An official website of the United States government.
This conference, which was held on Nov. 15, 2023, was organized to support the NNI’s nanoinformatics infrastructure and to foster greater connections among the nanoinformatics, nanosafety, and broader informatics communities.
The NNI, with support from the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, has organized a series of roundtable discussions on promising areas that could have near-term impacts on climate change. This summary focuses on coatings, lubricants, membranes, and other interface technologies.
This profile article explores Rachel Miller's academic journey, her early interest in STEM, her personal and academic struggles, and how she became interested in nanoscience and, later, in scientific research.
According to an independent study, the 2022 economic impact of nanotechnology on the U.S. economy was between $67 billion and $83 billion and close to a trillion dollars over the past two decades.
In celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office have announced a series of events to drive U.S. leadership in nanotechnology. Coordination across the government has allowed Americans to safely enjoy the benefits of nanotechnology, which has led to revolutions in technology and industry, including faster microchips, powerful mRNA vaccines, and clean energy technologies.
Researchers from Rice University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Arlington have mapped out the structural features of a 2D ferroelectric material made of tin and selenium atoms, showing how domains – areas of the material in which molecules are identically oriented – impact the behavior of the material. Unlike conventional ferroelectrics, in which atoms are bound by a rigid lattice, in the tin–selenite crystal, the forces that bind the atoms together are weaker. "The material belongs to a special class of 2D materials, known as van der Waals ferroelectrics, whose properties could serve to design next-generation, ultra-thin data storage devices and sensors," said Chuqiao Shi, one of the scientists involved in this study.
The NNI, with support from the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, has organized a series of roundtable discussions on promising areas that could have near-term impacts (four years or less) on climate change. This summary focuses on batteries and energy storage.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed a synthetic form of a peptide that self-assembles into nanoscale fibers that conduct electricity when combined with heme. Heme is a substance that helps proteins in nature move electrons from one place to another, and a peptide consists of a short chain of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. This study's results help researchers design peptide assemblies that form nanoscale fibers and transport electrons over long distances, which could make these fibers useful in medical devices, biosensors, and robotics.
Kevin Yager – leader of the electronic nanomaterials group at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory – has imagined how recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning could help with scientific brainstorming and ideation. To accomplish this, he has developed a chatbot that is knowledgeable in areas of nanomaterial science that other bots are not.
According to Purdue University researchers, the thermal properties of graphene, a material which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, may not be as revolutionary as previously thought. Thermal conductivity is measured in watts per meter per Kelvin. On this scale, a diamond's thermal conductivity is generally understood to be about 2,000. But when scientists started measuring graphene's thermal conductivity, early estimates reached above 5,000. But the Purdue University researchers have predicted the thermal conductivity of graphene at room temperature to be 1,300 – not only less than diamond but also less than the raw graphite material that graphene is made from.
