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nanotimes News in Brief

reshaped in any way. Furthermore, the material is low-priced and simple to manufacture.

Damien Montarnal, Mathieu Capelot, François Tour- nilhac, Ludwik Leibler: Silica-Like Malleable Materials from Permanent Organic Networks, In: Science, Vol. 334(2011), No. 6058, November 18, 2011, Pages 965- 968, DOI:10.1126/science.1212648: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1212648

Contact: Ludwik Leibler, Forscher am CNRS¬Tel.: +33 1 40 79 51 25

11-11/12 :: November/December 2011

A team from Taiwan around Chain-Shu Hsu (Na- tional Chaio Tung University) and Yuh-Lin Wang (Academia Sinica) introduced a new method in the Sep-11 issue of the magazine Angwandte Chemie that considerably increases efficiency of polymer- based solar cells using fullerene nanorods.

Dr. Chih-Yu Chang, Cheng-En Wu, Shih-Yung Chen, Chaohua Cui, Yen-Ju Cheng, Chain-Shu Hsu, Yuh-Lin Wang, Yongfang Li: Enhanced Performance and Stability of a Polymer Solar Cell by Incorporation of Vertically Ali- gned, Cross-Linked Fullerene Nanorods, In: Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 123(2011), Issue 40, September 26, 2011, Pages 9558-9562, DOI: 10.1002/ange.201103782: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ange.201103782

ultra-cold atoms. The atoms are trap- ped in an optical lattice, which is for- med by retro-reflec- tion of a laser beam from the membra- ne surface. In this setup, the lattice laser light mediates an optomechanical coupling between membrane vibrations and atomic center-of-mass motion. The team observed both the effect of the membrane vibrations onto the atoms as well as the back-action of the atomic motion onto the membrane. Fur- thermore, they could analyze the properties of the membrane and show what the limits are regarding mechanical quality.

Stephan Camerer, Maria Korppi, Andreas Jöckel, David Hunger, Theodor W. Hänsch, and Philipp Treutlein: Realization of an Optomechanical Interface Between Ultracold Atoms and a Membrane, In: Physical Review Letters, Volume 107, Issue 22, Article 223001 [5 pages], DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.223001: http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i22/e223001

Image: Membrane out of silicon nitride that was used in the experiments by the Basel scientists. © Max Riedel/ Andreas Joeckel, University of Basel

Researchers at University Basel managed to couple a 50nm thick micromechanical membrane to

Jean-Lou Chameau, president of the California In- stitute of Technology, and Laurent Malier, CEO of CEA-Leti, announced the launch of Analytical Pixels