12-01 :: January 2012

nanotimes News in Brief

by over 10 times. Prof Rob Reed, one of the team who performed this work explained, “Other people have looked at using TiO2

as an enhancer of solar

disinfection, but they either used a suspension of TiO2

particles in water, or artificial UV to test their

reactors. Our TTFBR technology is very effective at killing pathogens at high levels of natural sunlight and consequently is particularly suited to countries with sunny climates and is especially useful to de- veloping countries where sunlight is abundant but other resources are scarce.”

Sadia J. Khan, Robert H. Reed and Mohammad G. Rasul: Thin-film fixed-bed reactor (TFFBR) for solar photocataly- tic inactivation of aquaculture pathogen Aeromonas hy- drophila, In: BMC Microbiology (in press) h t t p : / / w w w . b i ome d c e n t r a l . c om/ ime - dia/8214021395923991_article.pdf?random=750583

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Vladimir Volskiy, Paul A. Warburton, Guy A. E. Van- denbosch, Stoyan Russev, Oleg A. Aktsipetrov, Marcel Ameloot, Victor V. Moshchalkov, Thierry Verbiest, Plas- mon-Enhanced Sub-Wavelength Laser Ablation: Plasmo- nic Nanojets, In: Advanced Materials, AOP, January 09, 2012, DOI:10.1002/adma.201103807: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201103807

Nearly 50 years ago scientists discovered that deto- nating powerful explosives had the ability to create, not just destroy. Nanodiamonds, diamond-struc- tured particles measuring less than 10nm in diame- ter, which are the resultant residue from a TNT or Hexogen explosion in a contained space, are now being studied in a variety of science, technology and health applications by a team of researchers who specialize in nanotechnology, led by Dr. Yury Gogotsi, director of the A.J. Drexel Nanotechnology Institute.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, resear- cher Ventsislav Valev and an international team of scientists have developed a new method for optical manipulation of matter at the nanoscale. Using ‘plasmonic hotspots’ – regions with electric current that heat up very locally – gold nanostructures can be melted and made to produce the smallest nano- jets ever observed. The tiny gold nanodroplets for- med in the nanojets, are perfectly spherical, which makes them interesting for applications in medicine.

Ventsislav K. Valev, Denitza Denkova, Xuezhi Zheng, Ar- seniy I. Kuznetsov, Carsten Reinhardt, Boris N. Chichkov, Gichka Tsutsumanova, Edward J. Osley, Veselin Petkov, Ben De Clercq, Alejandro V. Silhanek, Yogesh Jeyaram,

Vadym N. Mochalin, Olga Shenderova, Dean Ho, Yury Gogotsi: The properties and applications of nanodia- monds, In: Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 7(2012), No. 1, January 2012, Pages 11-23, DOI:10.1038/nna- no.2011.209:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.209 http://www.materials.drexel.edu/Faculty/Gogotsi/ http://www.nano.drexel.edu/