Volume 9 Issue 4, April 2014

Reflecting on a provocative report from 2002 on the benefits of fusing different technologies, Chris Toumey considers the importance of being realistic about the potential of nanotechnology.

p–n diodes can be fabricated from a single layer of WSe₂ crystal.

Biologically derived, nanoscale gas vesicles can be used as ultrasound contrast agents.

Nanoscale gas bubbles can act as selective membranes and be used to estimate the condensation coefficient of water.

Silk fibroin can be used as a photoresist in water-based electron-beam lithographic processing.

Controlled optical manipulation of a single dielectric nanoparticle is achieved with a bowtie nanoantenna placed at the end of the probe of a near-field scanning microscope.

A single nitrogen–vacancy centre can be used to probe the location of electron spins with subnanometre precision.

A p–n junction is fabricated in a monolayer of WSe₂, which can be used as a solar cell, a photodiode and a light-emitting diode.

An electrostatically defined p–n junction in monolayer WSe₂ is employed for photodetection, photovoltaic operation and as a light-emitting diode.

Bright and electrostatically tunable electroluminescence from monolayer WSe₂ p–n junctions is reported.

A pair of stacked graphene layers separated by a tunnel barrier show sensitive photodetection capabilities.

A single nitrogen–vacancy magnetometer can be used for imaging with lateral and vertical resolutions of 0.8 nm and 1.5 nm, respectively.

Anderson localization of light in photonic-crystal waveguides enables highly efficient, stable and broadband random nanolasing.

The third-harmonic-generation efficiency of an individual indium tin oxide nanoparticle is enhanced by more than 10⁶ fold by placing it within the gap of a plasmonic gold dimer nanoantenna.

Objects as small as 50 nm can be manipulated in three dimensions with near-field-based optical tweezers.

Upconverting nanoparticles smaller than 10 nm are brighter when excited under single-particle conditions than when they are part of an ensemble.

Silk can be used as a negative or positive biofunctional resist in an all-water electron-beam lithography process.

Gas vesicles, a class of protein nanostructure found naturally in microorganisms, are employed as ultrasound contrast agents for molecular imaging on the nanoscale.

The condensation probability of water molecules hitting a liquid/vapour interface influences the mass transport of water across hydrophobic nanopores.