News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Place a single sheet of carbon atop another at a slight angle, and remarkable properties emerge, including the resistance-free flow of current known as superconductivity. Now, a team of researchers at Princeton has looked for the origins of this unusual behavior in a material known as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene and detected signatures of a cascade of energy transitions that could help explain how superconductivity arises in this material. 

Scientists at Texas A&M University have developed a new class of 2D nanosheets that can adsorb near infrared light and convert it into heat. Near-infrared light can penetrate deep inside human tissue compared to other types of light, including ultraviolet and visible light, and can be used to stimulate natural biological repair mechanisms in deep tissue. Due to their high-surface area, the nanosheets can stick to the outer membrane of a cell and transmit a cellular signal to the nucleus, thereby controlling the cell’s behavior.

Scientists at Texas A&M University have developed a new class of 2D nanosheets that can adsorb near infrared light and convert it into heat. Near-infrared light can penetrate deep inside human tissue compared to other types of light, including ultraviolet and visible light, and can be used to stimulate natural biological repair mechanisms in deep tissue. Due to their high-surface area, the nanosheets can stick to the outer membrane of a cell and transmit a cellular signal to the nucleus, thereby controlling the cell’s behavior.

Researchers at North Dakota State University have developed a new method of creating quantum dots made of silicon. While traditional methods for creating silicon quantum dots require dangerous materials, such as silicon tetrahydride gas or hydrofluoric acid, the team’s research uses a liquid form of silicon to make the tiny particles at room temperature using relatively benign components.

Researchers at North Dakota State University have developed a new method of creating quantum dots made of silicon. While traditional methods for creating silicon quantum dots require dangerous materials, such as silicon tetrahydride gas or hydrofluoric acid, the team’s research uses a liquid form of silicon to make the tiny particles at room temperature using relatively benign components.

Computational catalysis, a field that simulates and accelerates the discovery of catalysts for the production of chemicals, has largely been limited to simulations of idealized catalyst structures that do not necessarily represent structures under realistic reaction conditions. Now, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, are paving the way for the simulation of realistic catalysts under reaction conditions. In particular, the researchers studied how metal nanoparticles that are used as catalysts can change morphology in a reactive environment and how this morphology change can affect their catalytic behavior. 

Computational catalysis, a field that simulates and accelerates the discovery of catalysts for the production of chemicals, has largely been limited to simulations of idealized catalyst structures that do not necessarily represent structures under realistic reaction conditions. Now, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, are paving the way for the simulation of realistic catalysts under reaction conditions. In particular, the researchers studied how metal nanoparticles that are used as catalysts can change morphology in a reactive environment and how this morphology change can affect their catalytic behavior. 

Scientists at Rice University have developed an easy and affordable tool to count and characterize nanoparticles. The scientists created an open-source program to acquire data about nanoparticles from scanning electron microscope images that are otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to analyze.

Scientists at Rice University have developed an easy and affordable tool to count and characterize nanoparticles. The scientists created an open-source program to acquire data about nanoparticles from scanning electron microscope images that are otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to analyze.

In recent years, researchers have found that when certain materials are twisted at specific angles, they can bring out some remarkable properties. Now, a team of researchers has found that when two layers of graphene are twisted at an angle of less than 2 degrees, they have a very strong, and tunable, photoresponse in mid-infrared wavelength range. Compared with regular bilayer graphene that hasn’t been twisted, the photoresponse is more than 20 times stronger.