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nanotimes Editor‘s Letter

12-04 :: April/May 2012

It‘s the story about four science fiction nerds, all fans of Star Trek. Therefore, references to Star Trek in The Big Bang Theory are quite frequent. You can explain the big success of Big Bang Theory like Armstrong did in his interview: The success of NASA and of course their Russian equivalent the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, formerly the Soviet space program) and the programs in different other countries like France, China, India or Japan motivated thousands of employees, teachers or students to give their best for their country. In some cases, people were inspired and founded tech companies.

Without space aeronautics and research there would be no satellite-based navigation like GPS or Glonass, no Google Maps, no weather forecasts and a dozen of government agencies with their security related tasks would only partially be able to operate. It is always basic research that paves the way for a dozen of different applications in other research and business areas.

As always, we are happy to publish very interesting research stories on e.g. batteries and ceramics in this edition. A team led by materials scientist Yi Cui of Stanford University (US) has found a solution for impro- ving lithium-based batteries: a cleverly designed double-walled nanostructure that lasts more than 6,000 cycles, far more than needed by electric vehicles or mobile electronics [ page 44]! German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg and for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK in Berlin, have now found a way to straighten out distorted ceramics using shot peening [ page 43].

Most importantly, the company Nanospire successfully completed its investigation on fusion produced by the phenomena of cavitation in water, providing profound implications for the utilities and energy indus- tries [ page 33].

Thomas Ilfrich