Volume 6 Issue 7, July 2011

Transfer printing of negative-index metamaterials with areas of tens of square centimetres onto flexible substrates paves the way for practical, low-cost, large-area exotic optics.

Attaching certain protein fragments that are found in the nuclear pore complex onto a solid-state nanopore mimics important aspects of the selective transport of molecules and proteins that occurs in real cells.

The ultrasoft 'tip' of the cold-atom scanning probe microscope will offer new possibilities for exploring the interactions between atoms and surfaces.

Electrostatic doping of the transparent insulator potassium tantalate with an electric double-layer transistor has allowed superconductivity to be observed in this material for the first time.

Patterned metal and dielectric layers can be printed onto rigid or flexible substrates with high throughput to produce large-area metamaterials with negative index of refraction.

Electrostatic doping of KTaO₃ with an electric double-layer transistor has allowed superconductivity to be observed in this material for the first time.

Ferromagnetic resonance is used to characterize nanoscale magnets with uniform magnetization profiles, by generating the driving field in the probed magnet itself.

The properties of core–shell nanoparticles can be tuned so that they efficiently convert radiation into heat, leading to therapeutic results that are competitive with commercial drug treatments.

Narrow subradiant plasmons supported by scalable, two-dimensional arrays of strongly coupled gold nanoparticles can be tuned by adjusting the nanoparticle height.

It is possible to detect single viruses and single nanoparticles in air and in water by measuring how they change the output of a whispering-gallery-mode microlaser.

Covalently attaching nuclear pore proteins to solid-state nanopores forms a complex that can selectively transport certain proteins, similar to the nuclear pore complex.

Large-area, high-mobility graphene with controlled stacking can be synthesized with a solution-phase approach that allows control over the number of layers.

An ultracold gas of atoms can be used as the tip in a new type of scanning probe microscope.

Nanoparticles with a gold core and a gold shell separated by a hollow and uniform one-nanometre gap and nanobridges generate a highly stable and reproducible SERS signal.