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61 nanotimes News in Brief
Assisted by researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Intel’s Researchers in Residence based in CRANN, Professor Mick Morris of University College Cork, Ireland, has developed a greater understanding of the assembling properties of block copolymers.
Richard A. Farrell, Niall T. Kinahan, Stefan Hansel, Karl O. Stuen, Nikolay Petkov, Matthew T. Shaw, Laetitia E. West, Vladimir Djara, Robert J. Dunne, Olga G. Varona, Peter G. Gleeson, Soon-Jung Jung, Hye-Young Kim, Maria M. Kolesnik, Tarek Lutz, Christopher P. Murray, Justin D. Holmes, Paul F. Nealey, Georg S. Duesberg, Vojislav Krstić and Michael A. Morris: Large-Scale Parallel Arrays of Silicon Nanowires via Block Copolymer Directed Self-Assembly, In: Nanoscale, Vol. 4(2012), Issue 10, April 05, 2012, Pages 3228-3236, DOI:10.1039/C2NR00018K:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C2NR00018K
Researchers at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona, Spain, thought about the possibility of combining graphene with quantum dots to see if they couldn’t overcome graphene’s shortcomings. Instead of absorbing just 3% of the light that hits it, the graphene/quantum dot hybrid material is capable of absorbing 25% of the light falling on it. Gerasimos Konstantatos, Michela Badioli, Louis Gaudreau, Johann Osmond, Maria Bernechea, F. Pelayo Garcia de Arquer, Fabio Gatti, Frank H. L. Koppens: Hybrid graphene–quantum dot phototransistors with ultrahigh gain, In: Nature Nanotechnology AOP, May 06, 2012, DOI:10.1038/nnano.2012.60:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.60
A new tracer, 300 times more sensitive than those currently available, has been developed by researchers at the CEA, CNRS and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon to detect and locate zinc using imaging methods. Thanks to this enhanced sensitivity, it is possible to visualize minute concentrations of zinc, such as are present in the human body – something that cannot be done using current medical imaging techniques. The tracer has the potential to improve diagnosis of diseases related to a disruption of zinc metabolism (Alzheimer’s, chronic renal failure, etc.).
N. Kotera, N. Tassali, E. Léonce, C. Boutin, P. Berthault, T. Brotin, J.-P. Dutasta, L. Delacour, T. Traoré, D.-A. Buisson, F. Taran, S. Coudert, B. Rousseau: A Sensitive Zinc-Activated 129Xe MRI Probe, In: Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 124, Issue 17, April 23, 2012, Pages 4176-4179, DOI:10.1002/ange.201109194:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ange.201109194
The Organic Electronics Research Group at Linköping University (LiU) in Sweden, led by Professor Magnus Berggren, attracted great attention a year ago when Lars Herlogsson showed in his doctoral thesis that it was possible to construct fully functional field-effect transistors out of plastic. Kergoat, a post-doc in the same research group, now shows that transistors made of plastic can be controlled with great precision.
"Transistors built from organic electronics need to be able to be controlled with weak voltages, preferably as close to zero as possible," Kergoat says. By changing the electrode material, for example from gold to calcium, the threshold voltage is reduced by as much as 0.9V. "This means that we can control exactly one of the most important properties of our transistors, which is of great significance now that we’re building circuits of various types," Berggren says.
Loig Kergoat, Lars Herlogsson, Benoit Piro, Minh Chau Pham, Gilles Horowitz, Xavier Crispin, and Magnus Berggrena: Tuning the Threshold Voltage in Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field-Effect Transistors, In: PNAS Early View, May 14, 2012, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1120311109: