Volume 6 Issue 11, November 2011

A nanomechanical beam coupled to an optical cavity can be operated as a non-volatile memory element.

A surface acoustic wave can be used to remove a single electron from a quantum dot, drag it along a nanowire, and deposit it in a second quantum dot.

Incorporating gold nanowires into porous alginate scaffolds can improve the conductivity of engineered heart patches made from these materials.

Electric currents can be steered by coupling the flow of electrons and ions in films of gold nanoparticles coated with ionic ligands.

This article reviews the use of electron microscopy in liquids and its application in biology and materials science.

The bulk conductivity of a topological insulator composed of Bi, Sb and Te can be reduced by orders of magnitude by tuning the ratio of Bi to Sb, allowing surface states to dominate conduction.

The photoluminescence quantum yield of photogenerated carriers in silicon nanocrystals increases in a step-like fashion as photon energy is increased, consistent with high-efficiency carrier multiplication.

Simulation studies show that nanotubes with carbon shells at their tips are taken up by cells through the tip first, at a small angle of entry, before being rotated to a near-vertical alignment.

Incorporating gold nanowires into scaffolds used to create heart patches can improve electrical communication between cells and enhance the growth of tissues.

A nanoscale optomechanical resonator in a double-well potential has been excited into the high-amplitude regime, and then optically cooled to a specific at-rest configuration, which allows it to be operated as a non-volatile memory element.

Thin films of strongly coupled PbSe quantum dots exhibit light-induced charge generation with a yield of one electron and one hole per photon over a wide temperature range.

Dynamic internal gradients of ions and electrons can be used to direct electric currents through films of charged metal nanoparticles, and allows current rectifiers, switches and diodes to be created.

A new device made up of a nanochannel and two microchannels can deliver well-defined amounts of molecules directly into cells without affecting cell viability.