Posts Tagged ‘Nanotechnology’
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March 5th, 2010
Video perspectives
The American Chemical Society’s journal Physical Chemistry Letters has a nice series of video perspectives on papers it has recently published. This one, for example, features reseachers from Jin Zhong Zhang’s lab at CalTech speaking about their article Biomedical Applications of Shape-Controlled Plasmonic Nanostructures: A Case Study of Hollow Gold Nanospheres for Photothermal Ablation Therapy of Cancer.
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January 20th, 2010
Self-assembling electronic devices
A fascinating, and potentially very important, paper has just been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the prestigious US journal. The article details a simple and cheap way to create self-assembling electronic devices utilising the interfaces naturally created between silicone oil, water and a substrate. By manipulating these hydrophobic/hydrophilic interfaces (and the materials they come into contact with) the team have been able build a series of devices, culminating in a flexible monocrystalline silicon solar cell.This is a really exciting step forward, and we congratulate the authors on the paper. The real promise is in the technology’s applicability across a wide range of materials, ranging from metal to plastic.
The paper has received considerable media coverage, including an article on the BBC website.
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January 11th, 2010
Patenting nanotechnologies
I’m a big fan of the nano patents and innovations blog, and they have kicked off the year with an eye-opening post regarding the sheer volume of patent activity in the field of nanotechnology. In the first week of 2010, approximately 102 nano-related patents were identified, many filed by some of the world’s leading names including Sony, Samsung, Roche and Pfizer.
The blog author determined that the majority of these patents are devoted to nanomaterials and nanofabrication processes for the semiconductor industry. However, biomedical applications were also well represented. Gold is a prominent material in both of these areas, more details of which can be found on our scientific website
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January 6th, 2010
Nature Nanotechnology feature article
Nature Nanotechnology, the leading journal which covers all aspects of nanotech-based research, has just published an excellent article on the ever-growing field of gold-based catalysis. The piece, entitled ‘A Golden Opportunity’, is particularly interesting as it focuses on the drive to commercialise gold-based catalysts, and features commentary and opinion from a number of eminent academic and industrial scientists including Chris Hardacre of Queens University Belfast, Graham Hutchings of Cardiff University, Jason McPherson of Mintek and David Barton of Dow Chemical Company amongst others.Here at the World Gold Council we are particularly excited to see the publication of this article in such an eminent journal. The tone of the piece certainly fits in with our aim of aiding the acceleration of gold-based technologies to market by providing marketing expertise and offering various funding strategies. For more information on our funding programmes, see here.
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December 4th, 2009
Eminent nanoscientist gets top job
Eminent nanoscientist Paul Alivisatos has been appointed director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the world’s leading scientific institutions. Professor Alivisatos has published extensively in the field of nanotechnology, focussing much of his ground-breaking research on artificial photosynthesis and photovoltaic technology through the creation of nano-inspired devices. Recent examples of his work can be found here and here.
Congratulations to Professor Alivisatos on this important appointment
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November 30th, 2009
Memorable research papers
According to the BBC, The Royal Society, one of the world’s oldest scientific institutions, is marking the start of its 350th year by putting 60 of its most memorable research papers online. The archive will include work by Sir Issac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Hawking. I haven’t yet been able to establish whether Michael Faraday’s early work on gold colloid will be included, but don’t worry……you can read the late David Thompson’s account of this seminal piece of research here in Gold Bulletin.
As David explain’s, in the paper in Philosophical Transactions entitled ‘Experimental relations of gold (and other metals) to light’, which was based on Faraday’s Bakerian lecture to the Royal Society in London on 5 February 1857, it is clear that Michael Faraday was fascinated by the ruby colour of colloidal gold. This paper is definately worth a read……
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November 13th, 2009
Small journal big on gold
Small, the highly regarded nanotechnology journal, often carries gold-related articles but the latest issue really is a bumper crop. Subjects include generating nano-gaps in gold wires, cancer diagnostics and the front cover highlight detailing the new application of gold nanoparticles in the PCR process. A great issue, well worth a look… -
November 11th, 2009
Noble metals and water purification
Richard posted a blog a few months back regarding a paper which had just been published in Gold Bulletin. The authors, from the lab of Professor Pradeep at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, described their work in the area of generating clean drinking water using gold nanoparticulate-based filters.
The same group have just published another paper in the field – this time an excellent review article titled noble metal nanoparticles for water purification: a critical review. This paper is well worth a read for anyone with an interest in this rapidly growing area of research, and includes a comprehensive review of the technology developed to date and discussions around the commercial/environmental considerations.
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October 30th, 2009
Enabling the next generation of high speed data networks
I was fascinated by this paper which recently appeared in Nanotechnology. My knowledge about the specifics of the field is limited, but the concept really grabs the imagination.
To understand the basics requires some of that (long-forgotten in my case) physics know-how you may have gleaned many years ago at school. Transfer of data via electromagnetic waves plays a part in practically every area of life nowadays and at its heart lies a key physical principle – communication between the transmitter and receiver of a data-containing wave reaches highest efficiency when the total length of the dipole antennas corresponds to about half of the wavelength of the electromagnetic wave. So, what is happening when you flick your radio on in the morning? Radio waves occupy the long wavelength, low frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. FM radio waves have a wavelength in the region of 1m – 10m, so a bit of tinkering around with the long metal aeriel sticking out of the radio usually lets you find your favourite station. It’s often not a perfect reception, but the ‘data’ you are receiving is pretty minimal it doesn’t matter too much.
So, what happens when you start wanting more data, and quicker? Obviously the frequency of the wave has to go up, which means the wavelength begins to decrease. Now we start to hit difficulties. Remember if you want to receive this data efficiently, your antenna needs to be roughly half the wavelength… To put this in perspective, the wavelength of visible light is 400 – 700 nm, meaning your antenna needs to be no longer than 350 nm in length if you are receiving data from such a source. Ouch.This paper describes a method of reproducibly constructing such minute antenae from gold using an electron beam process called electron beam lithography. As I mentioned above my knowledge of the subject begins to waiver when you get into the fine details, but the authors believe this may be a significant breakthrough to aid the next generation of high-speed data networks.
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October 29th, 2009
Nanoscale hits the shelves
The Royal Society of Chemistry has further strengthened its list of publications with a new peer reviewed journal focusing on experimental and theoretical work across the breadth of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The first issue of Nanoscale is now available, and boasts 3 excellent gold-nanoparticle related papers from the groups of Vince Rotello, Moreno Meneghetti and Naomi Halas.The journal is available free in 2009-2010 by registering your details here.
Trevor Keel
Richard Holliday
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