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

Date Published
(Funded by the Army Research Laboratory)

The University of Southern California has partnered with Carbonics, Inc., to develop a carbon nanotube technology that, for the first time, achieved speeds exceeding 100 gigahertz in radio frequency applications. The milestone eclipses the performance of traditional Radio Frequency Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (RF-CMOS) technology, which is ubiquitous in modern consumer electronics, including cell phones.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Scientists at Cornell University have used magnets to design self-assembling systems that could be created in nanoscale form. The researchers made centimeter-sized acrylic panels, each containing four tiny magnets in a square pattern. To activate the self-assembly, the magnets were scattered on a shaker table, with the table’s vibrations preventing the magnets from forming bonds. As the shaking amplitude was decreased, the magnets attached in their designated order and formed the target structures. While nanoscale machines and self-assembling systems are not new, this project marks the first time the two concepts have been combined with magnetic encoding.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Scientists at Cornell University have used magnets to design self-assembling systems that could be created in nanoscale form. The researchers made centimeter-sized acrylic panels, each containing four tiny magnets in a square pattern. To activate the self-assembly, the magnets were scattered on a shaker table, with the table’s vibrations preventing the magnets from forming bonds. As the shaking amplitude was decreased, the magnets attached in their designated order and formed the target structures. While nanoscale machines and self-assembling systems are not new, this project marks the first time the two concepts have been combined with magnetic encoding.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

By folding snippets of DNA into the shape of a five-pointed star using structural DNA nanotechnology, researchers have created a trap that captures Dengue virus as it floats in the bloodstream. Once sprung, the trap—which is non-toxic and is naturally cleared from the body—lights up. It's the most sensitive test for the mosquito-borne diseases yet devised.

(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

By folding snippets of DNA into the shape of a five-pointed star using structural DNA nanotechnology, researchers have created a trap that captures Dengue virus as it floats in the bloodstream. Once sprung, the trap—which is non-toxic and is naturally cleared from the body—lights up. It's the most sensitive test for the mosquito-borne diseases yet devised.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy)

This article reviews an article published in the journal Science that presents a comprehensive analysis of two decades of energy storage research involving nanomaterials. The article’s authors lay out a roadmap for how this technology can enable the world's urgent shift toward better energy storage devices and sustainability.

(Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy)

This article reviews an article published in the journal Science that presents a comprehensive analysis of two decades of energy storage research involving nanomaterials. The article’s authors lay out a roadmap for how this technology can enable the world's urgent shift toward better energy storage devices and sustainability.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)

Scientists at Columbia University have demonstrated a new way to tune the properties of two-dimensional materials simply by adjusting the twist angle between them. The researchers built devices consisting of monolayer graphene encapsulated between two crystals of boron nitride and, by adjusting the relative twist angle between the layers, they were able to create multiple moiré patterns. Moiré patterns are of high interest to condensed matter physicists and materials scientists, who use them to change or generate new electronic material properties.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)

Scientists at Columbia University have demonstrated a new way to tune the properties of two-dimensional materials simply by adjusting the twist angle between them. The researchers built devices consisting of monolayer graphene encapsulated between two crystals of boron nitride and, by adjusting the relative twist angle between the layers, they were able to create multiple moiré patterns. Moiré patterns are of high interest to condensed matter physicists and materials scientists, who use them to change or generate new electronic material properties.

(Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made one of the highest-performance cameras ever. The camera is composed of sensors made from superconducting nanowires, which can detect single photons, or particles of light. With more than 1,000 sensors, or pixels, the camera may be useful in future space-based telescopes searching for chemical signs of life on other planets, and in new instruments designed to search for the elusive “dark matter” believed to constitute most of the “stuff” in the universe.