An international research team from the Skoltech Engineering Center at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia has, for the first time, directly measured mechanical stresses at the contact between a diamond indenter and a complex nanostructured coating at a resolution of less than 80 nanometers.
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Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have synthesized highly uniform semiconducting nanotubes just 1 nanometer wide by growing molybdenum disulfide inside protective boron nitride tubes, validating decades-old theoretical predictions and offering a new path for miniaturized electronic devices.
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Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, have developed a megalibrary platform that enables the rapid, intentional engineering of new materials with specific properties, such as piezoelectricity, by using high-throughput screening and AI-ready datasets to accelerate discovery from years to hours.
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Researchers at Penn State have developed a microscopic thermometer only one square micrometer across that can be integrated onto a chip to accurately track temperatures, using a new class of two-dimensional material known as bimetallic thiophosphates that had previously not been used in thermal sensors.
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Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new X-ray tomography method called the perception fused iterative tomography reconstruction engine (PFITRE), a novel approach that combines the physics of X-rays with the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
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Researchers at several Chinese institutions, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a 3D electrical imaging technique that enables direct observation of how charge moves through perovskite films.
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Researchers from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an innovative flexible sensor that can simultaneously detect strain, strain rate, and temperature using a single active material layer, representing a significant advance in multimodal sensing technology.
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Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., modified a commercial atomic force microscope with artificial intelligence to assemble and detect patterns in bismuth ferrite and analyze defects at the materials’ surface, advancing the understanding of these materials and enabling innovative data storage and computation methods.
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Materials scientists at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have found a way to create and control tiny internal “flaws” inside ultra-thin materials known as extended defects, that could give next-generation nanomaterials entirely new properties, opening the door to advances in nanotechnology.
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Microscopy images are indispensable in nanomaterials science. Yet scientists now fear that generative AI is diluting the significance of these images by polluting the pool with fake, AI-generated photos that are indistinguishable from the real ones. Even seasoned researchers find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real microscopy images of nanomaterials and those created by AI as shown in a new study.
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For the first time, the Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility (CNF) is using virtual reality to inspire and train the next generation of semiconductor professionals. CNF has launched a free VR outreach module that immerses students in its 17,000-square-foot clean room, where microchips are made, using high-definition, 360-degree video accessible via VR headsets, laptops, or tablets.
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Scientists have developed innovative contact lenses that allow both humans and mice to see infrared light by converting it into visible colors—without the need for bulky equipment or batteries. These transparent lenses enable users to perceive both regular and infrared light simultaneously and can detect multiple infrared wavelengths at once. Remarkably, the lenses perform even better with eyes closed due to infrared light’s superior penetration. In tests, mice avoided infrared light, and humans could interpret flickering codes and light directions, showcasing the lenses’ potential for practical applications.
“Our research opens up the potential for non-invasive wearable devices to give people super-vision,” says senior author Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China. “There are many potential applications right away for this material. For example, flickering infrared light could be used to transmit information in security, rescue, encryption or anti-counterfeiting settings.”
The lenses use specially engineered nanoparticles that absorb invisible infrared light and convert it into light our eyes can see, typically in the 400 to 700 nanometer range. More specifically, the technology targets near-infrared light, which lies just beyond human vision, in the 800 to 1600 nanometer range.
In earlier studies, the team showed these particles could give mice infrared vision when injected directly into the eye. This time, they’ve achieved similar results using a much less invasive approach—by building the particles right into soft contact lenses.
To create the contact lenses, the team combined the nanoparticles with flexible, non-toxic polymers that are used in standard soft contact lenses. After showing that the contact lenses were non-toxic, they tested their function in both humans and mice.
They found that contact lens-wearing mice displayed behaviors suggesting that they could see infrared wavelengths. For example, when the mice were given the choice of a dark box and an infrared-illuminated box, contact-wearing mice chose the dark box whereas contact-less mice showed no preference. The mice also showed physiological signals of infrared vision: the pupils of contact-wearing mice constricted in the presence of infrared light, and brain imaging revealed that infrared light caused their visual processing centers to light up.
In humans, the infrared contact lenses enabled participants to accurately detect flashing morse code-like signals and to perceive the direction of incoming infrared light. “It’s totally clear cut: without the contact lenses, the subject cannot see anything, but when they put them on, they can clearly see the flickering of the infrared light,” said Xue.
“We also found that when the subject closes their eyes, they’re even better able to receive this flickering information, because near-infrared light penetrates the eyelid more effectively than visible light, so there is less interference from visible light.”
An additional tweak to the contact lenses allows users to differentiate between different spectra of infrared light by engineering the nanoparticles to color-code different infrared wavelengths. For example, infrared wavelengths of 980 nm were converted to blue light, wavelengths of 808 nm were converted to green light, and wavelengths of 1,532 nm were converted to red light. In addition to enabling wearers to perceive more detail within the infrared spectrum, these color-coding nanoparticles could be modified to help color blind people see wavelengths that they would otherwise be unable to detect.
“By converting red visible light into something like green visible light, this technology could make the invisible visible for color blind people,” says Xue.
Because the contact lenses have limited ability to capture fine details (due to their close proximity to the retina, which causes the converted light particles to scatter), the team also developed a wearable glass system using the same nanoparticle technology, which enabled participants to perceive higher-resolution infrared information.
Currently, the contact lenses are only able to detect infrared radiation projected from an LED light source, but the researchers are working to increase the nanoparticles’ sensitivity so that they can detect lower levels of infrared light.
“In the future, by working together with materials scientists and optical experts, we hope to make a contact lens with more precise spatial resolution and higher sensitivity,” says Xue.
For more information: Cell
Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, developed a new chip that uses light waves rather than electricity to perform the complex math essential to training AI.
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Brookhaven Lab researchers and collaborators build structures from 2D materials and study how energy and charge move between layers for future devices
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A University of Minnesota-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner.
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Magnetoelectric material is first of its kind able to directly stimulate neural tissue
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CFN and Northrop Grumman researchers bring an innovative way to store and process information up to room temperature.
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An international team of scientists has succeeded in experimentally confirming a characteristic of topological materials.
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Now an international team of scientists led by physicists at MIT reports a powerful new tool for quantifying — and controlling — a key parameter in moiré systems.
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Engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a technique for harvesting electricity from air humidity, dubbed the “generic Air-gen effect.” According to research published in Advanced Materials, any material with nanopores less than 100 nanometers in diameter can be utilized to continuously generate electricity.
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