http://www.physorg.com/nanotech-news/nano-physics/ en-us PhysOrg Team PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on nanophysics, nanotechnology, nanotech and nanoscience. (PhysOrg.com) -- A new generation of ultrasmall transistors and more powerful computer chips using tiny structures called semiconducting nanowires are closer to reality after a key discovery by researchers at IBM, Purdue University and the University of California at Los Angeles. http://www.physorg.com/news178459486.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-26T14:00:05-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Carbon nanotubes are exciting for fundamental physics, and for potential technological applications," Nadya Mason tells PhysOrg.com. "However, we are generally limited in the way that we can study them. Many of these limitations have to do with controlling tunneling, or the way electrons move on and off the nanotube." In order to overcome this limitation, Mason, a scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, participated in an experiment using a superconducting tunnel probe in a carbon nanotube to observe spectroscopic features. http://www.physorg.com/news177934374.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-20T10:13:55-07:00 Vibrations in nanostructures offer applications in molecular-scale biological sensing and ultrasensitive mass detection. To approach single-atom sensing, it is necessary to reduce the dimensions of the structures to the nanometer scale while preserving long-lived vibrations. http://www.physorg.com/news177870451.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-19T16:28:18-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Engineering researchers have used a very tiny beam of light with as little as 1 milliwatt of power to move a silicon structure up to 12 nanometers. http://www.physorg.com/news177672319.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-17T09:25:53-07:00 Berkeley Lab researchers have engineered a new class of bowtie-shaped devices that capture, filter and steer light at the nanoscale. These "nano-colorsorter" devices act as antennae to focus and sort light in tiny spaces, a useful technique for harvesting broadband light for color-sensitive filters and detectors. http://www.physorg.com/news177251056.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-12T12:25:15-07:00 The performance of modern electronics increases steadily on a fast pace thanks to the ongoing miniaturization of the utilized components. However, se-vere problems arise due to quantum-mechanical phenomena when conven-tional structures are simply made smaller and reach the nanometer scale. Therefore current research focuses on the so-called bottom-up approach: the engineering of functional structures with the smallest possible building blocks - single atoms and molecules. http://www.physorg.com/news177249897.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-12T12:09:44-07:00 In the quest to make hydrogen as a clean alternative fuel source, researchers have been stymied about how to create usable hydrogen that is clean and sustainable without relying on an intensive, high-energy process that outweighs the benefits of not using petroleum to power vehicles. http://www.physorg.com/news177242747.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-12T10:06:27-07:00 Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University have developed, characterized, and modeled a new kind of probe used in atomic force microscopy (AFM), which images, measures, and manipulates matter at the nanoscale. http://www.physorg.com/news177073639.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-10T11:08:34-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Computers of the future could be operating not on electrons, but on tiny waves traveling through an electron "fluid," if a new proposal is successful. The new circuit design, recently introduced by Dr. Héctor J. De Los Santos, CTO of NanoMEMS Research, LLC, in Irvine, California, may be a promising candidate to replace CMOS-based circuits, and ultimately continue the circuit density growth described by Moore's Law. http://www.physorg.com/news176635049.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-05T09:50:02-07:00 Collaborative users from the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory, working with the Electronic & Magnetic Materials & Devices Group, have found a controllable way to modify the surfaces of pristine Nb-doped SrTiO3 (Nb:STO) at the nanoscale. http://www.physorg.com/news176573506.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-04T16:30:03-07:00 Danish nanophysicists have developed a new method for manufacturing the cornerstone of nanotechnology research - nanowires. The discovery has great potential for the development of nanoelectronics and highly efficient solar cells. http://www.physorg.com/news176377185.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-02T09:50:01-07:00 In campy old movies, Lucretia Borgia swans around emptying powder from her ring into wine glasses carelessly left unattended. The poison ring is usually a confection of gold filigree holding a cabochon or faceted gemstone that can be broken to empty the ring's contents. It is invariably enormous - so large it is rather odd nobody seems to notice it. http://www.physorg.com/news176306859.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-11-01T14:08:21-07:00 Very tiny wires, called nanowires, made from such metals as silver and gold, may play a crucial role as electrical or mechanical switches in the development of future-generation ultrasmall nanodevices. http://www.physorg.com/news176047225.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-29T22:00:02-07:00 A multidisciplinary team of UC researchers is the first to find an innovative and novel way to control an electron's spin orientation using purely electrical means. http://www.physorg.com/news175871026.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-27T14:05:04-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have created a nanoscale crystal device that, for the first time, allows scientists to confine both light and sound vibrations in the same tiny space. http://www.physorg.com/news175766229.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-26T08:57:51-07:00 A team of engineers from the University of Pennsylvania has transformed simple nanowires into reconfigurable materials and circuits, demonstrating a novel, self-assembling method for chemically creating nanoscale structures that are not possible to grow or obtain otherwise. http://www.physorg.com/news175513114.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-23T10:39:20-07:00 Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have uncovered the physical mechanism by which arrays of nanoscale pillars can be grown on polymer films with very high precision, in potentially limitless patterns. http://www.physorg.com/news175451434.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-22T17:31:34-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente, The Netherlands, working with American researchers, have succeeded in using an electrical signal to control both the elastic and the magnetic properties of a nanomaterial at a very localized level. This opens up new possibilities for data storage with very high data densities. Their findings are to be published in November in the leading scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology. http://www.physorg.com/news175445828.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-22T15:58:37-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- To power a very small device like a pacemaker or a transistor, you need an even smaller generator. The components that operate the generator are smaller yet, and the efficiency of those foundational components is critical to the performance of the overall device. http://www.physorg.com/news175444804.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-22T15:52:12-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, at Arizona State University`s Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week`s online edition of Nature Chemistry. http://www.physorg.com/news175415776.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-22T07:37:08-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Taking nanomaterials to a new level of structural complexity, scientists have determined how to introduce kinks into arrow-straight nanowires, transforming them into zigzagging two- and three-dimensional structures with correspondingly advanced functions. http://www.physorg.com/news175339313.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-21T10:23:16-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- For decades, the transistors inside radios, televisions and other everyday items have transmitted data by controlling the movement of the electron`s charge. Scientists now have discovered that transistors could use less energy, generate less heat and operate at higher speeds if they exploited another property of the electron: its spin. http://www.physorg.com/news175283352.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-20T19:40:01-07:00 More than 120 years after the discovery of the electromagnetic character of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz, wireless data transmission dominates information technology. Higher and higher radio frequencies are applied to transmit more data within shorter periods of time. Some years ago, scientists found that light waves might also be used for radio transmis-sion. So far, however, manufacture of the small antennas has required an enormous expenditure. German scientists have now succeeded for the first time in specifically and reproducibly manufacturing smallest optical nanoantennas from gold. http://www.physorg.com/news175262415.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-20T13:10:01-07:00 Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem today announced that Professor L.D. Shvartsman and Professor B. Laikhtman, from the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have invented a novel design of TeraHertz-ray, or T-ray, lasers. http://www.physorg.com/news175247920.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-20T08:59:07-07:00 The first fundamental studies of the dependence of ferroelectric domain configuration and switching behavior on the shape of epitaxial BiFeO3 (BFO) nanostructures has been reported by users from Northwestern University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, and Argonne`s Materials Science Division working collaboratively with CNM`s Nanofabrication & Devices Group. http://www.physorg.com/news175236233.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-20T05:44:24-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- "If you open up almost any electronic gadget, you will see various elements that operating using electric circuitries," Nader Engheta tells PhysOrg.com. "Many of them have different functionalities, such as inductors, capacitors, resistors, transistors, and so forth. These well-known elements have been around for decades. But what if you could bring these concepts to the nanoscale, and what if they could operate with light instead of electricity?" http://www.physorg.com/news175161170.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-19T08:53:59-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have conducted a basic chemistry experiment in what is perhaps the world's smallest test tube, measuring a thousandth the diameter of a human hair. http://www.physorg.com/news174837506.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-15T15:50:01-07:00 Rutgers researchers have discovered novel electronic properties in two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms called graphene that could one day be the heart of speedy and powerful electronic devices. http://www.physorg.com/news174745964.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-14T13:33:58-07:00 Recently, at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week's online edition of Nature Chemistry. http://www.physorg.com/news174643920.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-13T09:13:07-07:00 Researchers analyzing the assembly of graphene (sheets of carbon only one atom thick) on a surface of iridium have found that the sheets grow by first forming tiny carbon domes. The discovery offers new insight into the growth of graphene layers and points the way to possible methods for assembling components of graphene-based computer circuits. http://www.physorg.com/news174562394.html Nanotechnology - Nanophysics 2009-10-12T10:50:01-07:00