowires are assembled onto patterned electrodes with a 98.5% yield and submicrometre precision using dielectrophoresis under constant fluid flow.
Colour mixing and other optical effects displayed by the wings of the Papilio blumei butterfly have now been replicated by a combination of colloid self-assembly and other standard layer-deposition techniques.
Graphite spontaneously exfoliates into single layers of graphene in chlorosulphonic acid, resulting in a solution that is an order of magnitude more concentrated than any previously reported, and forms a liquid-crystalline phase at high concentrations.
A DNA-based computational platform can construct a universal set of logic gates and perform addition/subtraction operations in parallel, as well as activating multilayered gate cascades and fan-out gates, in a single test tube.
Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy can image the active sites of iridium catalysts anchored in zeolite crystals, determining their locations and approximate distance from the surface of the crystals.
By controlling the density of phosphorus dopant atoms in single-crystal silicon it is possible to fabricate quantum dots that do not contain interfaces between different materials.
Glass undergoes a reversible dielectric breakdown under high electric fields at the nanoscale, allowing it to be used as an electrode for fluidic devices such as electrokinetic pumps.
Pyroelectric forces are used to transfer liquids between two substrates and create patterns without the use of nozzles, electrodes or complicated high-voltage circuits, opening up a new route for manipulating liquids.
Infrared radiation from biased graphene transistors can be used to extract the temperature distribution, carrier densities and spatial location of the Dirac point in the graphene channel.
It is possible to sort polydisperse mixtures of single-walled carbon nanotubes to produce samples enriched in any of ten different (n,m) structures, and to separate the mirror-image isomers of seven different structures.
Single holes can be confined in a SiGe quantum dot, allowing a range of spin-dependent quantum phenomena to be explored, and a resonant supercurrent transistor to be demonstrated.
A commercial atomic force microscope can be used to obtain atomic- or molecular-level-resolution images and interfacial energy maps of hard and soft materials in liquids.
Reducing the particle size of poorly soluble iron and zinc compounds into the nano range increases their bioavailability in rats without accumulation in tissues; these nanocompounds can be used for food fortification without changing the colour of food.
A nanoscale set–reset machine — the simplest logic circuit with a built-in memory — that operates at room temperature can be created by attaching a silicon nanoparticle to the inner pore of a protein.
Photocatalytic nanostructures can be created by using a genetically engineered virus as a scaffold to assemble organic photosensitizers and metal oxide catalysts in close proximity.
Different stages of amyloid aggregation can be examined by performing a statistical polymer-physics analysis of single-molecule atomic force microscopy images of heat-denatured β-lactoglobulin fibrils.
Nitrogen-vacancy colour centres have been observed in discrete 5-nm nanodiamonds at room temperature, and their blinking has been switched on and off by modifying the surface of the nanodiamonds.
In vitro studies using three-dimensional tumour models and mathematical simulation show that positively charged particles are better for delivering therapeutics to viable cells, whereas negative particles are better when deep tissue penetration is required.