Volume 9 Issue 12, December 2014

Nanoscale objects provide opportunities to revolutionize the conversion of solar energy by enabling highly efficient and low-cost devices. Challenges associated with demonstrating high efficiency and stability are now being addressed in the research community.

3D printing is allowing more complex three-dimensional structures to be manufactured than ever before. Could the convergence between this technology and nanotechnology eventually usher in a new era of artificial intelligence, asks Andrew D. Maynard.

A two-step sandwich assay, which can be both mechanically and optically detected, identifies cancer biomarkers in serum with high sensitivity and selectivity.

Experiments with conducting atomic force microscopy provide a clear demonstration of long-range charge transport in G-quadruplex DNA molecules, and allow a hopping transport model to be developed that could also be applied to other conductive polymers.

A battery fabricated within a ceramic nanopore can be used for studying nanoscale electrochemical effects.

Advanced measurement techniques combined with a tightly controlled noise environment have enabled the creation of carbon nanotube-based mechanical resonators with quality factors of up to five million.

A magnetic skyrmion lattice can mediate transport of spin information between hybrid nano-objects that are formed from organic molecules and atoms in an iron monolayer.

The extraordinary long coherence times and high-fidelity manipulation of electron spins trapped in isotopically purified silicon could be an essential step towards the realization of a solid-state quantum computer.

This article reviews the different strategies and devices that combine nanoscale and microscale materials to bring about faster, more sensitive and reliable diagnostic results in clinical medicine.

A quantum bit that can be addressed with a gate voltage and has a very high control-fidelity can be realized in an electrically defined silicon quantum dot.

The coherent operation of individual ³¹P electron and nuclear spin qubits in a ²⁸Si substrate shows new benchmark decoherence times and provides essential information on the dechorence mechanism.

Magnetic droplet solitons are shown to be stable excitations that can be controlled by applied magnetic fields and electrical currents in thin films with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.

The Stark effect can be used to address two qubits independently that are represented by semiconductor quantum dots, placed only a few nanometres apart.

Self-assembling plasmonic dimers with a feedback mechanism enable selection of specific symmetry-breaking optical metamaterial structures in solution.

Careful, low-noise measurement techniques allow record quality factors to be determined in ultraclean, suspended carbon nanotube resonators, which are comparable to those of much larger resonators.

Electrostatic force microscopy can directly observe charge flow along native protein nanofilaments that are used in bacterial respiration and cell-to-cell electron exchange.

Carbon nanosystems on an iron monolayer create organic–metal hybrids with tunable magnetic properties that can be magnetically coupled to each other over nanometre distances.

Different two-dimensional materials can be grown epitaxially side by side to create one-layer-thick p–n junctions.

An array of interconnected nanobatteries templated in anodic aluminium oxide pores shows high capacity retention during fast cycling and excellent cyclability while operating at the maximum theoretical capacity of the storage material.

G-quadruplex DNA molecules adsorbed on a mica substrate can transport currents of more than 100 pA over distances of more than 100 nm by means of a hopping mechanism.

A sandwich assay labelled with gold nanoparticles can be mechanically and optically detected with the help of a silicon cantilever, allowing cancer biomarkers to be identified in serum at very low concentrations.

The systemic circulation time of adenosine is prolonged by forming nanoassemblies with squalene, and this can improve neurologic recovery in mice affected by a stroke or spinal cord injury.

Ennio Tasciotti describes an interactive video game app that helps children learn the concepts of nanomedicine, and hopes to expand it by attracting like-minded scientists, educators and investors.