Volume 5 Issue 12, December 2010

The number of nanotechnology journals has grown exponentially since 1997.

Can silicon ever be a true direct-bandgap semiconductor? The first observation of a new, short-lived photoluminescence band from silicon nanocrystals offers fresh hope.

Electron tunnelling can be used to identify single bases in a short DNA oligomer.

A pump–probe approach allows the relaxation times of single spins to be measured.

Ionic-conductance measurements show that proton mobility in 2-nm-deep hydrophilic channels is up to four times as high as bulk values of mobility.

RNA can be designed and manipulated to form well-defined structures with useful functions. This article reviews the synthesis of RNA nanoparticles, the applications of such nanoparticles in nanomedicine, and future challenges for the field of RNA nanotechnology.

Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, combined with dynamical multislice image simulations, can identify individual atoms in supported rhodium–iridium clusters and map their full structure.

Nanochannels fabricated by standard semiconductor techniques can exhibit enhanced cation mobilities that are up to four times as high as bulk values of the mobility.

Thin films made of silver flakes and multiwalled carbon nanotubes decorated with silver nanoparticles are highly conductive and are capable of being stretched and printed.

Carbon-nanotube transistors exhibit improved performance when their channel length is scaled from 3 μm to 15 nm, and are adversely affected by contact length scaling below 100 nm.

Voltage-induced light emission has been observed from a molecule attached to two carbon-nanotube electrodes.

Electrodes functionalized with recognition reagents can resolve and identify a single DNA base embedded in an oligomer.

A single α-haemolysin protein is inserted into a solid-state nanopore to form a hybrid structure that is potentially more suited towards creating wafer-scale device arrays for genomic sequencing and protein studies.

An ultrafast visible band in the photoluminescence spectrum of silicon nanocrystals increases in intensity and shifts to longer wavelengths as the size of the nanocrystals decreases.