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.
  • First 3D Nanotube and RRAM ICs Come Out of Foundry
    July 22, 2019
    (Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

    At DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative Summit (July 15-17, 2019), an MIT assistant professor showcased a silicon wafer that is the first step in proving DARPA’s plan to create a foundry that can compete with the world’s leading-edge foundries. The potential advantage of the new foundry’s technology over today’s 2D silicon is the ability to stack multiple layers of CMOS logic and nonvolatile memory. Such a technology can’t be achieved in silicon, so it uses carbon nanotube-based transistors instead.

  • First programmable memristor computer aims to bring AI processing down from the cloud
    July 19, 2019
    (Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

    Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed the first programmable #memristor computer, which could lead to the processing of artificial intelligence directly on small, energy-constrained devices such as smartphones and sensors. A smartphone AI processor would mean that voice commands would no longer have to be sent to the cloud for interpretation, speeding up response time. Memristors represent one of today’s latest technological advances in nanoelectronics.

  • New laws of attraction: Scientists print magnetic liquid droplets
    July 19, 2019
    (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)

    Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have made a new material that is both liquid and magnetic. This discovery could lead to a revolutionary class of printable liquid devices for a variety of applications – from artificial cells that deliver targeted cancer therapies to flexible liquid robots that can change their shape to adapt to their surroundings.

  • Thin, silver nanowires may hold key to flexible and safe touchscreens
    July 19, 2019
    (Funded by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy)

    Researchers at the University of Florida, who are part of an international consortium, have found that silver nanowires are safer to use than the thicker wires used in today’s touchscreens. Combined with the ability to create interconnected joints, nanowires have potential use in not only cell phones but clothes, wearable electronics, medical sensors, and solar panels.

  • Toward molecular computers: First measurement of single-molecule heat transfer
    July 19, 2019
    (Funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy)

    An international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan has measured heat transfer through a single molecule. This advance could be a step toward molecular computing -- building circuits up from molecules rather than carving them out of silicon as a way to push Moore's Law to its limits and make the most powerful conventional computers possible.

  • A new spin on DNA
    July 18, 2019
    (Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health)

    Researchers at Harvard University have created a nanomachine that acts like a molecular motor as it moves along a DNA helix. With this nanomachine, the researchers have captured the first recorded rotational steps of a molecular motor as it moves from one DNA base pair to another.

  • A Graphene Superconductor That Plays More than One Tune
    July 18, 2019
    (Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)

    Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered signs of superconductivity in three-layer sheets of graphene, renewing hope that layered graphene will soon help researchers understand how superconductivity occurs in copper oxides. That understanding could lead to higher-temperature superconductors—or even room-temperature ones—which could produce massive energy savings in electrical grids and devices.

  • Researchers Use Nanoparticles to Increase Power, Improve Eye Safety of Fiber Lasers
    July 18, 2019
    (Funded by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

    Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have devised a new process for using nanoparticles to build powerful lasers that are more efficient and safer for our eyes.

  • Bioengineered cell walls open new medical, research possibilities
    July 18, 2019
    (Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health)

    Biomedical engineers at Penn State have developed a process to build protective, synthetic plant cell walls around animal cells. Cell walls made of biomimetic materials—synthetic materials that mimic biology—could protect human cells that are used in in vitro cell therapy to treat disease.

  • A Material Way to Make Mars Habitable
    July 16, 2019
    (Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

    Researchers from Harvard University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and the University of Edinburgh, have suggested that regions of the Martian surface could be made habitable with a material—silica aerogel—that mimics Earth's atmospheric greenhouse effect. Through modeling and experiments, the researchers have shown that a two to three-centimeter-thick shield of silica aerogel could transmit enough visible light for photosynthesis, block hazardous ultraviolet radiation, and raise temperatures underneath permanently above the melting point of water, all without the need for any internal heat source.

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