Press Releases: Research Funded by Agencies Participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative

The following press releases describe the results of research activities that are funded by Federal agencies that participate in the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
  • Stanford researchers make movies of photochemistry in single nanoparticles
    November 07, 2018
    (Funded by the National Science Foundation)

    Researchers have used an electron microscope to produce and witness a chemical reaction induced by visible light in a nanocube of palladium roughly the size of a cold virus. This technique, which melds the resolution of electron microscopy with the color of light microscopy, could someday be used to study almost any interaction of light and matter with a resolution of about 2 nanometers, even those that occur in living cells.

  • New Research Center to Explore Spintronics Materials for Advanced Computing
    November 06, 2018
    (Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)

    The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its partners in the Nanoelectronic Computing Research (nCORE) consortium have awarded funding for a new research center to focus on novel materials for advanced computing systems. The new center will be led by and housed at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

  • Scientists shuffle the deck to create materials with new quantum behaviors
    November 06, 2018
    (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)

    Generating complex transition-metal dichalcogenides (TDMCs) is essential for the future development of new generations of quantum, electronic, and energy conversion materials. But doing so is challenging. To address this challenge, scientists have come up with a process to combine different types of TMDCs to form 3D-heterostructured architectures, which is unprecedented.

  • Standing in for a Kidney, MXene Materials Could Give Dialysis Patients the Freedom to Move
    November 05, 2018
    (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)

    Researchers have shown that MXene materials could remove urea from blood in wearable artificial kidney applications.

  • NASA Looking to Tiny Technology for Big Payoffs
    October 29, 2018
    (Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is advancing technology that could use large amounts of nanoscale materials to launch lighter rockets and spacecraft than ever before. The Super-lightweight Aerospace Composites (SAC) project seeks to scale up the manufacturing and use of high-strength carbon nanotube composite materials.

  • Nanotech Artisans Sculpt with DNA
    October 29, 2018
    (Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)

    It loops, folds, sticks to itself, and contorts into shapes as intricate as a smiley face—all within the confines of a region one-thousandth the diameter of a human cell. 

  • UCI scientists discover technique for manipulating magnets at nanoscale
    October 29, 2018
    (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)

    Physicists from the University of California, Irvine have discovered a new way to control magnets at the nanometer scale by electric current.

  • Stanford Engineers Develop Tiny Light Detectors that Work Like Gecko Ears
    October 29, 2018
    (Funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research)

    Researchers have devised a system that could let tiny cameras detect where light is coming from without using a large lens.

  • Novel quantum dots enhance cell imaging
    October 28, 2018
    (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

    Researchers have engineered a new type of molecular probe that can measure and count RNA in cells and tissue without organic dyes. The probe relies on compact quantum dots to illuminate molecules and diseased cells rather than fluorescent dyes.

  • Rice University Scientists Form Flat Tellurium
    October 26, 2018
    (Funded by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research)

    Researchers have made tellurium, a rare metal, into a film less than a nanometer thick. The resulting material, tellurene, shows promise for next-generation, near-infrared solar cells, and other optoelectronic applications that rely on the manipulation of light.

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