NanosensorNanosensors are nanoscale devices that measure physical quantities and convert these to signals that can be detected and analyzed. There are several ways proposed today to make nanosensors; these include top-down lithography, bottom-up assembly, and molecular self-assembly. There are different types of nanosensors in the market and in development for various applications, most notably in defense, environmental, and healthcare industries.
TwistronicsTwistronics (from twist and electronics) is the study of how the angle (the twist) between layers of two-dimensional materials can change their electrical properties. Materials such as bilayer graphene have been shown to have vastly different electronic behavior, ranging from non-conductive to superconductive, that depends sensitively on the angle between the layers. The term was first introduced by the research group of Efthimios Kaxiras at Harvard University in their theoretical treatment of graphene superlattices.
SpintronicsSpintronics (a portmanteau meaning spin transport electronics), also known as spin electronics, is the study of the intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-state devices. The field of spintronics concerns spin-charge coupling in metallic systems; the analogous effects in insulators fall into the field of multiferroics.
CathodoluminescenceCathodoluminescence is an optical and electromagnetic phenomenon in which electrons impacting on a luminescent material such as a phosphor, cause the emission of photons which may have wavelengths in the visible spectrum. A familiar example is the generation of light by an electron beam scanning the phosphor-coated inner surface of the screen of a television that uses a cathode ray tube. Cathodoluminescence is the inverse of the photoelectric effect, in which electron emission is induced by irradiation with photons.
Nanoporous materialsNanoporous materials consist of a regular organic or inorganic bulk phase in which a porous structure is present. Nanoporous materials exhibit pore diameters that are most appropriately quantified using units of nanometers. The diameter of pores in nanoporous materials is thus typically 100 nanometers or smaller. Pores may be open or closed, and pore connectivity and void fraction vary considerably, as with other porous materials. Open pores are pores that connect to the surface of the material whereas closed pores are pockets of void space within a bulk material.
Targeted drug deliveryTargeted drug delivery, sometimes called smart drug delivery, is a method of delivering medication to a patient in a manner that increases the concentration of the medication in some parts of the body relative to others. This means of delivery is largely founded on nanomedicine, which plans to employ nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery in order to combat the downfalls of conventional drug delivery. These nanoparticles would be loaded with drugs and targeted to specific parts of the body where there is solely diseased tissue, thereby avoiding interaction with healthy tissue.
Fullerene chemistryFullerene chemistry is a field of organic chemistry devoted to the chemical properties of fullerenes. Research in this field is driven by the need to functionalize fullerenes and tune their properties. For example, fullerene is notoriously insoluble and adding a suitable group can enhance solubility. By adding a polymerizable group, a fullerene polymer can be obtained. Functionalized fullerenes are divided into two classes: exohedral fullerenes with substituents outside the cage and endohedral fullerenes with trapped molecules inside the cage.
NanomanufacturingNanomanufacturing is both the production of nanoscaled materials, which can be powders or fluids, and the manufacturing of parts "bottom up" from nanoscaled materials or "top down" in smallest steps for high precision, used in several technologies such as laser ablation, etching and others. Nanomanufacturing differs from molecular manufacturing, which is the manufacture of complex, nanoscale structures by means of nonbiological mechanosynthesis (and subsequent assembly). The term "nanomanufacturing" is widely used, e.
Nanocrystalline materialA nanocrystalline (NC) material is a polycrystalline material with a crystallite size of only a few nanometers. These materials fill the gap between amorphous materials without any long range order and conventional coarse-grained materials. Definitions vary, but nanocrystalline material is commonly defined as a crystallite (grain) size below 100 nm. Grain sizes from 100–500 nm are typically considered "ultrafine" grains. The grain size of a NC sample can be estimated using x-ray diffraction.
4D scanning transmission electron microscopy4D scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D STEM) is a subset of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) which utilizes a pixelated electron detector to capture a convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) pattern at each scan location. This technique captures a 2 dimensional reciprocal space image associated with each scan point as the beam rasters across a 2 dimensional region in real space, hence the name 4D STEM. Its development was enabled by evolution in STEM detectors and improvements computational power.
