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

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Defense)

An international team of researchers from Princeton University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, FL, the Beijing Institute of Technology, and the University of Zurich in Switzerland has observed long-range quantum coherence effects in a topological insulator-based device, which may enable the development of efficient topological electronic devices. "Unlike conventional electronic devices, topological circuits are robust against defects and impurities, making them far less prone to energy dissipation, which is advantageous for greener applications," said M. Zahid Hasan, one of the scientists involved in this study. This work builds on 15 years of research at Princeton University on the development of quantum devices using bismuth bromide topological insulators – only a few nanometers thick and capable of maintaining quantum coherence at room temperature.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers led by Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have introduced a pioneering approach aimed at combating neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The study focused on disrupting a type of protein-protein interaction that plays a role in the body's antioxidant response. The research holds promise for mitigating the cellular damage that underlies neurodegenerative diseases.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers from Harvard University and Utrecht University in The Netherlands have developed a previously elusive way to improve the selectivity of catalytic reactions, adding a new method of increasing the efficacy of catalysts for a potentially wide range of applications in various industries, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Inspired by the structure of butterfly wings, the researchers designed a new catalyst platform that partially embeds nanoparticles into the substrate, trapping them so they don't move around during catalysis, while leaving the rest of the nanoparticles' surfaces exposed, enabling them to perform the catalytic reactions efficiently and without agglomeration.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense)

Researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Kansas State University have discovered slab waveguides based on the two-dimensional material hexagonal boron nitride. "We knew using hexagonal boron nitride would lead to outstanding optical properties in our samples; none of us expected that it would also act as a waveguide," said Samuel Lagasse, one of the scientists involved in the study. The slabs of hexagonal boron nitride were carefully tuned in thickness so that the emitted light would be trapped within the hexagonal boron nitride and waveguided.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)

Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed new nanoparticles that can “hitch a ride” on immune cells. Because of their tiny size, the nanoparticles can tag along directly into lymph nodes and help metastasis show up on MRIs, where it would otherwise be too hard to detect. The process offers game-changing benefits for the early detection of cancer metastasis in the lymph nodes. While previously, metastasis could only be assessed by an increase in lymph node size, the new nanoparticles could lead to MRI contrast agents that can highlight metastatic cells in lymph nodes that may otherwise appear normal.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Researchers from Texas A&M University and the University of California-Riverside have developed a wax coating for fruits and vegetables that combines food-grade wax with a nano-encapsulated cinnamon-bark essential oil in protein carriers to enhance them with antibacterial properties. This technology bolsters the safety of fresh produce and provides enhanced protection against bacteria and fungi. This composite coating provides both immediate and delayed antibacterial effects.

(Funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers from Penn State have created a metasurface that can be used to preprocess and transform images before they are captured by a camera, allowing a computer – and artificial intelligence – to process them with minimal power and data bandwidth. A metasurface is an optical element akin to a glass slide that uses tiny nanostructures placed at different angles to control light. This new metasurface has many potential applications, including for use in target tracking and surveillance to map how a car, for example, moves across a city.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University have developed a less expensive way to detect nuclease digestion – one of the critical steps in many nucleic acid sensing applications, such as those used to identify COVID-19. This low-cost tool, called a Subak reporter, is based on fluorescent silver nanoclusters. Subak reporters cost just $1 per nanomolecule to make, while the currently used technology costs $62 per nanomolecule to produce.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense)

A multidisciplinary research team at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center has discovered a new way to kill a tumor by disrupting its acidic "microenvironment" without harming normal tissue. The target of this approach is hydroxyapatite, a naturally occurring mineral that is a major component of bone and teeth but is also produced by some tumors. The researchers synthesized a nanoparticle that, when delivered via an injectable solution, bound to calcium on tumor-associated hydroxyapatite crystals, causing them to dissolve.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers led by Cornell University have discovered an unusual phenomenon in Mott insulators, a metal-insulating material, providing valuable insights for the design of materials with new properties by way of faster switching between states of matter. Mott insulators are not fully understood, partly due to the challenging task of imaging the material's nanostructures in real space and capturing how these nanostructures undergo phase changes in as fast as a trillionth of a second.