Volume 12 Issue 3, March 2017

Black phosphorous, a van der Waals layered semiconductor, is reported to reveal a plasmonic response that can be initiated by photoexcitation with femtosecond pulses.

The programmable disorder often seen in biological networks has now been demonstrated with DNA origami tiles using a stochastic algorithm.

A microfluidic chip with progressively stronger magnetic field gradients along its length can sort and classify circulating tumour cells based on the expression of cell surface markers.

Surface phonons of SiO₂ can couple with photogenerated plasmon polaritons in black phosphorous to make coherent transient hybrid modes with constant energy and momentum

By varying the coupling between quantum dots obtained by patterning an InAs nanowire it is possible to control the transition between superconducting and normal states.

Shot noise can be suppressed, which is essential for improving the performance of quantum transport devices, by using an electronic closed-loop feedback that monitors and adjusts the counting statistics.

Encapsulated few-layer InSe exhibits a remarkably high electronic quality, which is promising for the development of ultrathin-body high-mobility nanoelectronics.

Two crystalline nanocrystals with superparamagnetic and plasmonic properties form mechanically strong hybrid nanorods with dual functionality.

Hybrid biomolecular motors, created by combining motor cores from the microtubule-based dynein motor with actin-binding proteins, can drive the sliding movement of an actin filament.

A super-resolution imaging technique based on single-nanotube tracking is used to study the nanoscale organization and local viscosity of the brain extracellular space.

Templates with two distinct sets of pores allow the fabrication of nanostructured surfaces with different morphologies and materials.

Programming stochastic self-assembly of DNA origami tiles to create complex patterns with controlled properties.

Streptavidin crystals grown on mica-supported lipid bilayers can be used as a platform to tune the lateral mobility of transmembrane proteins, allowing the conformation or docking of spatially confined proteins to be imaged with high-speed atomic force microscopy.

A vibrational spectroscopy technique is used to study vapour, liquid and solid water within isolated carbon nanotubes and reveals phase transitions that show an extreme sensitivity to nanotube diameter, with melting temperatures higher than 100 °C for 1.05 and 1.06 nm diameter nanotubes and below 0 °C for 1.24 and 1.44 nm diameter nanotubes.

The phenotypes of circulating tumour cells are profiled in whole blood by exploiting a microfluidic chip based on magnetic nanoparticles, leading to single-cell resolution.

When an important concept puts a scientific paper under the spotlight, behind the scenes there is usually a long story of mystery solving, as Philip Petersen explains.