Volume 11 Issue 9, September 2016

How easy is it for people to learn about nanotechnology through the Internet? Andrew D. Maynard looks at some of the challenges and opportunities.

Optical microscopy goes subnanometre with DNA-PAINT.

Real-time three-dimensional mapping and control of in vitro cardiomyocytes opens new paths for post-surgery heart monitoring and stimulation.

Isoelectric points of small samples of proteins can now be measured using atomic force microscopy and substrates with a known charge.

Intrinsic material nonlinearities in suspended graphene generate tunable intermodal coupling that can be used to cool or amplify thermal-mechanical motion in a manner akin to cavity optomechanics.

Tension-induced tunable mode coupling in graphene drums enables coherent energy transfer between mechanical modes to realize strong coupling and amplification.

The electronic coupling between two twisted graphene layers has been measured with an angular resolution of 0.1°, revealing the presence of coherent interface states at commensurate angles.

A new approach to magnetic switching by spin–orbit torque uses interlayer exchange coupling to overcome the need for an external magnetic field.

Low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy imaging combined with a comprehensive quantum treatment of a silicon–dopant system forms a metrology technique that can pinpoint dopant locations in silicon with exact lattice site precision.

A non-volatile, flexible, three-terminal memory device with an unprecedented number of distinct levels is fabricated using photoswitchable diarylethenes blended with polymeric semiconductors.

Three-dimensional tissue-scaffold-mimicking nanoelectronics are used to map conduction pathways during cardiac tissue development, record action potential dynamics in disease and pharmacological models, and actively control action potential propagation.

A high-speed atomic force microscope, which has been adapted for biological applications through the integration of a pumping system for buffer exchange and a pulsed-laser system for uncaging caged compounds, can be used to study the structure, dynamics and interaction of annexin assemblies.

Carbon-based rods can adsorb water at low humidity and release it at high humidity through a reversible physical process that is associated with the dynamic spacing between rods.

DNA-PAINT, a super-resolution fluorescence microscopy technique that exploits programmable transient oligonucleotide hybridization, can be used to image densely packed triangular lattice patterns with molecular-level resolution and ångström-level precision.

Mice pre-treated with lipopolysaccharides and metal nanoparticles, 10 nm or smaller, can cause a CD4⁺ T-cell-dependent allergic response similar to metal allergy seen in humans, suggesting that metal nanoparticles could potentially be a new trigger for metal allergy.

Protein isoelectric points can now be obtained by measuring adhesion forces between the protein attached to an atomic force microscope probe and a reference surface with a known charge, offering a new way to characterize unknown and rare proteins.

Nanoscience can play an important role in addressing a number of societal challenges, but, as Rein V. Ulijn and Elisa Riedo explain, research training needs to evolve.