•  04/16/08 Novel iron-based superconductors discovered
Japanese researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology synthesized a new superconductor based on Fe and As with a Tc of 26 K. This discovery sets scientific community a-buzzing, as the only other high-temperature superconductors are the copper-and-oxygen compounds, or cuprates, that were discovered in 1986. Now, a number of research groups around the world are working with the new materials.

•  02/14/08 Fiber-nanowire hybrid structure for energy scavenging
Researchers from Gatech report how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires can generate electrical current using the piezoelectric effect. Combining current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer’s body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices.

•  02/11/08 Material shows giant thermal expansion
Ag3[Co(CN)6] is a framework material that has highly underconstrained linkages. A new study finds that over a wide temperature range, this material can either contract or expand along orthogonal lattice directions with a coefficient an order of magnitude greater than that of most materials.

•  08/28/07 Spin properties of individual atoms measured
The spin properties of individual atoms added to a metal surface have been measured. Nanometer-sized triangular islands of Co were first formed on top of a Cu crystal. The Co is ferromagnetic, which means that the spins of the Co atoms in the islands all line up together. Additional magnetic atoms sprinkled on top of the islands (adatoms) have spins that interact magnetically with the underlying Co, causing the adatom spins to either align or anti-align with the underlying island spins.

•  05/08/07 Speckles expose magnet's noisy secrets
Measuring the tiny thermal fluctuations from anti-ferromagnetic materials has been very difficult. Now, however, physicists in the US and the UK have measured these fluctuations in an antiferromagnet for the first time and found that they occur at surprisingly low temperatures. This means that it could be difficult to use antiferromagnets in certain data-storage  devices.

•  12/08/06 TM-ethylene complex suggested for hydrogen storage
Transition-Metal-Ethylene complex might have an exciting future in storing hydrogen. New research reported by scientists from the NIST and Turkey’s Bilkent University makes the surprising prediction that “ethylene, a well-known inexpensive molecule, can be an important basis in developing frameworks for efficient and safe hydrogen-storage media.”

•  08/28/06 Flat molecules better for conducting electricity
In creating single-molecule electronic devices, flatter molecules have now been shown to conduct electricity better. That principle has long been suspected, but to demonstrate it definitively required an innovation to existing methods for measuring conductance in nano-scale objects.

•  09/09/05 From nanobelts to nanohelices
A previously-unknown ZnO nanostructure that resembles the helical configuration of DNA could provide engineers with a new building block for creating nanometer-scale sensors, transducers, resonators and other devices that rely on electro-mechanical coupling.

•  07/10/05 Doping semiconductor quantum dots
Novel electronic devices based upon nanotechnology may soon be realized due to a new understanding of how dopants can be intentionally incorporated into semiconductor nanocrystals. This should help enable a variety of new technologies ranging from high-efficiency solar-cells and lasers to futuristic 'spintronic' and ultra-sensitive biodetection devices.

•  06/17/05 Superconducting Nanowires & Quantum Interference Device
By using DNA molecules as scaffolds, researchers at UIUC have created superconducting nanodevices that demonstrate a new type of quantum interference and could be used to measure magnetic fields and map regions of superconductivity. They have fabricated and studied nanostructures consisting of pairs of suspended superconducting nanowires.

•  06/15/05 Rethinking the Electronics of Quantum Dots
Quantum dots sparkle with promise for uses ranging from tagging proteins in living cells to foiling counterfeiters to enabling quantum computers. The optics and electronics of these semiconductor nanocrystals are dramatically different from the same materials in bulk. But it turns out that one of the most important electronic properties of quantum dots has been misunderstood for over a decade.

•  05/21/05 A Few Steps Closer to Nanoscale Photonic Technology
One day our electronic technology, which is based on the manipulation of electrons, could be supplanted by photonics, which is based on the manipulation of light waves (photons). If the promise of photonic technology is realized, the high-speed processing and movement of data today will seem so sludgelike, people of the future will wonder how we ever got anything done. Photonic technology is still a long way down the road but the goal is a few steps closer now.

•  05/10/05 Nanotubes Give When You Poke them
Smaller, faster computers, bulletproof t-shirts and itty-bitty robots: such are the promises of nanotechnology. But in order for these exciting technologies to hit the marketplace, scientists must understand how these miracle-molecules perform under all sorts of conditions. In a recent study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology  found that while nanotubes are extremely stiff when pulled from the ends, they give when poked in the middle.

•  04/10/05 Nanotube chemical sensor gains speed
Sensors that contain active elements that are around the same size as the molecules to be detected are potentially portable, low-power and quick. Such sensors could be deployed as networks of security and environmental monitoring devices. Researchers from the NRL have made SWNT chemical sensors that transmit information by measuring the charge in the nanotubes' capacitance.

•  03/28/05 New microscopy advances biological imaging to nanoscale
Scanning probe microscopes, usually applied to imaging inorganic materials at nano- to microscopic scales, may soon be giving researchers new insights into the biomechanical structures and functions of living organisms—for example, nature's engineering of a butterfly's wing.

•  03/22/05 Scientists model 'Lord of the Nanorings'
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have used PrairieFire  supercomputer to model what they jokingly call the "Lord of the Nanorings," a ring of 20 boron atoms that is so stable that the rings can be stacked to create a tube of virtually any length with a diameter of a mere 2.6 nanometers.  

•  02/10/05 Liquid carbon plays role in nanotube formation
Researchers have discovered that the formation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes in a pure carbon arc involves liquid carbon. They believe that the nanotubes formed by homogeneous nucleation inside droplets of the liquid.  Their results could open up the whole question of nanotube formation again.