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

Date Published
(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy)

A scientific team from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University has made the first experimental observation of a material phase that had been predicted but never seen. The newly discovered phase couples with a known phase to enable unique control over material properties - an advance that paves the way to eventual manipulation of electrical conduction in two-dimensional materials such as graphene.

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

Researchers at Iowa State University have used nanotechnology to develop a sensor that can detect organophosphates at levels 40 times smaller than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends. Organophosphates are certain classes of insecticides used on crops throughout the world to kill insects.

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

Researchers at Iowa State University have used nanotechnology to develop a sensor that can detect organophosphates at levels 40 times smaller than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends. Organophosphates are certain classes of insecticides used on crops throughout the world to kill insects.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation)

Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have combined atomic-scale experimentation with computer modeling to determine how much energy it takes to bend multilayer graphene – a question that has eluded scientists since graphene was first isolated. By draping multiple layers of graphene over a step just one to five atoms high, the researchers created a controlled and precise way of measuring how the material would bend over the step in different configurations.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation)

Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have combined atomic-scale experimentation with computer modeling to determine how much energy it takes to bend multilayer graphene – a question that has eluded scientists since graphene was first isolated. By draping multiple layers of graphene over a step just one to five atoms high, the researchers created a controlled and precise way of measuring how the material would bend over the step in different configurations.

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

Scientists have long been puzzled by the existence of so-called "buckyballs"—complex carbon molecules with a soccer-ball-like structure—throughout interstellar space. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona has proposed a mechanism for their formation. The scientists suggest that buckyballs are derived from the silicon carbide dust made by dying stars, which is then hit by high temperatures, shock waves, and high-energy particles, leeching silicon from the surface and leaving carbon behind.

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

Scientists have long been puzzled by the existence of so-called "buckyballs"—complex carbon molecules with a soccer-ball-like structure—throughout interstellar space. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona has proposed a mechanism for their formation. The scientists suggest that buckyballs are derived from the silicon carbide dust made by dying stars, which is then hit by high temperatures, shock waves, and high-energy particles, leeching silicon from the surface and leaving carbon behind.

(Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and their colleagues have developed an optical switch that routes light from one computer chip to another in just 20 billionths of a second—faster than any other similar device. The new switch combines nanometer-scale gold and silicon optical, electrical and mechanical components, all densely packed, to channel light into and out of a miniature racetrack, alter its speed, and change its direction of travel.

(Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and their colleagues have developed an optical switch that routes light from one computer chip to another in just 20 billionths of a second—faster than any other similar device. The new switch combines nanometer-scale gold and silicon optical, electrical and mechanical components, all densely packed, to channel light into and out of a miniature racetrack, alter its speed, and change its direction of travel.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health)

Researchers at Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a new technique, called erythrocyte-leveraged chemotherapy (ELeCt), that smuggles drug-loaded nanoparticles into cancerous lung tissue by mounting them onto the body's own red blood cells (erythrocytes). When the red blood cells made it through the lungs’ tiny capillaries, the nanoparticles were taken up by lung cells with tenfold greater success than free-floating nanoparticles.