Category: The ant playground
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Visible light metamaterials on the cheap
Only a couple of years, more than a few physicists doubted that it would ever be possible to build decent metamaterials with a negative refractive index for visible light. Metamaterials have bulk properties that depend on the structure of their components rather than the bulk properties of the materials from which they are made. The…
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Centimetre scale models could compute Casimir forces
The Casimir force is notoriously difficult to measure. So tricky is it, that the first accurate measurements weren’t made until 1997 and even today only a handful of labs around the world of capable of taking its measure. Of course there are various ways of modelling what goes on theoretically but even the most powerful…
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Solving stiction in MEMs devices
Microelectromechanical devices were supposed to change the world, so where are they? A few designs have leaked out, such as the accelerometers in air bags. But most have remained stubbornly, and literally, stuck in the lab. One of the troubling secrets about MEMs is that many designs simply don’t work because their moving parts become…
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How to decelerate a molecule
When it comes to shuttling individual atoms about, physicists have made giant strides in cooling, trapping and even collimating them into matter wave beams. These kinds of tricks are already being used for matter-wave interferometry on chips. But if you want to do the same kinds of things with molecules, you’re out of luck. There…
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Matter wave lithography could carve single nanometre features
Atomic matter waves have been generating a bit of interest of late. The thinking is that atom waves can be manipulated in much the same way as light waves and so could be used to directly print atoms onto microchips to create nanoscale features. The question is: how small can these features be made and…
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Silicon ribbons pave the way for graphene-like sheets
Graphene is the hottest property in materials science these days. Its extraordinary electronic, thermal and physical properties make it the most heavily studied substance on the plant right now. But there is one thing that graphene can’t do and that is to fit easily into the silicon-based electronics industry. And while graphene based chips hold…
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Nanodiamonds lead to sharper images
Zap a diamond nanoparticle with laser light and it will fluoresce, emitting single photons if it is small enough. That makes nanodiamonds extremely useful, say Aurélien Cuche at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble and pals. For a start, nanodiamonds are easily absorbed by cells, which allows them and the processes inside them to be…
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Nanotube springboard is world’s most sensitive weighing scales
Vibrating springboards have long been the darlings of nanomechanics wanting to measure the mass of small things. Their thinking goes like this: a springboard vibrates at a specific resonant frequency that depends on its stiffness and mass. So you can work out the mass of anything that becomes stuck to the springboard by measuring any…
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First printed graphene circuits
The world of solid state electronics is in awe of graphene. This single layer of carbon chickenwire has the potential to revolutionise electronics (and much else) because it has enviable electronic, mechanical and thermal properties that no other material can match. The news today is that Ellen Williams and buddies at the University of Maryland…
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The Casimir conundrum
When it comes to the Casimir force, physicists are in an embarrassing position. “Weak intermolecular forces have a truly pervasive impact, from biology to chemistry, from physics to engineering. It may therefore come as a surprise to know that there still exist, in this well established field, unresolved problems of a fundamental character. This is…