Volume 10 Issue 2, February 2015

The social and economic issues surrounding nanotechnology should not be forgotten.

A label-free mass spectrometry imaging method maps the locations of carbon nanomaterials injected into mice through the detection of small carbon clusters.

Sensitive measurement of nitrogen–vacancy centres close to the surface of diamond enables magnetic resonance imaging with a resolution of a few nanometres in ambient conditions.

Single layers of molybdenum disulphide can exhibit piezoelectric effects.

Nanowires that exhibit very sharp emission due to the formation of quantum states within them have been used to fabricate low threshold current lasers emitting ultraviolet light.

Voltage pulses can be used to controllably displace ferroelectric domain walls at the nanoscale.

The merging of supramolecular chemistry and systems chemistry is beginning to unveil the richness of emerging physicochemical properties attainable by exploiting far-from-equilibrium systems, as this Review explains.

Two-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging of hydrogen in organic samples with a resolution of 12 nm can be achieved by using the spin of a nitrogen–vacancy centre in diamond as a sensor.

A nitrogen–vacancy centre in diamond can be used as a probe in a scanning probe microscope to image different chemical species on various substrates.

A nitrogen–vacancy centre in diamond can be used as a probe for nanoscale NMR and MRI of multiple nuclear species.

Excitation transfer between nitrogen–vacancy centres and graphene can be used to detect the spin of the electron in the nitrogen–vacancy centre through electrical measurements.

Anderson localization of light in AlGaN–GaN nanowires is exploited to fabricate ultraviolet laser arrays with a lasing threshold of only a few tens of amperes per centimetre squared at cryogenic temperature.

The nucleation and position of multiple domain walls in thin films of Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ can be controlled by voltage pulses applied to a top Pt electrode.

Free-standing monolayers of MoS₂ exhibit piezoelectric behaviour due to inversion symmetry breaking.

Width-modulated heterostructures are created in graphene nanoribbons using a bottom-up approach, thus achieving molecular-scale bandgap engineering.

The coordinated motion of molecular rotors embedded in a gel network causes the material to contract on constant irradiation.

Microtubules gliding across a surface coated with kinesin-1 motor proteins undergo wear; a process that energetic considerations suggest involves a molecule-by-molecule removal of tubulin proteins.

Quantum dots encapsulated in a gold nanoshell provide a hybrid plasmonic–fluorescent emitter with increased stability against high power excitation or drastic changes in the environment.

Ionic species produced from carbon-based nanomaterials on exposure to an ultraviolet laser can be detected by the mass spectrometer, and these carbon cluster species are used to map and quantify the distribution of nanomaterials in mice.

Should inventors control the fate of their own inventions? In the US, most universities think not. But, as Emmanuel Dumont explains, the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City bets otherwise.