Nanotechnology

Multi-Robot Lab Racing to Discover the Next Quantum Dots

Researchers at North Carolina State University have unveiled Rainbow, a first-of-its-kind multi-robot self-driving laboratory that autonomously discovers high-performance quantum dots...

3D Printing Self-Heating Microfluidic Devices

MIT researchers have used 3D printing to produce self-heating microfluidic devices, demonstrating a technique which could someday be used to rapidly create cheap, yet accurate, tools to detect a host of diseases. Read on to learn more.

Tiny But Mighty: Next-Gen Transistors Hold Great Promise

As electronics become smaller, it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue scaling down silicon-based transistors. Now, a research team led by the Institute of Industrial...

New Tech May Lead to Smaller, More Powerful Wireless Devices

A new class of synthetic materials could herald the next revolution of wireless technologies, enabling devices to be smaller, require less signal strength and use less power.

Nanofibers Yield Stronger, Tougher Carbon Fiber Composites

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed an innovative new technique using carbon nanofibers to enhance binding in carbon fiber and other fiber-reinforced polymer composites — an advance likely to improve structural materials for automobiles, airplanes and other applications that require lightweight and strong materials.

My Opinion: Quantum Computing Is Coming But Has This Engineer Puzzled

My Opinion: Quantum computing is coming but has this engineer puzzled. As we celebrate 2025, the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, I find that thinking about these things from an engineer’s point of view is quite challenging.

Brain-Like Computer Steers Rolling Robot With 0.25 Percent of the Power Needed by Conventional Controllers

Analog computing is making a comeback with hardware that processes and stores information in the same location, similar to biological...

World's First Petahertz-Speed Phototransistor in Ambient Conditions

What if ultrafast pulses of light could operate computers at speeds a million times faster than today's best processors? A team of scientists, including researchers from...

Ultra-Sensitive Sensor with Gold Nanoparticle Array

Researchers have developed a new type of sensor platform using a gold nanoparticle array. The sensor is made up of a series of gold disk-shaped nanoparticles on a glass slide. When an infrared laser is pointed at a precise arrangement of the particles, they start to emit unusual amounts of ultraviolet light. Read on to learn more.

Advanced Microelectronics: Why A Next-Gen Semiconductor Doesn’t Fall to Pieces

The mechanism holding new ferroelectric semiconductors together produces a conductive pathway that could enable high power transistors. A new class of...

Revolutionizing High-Performance Computer Memory Storage

Magnets generate invisible fields that attract certain materials. Far more important to our everyday lives, magnets also can store data in computers. Exploiting the direction of the magnetic field, microscopic bar magnets each can store one bit of memory as a zero or a one — the language of computers.

A Lighter, Smarter Magnetoreceptive Electronic Skin

Imagine navigating a virtual reality with contact lenses or operating your smartphone under water — this and more could soon be a reality thanks to innovative e-skins. A research team...

New Atom-Based Thermometer Measures Temperature More Accurately

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created a new thermometer using atoms boosted to such high energy levels that they are a thousand...

How MXenes Can Improve Air Filtration

An interdisciplinary team of researchers has introduced a new way to improve textile-based filters by coating them with a type of two-dimensional nanomaterial called MXene.

Can DNA-Nanoparticle Motors Get Up To Speed With Motor Proteins?

DNA-nanoparticle motors are exactly as they sound — tiny artificial motors that use the structures of DNA and RNA to propel motion by enzymatic RNA degradation. Essentially,...

MIT Engineers Grow “High-Rise” 3D Chips

The electronics industry is approaching a limit to the number of transistors that can be packed onto the surface of a computer chip. So, chip manufacturers are looking to build up rather than out.

Neuromorphic Semiconductor Chip Learns and Corrects Itself

Existing computer systems have separate data processing and storage devices, making them inefficient for processing complex data like AI. A Korea Advanced Institute of Science and...

Levitating Objects with Light

Researchers have designed a way to levitate and propel objects using only light by creating specific nanoscale patterning on the objects' surfaces. The work could be a step toward developing a spacecraft that could reach the nearest planet outside of our solar system in 20 years, powered and accelerated only by light. Read on to learn more.

Nanostitches for Lighter, Tougher Composite Materials

MIT engineers have shown they can prevent cracks from spreading between composite’s layers, using an approach they developed called “nanostitching,” in which they deposit chemically grown microscopic forests of carbon nanotubes between composite layers. Read on to learn more about it.

High-Speed Droplet Production in Microfluidic Devices

Researchers have introduced a microfluidic system that utilizes porous “inverse colloidal crystal” structures to dramatically improve the efficiency of microdroplet generation. Read on to learn more about it.

Smallest Walking Robot Makes Microscale Measurements

Cornell researchers in physics and engineering have created the smallest walking robot yet. Its mission: to be tiny enough to interact with waves of visible light and still move...

Magnetically Controlled Kirigami Surfaces Move Objects: No Grasping Needed

A novel device couples magnetic fields and kirigami design principles to remotely control the movement of a flexible dimpled surface, allowing it to manipulate...

MIT Team Takes a Major Step Toward Fully 3D-Printed Active Electronics

Active electronics — components that can control electrical signals — usually contain semiconductor devices that receive, store, and process information. These...

Nanoscale Device Points the Way to Future Wireless Communication Channels

In a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, a team of Caltech engineers reports building a metasurface patterned with miniscule tunable antennas capable of reflecting an incoming beam of optical light to create many sidebands, or channels, of different optical frequencies. Read on to learn more.

First Toroidal Micro-Robot to Swim Autonomously in Viscous Liquids

A peek through an optical microscope reveals a hidden universe teeming with life. Nature has devised ingenious methods for micro-organisms to navigate their viscous...

Self-Propelled Nanorobots

The “nanoswimmers” could be used to remediate contaminated soil, improve water filtration, or even deliver drugs to targeted areas of the body.

How Much Do You Know About Energy Harvesting?

Energy harvesting is an increasingly important technology. It’s important in many different fields, from the Internet of Things to medicine and beyond. How much do you know about energy harvesting? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

Solving The Doping Problem: Enhancing Performance in Organic Semiconductors

Physicists at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory have discovered two new ways to improve organic semiconductors by removing more electrons from the...

Ultra-Sensitive Lead Detector Could Improve Water Quality Monitoring

Engineers have developed an ultra-sensitive sensor made with graphene that can detect extraordinarily low concentrations of lead ions in water. The device achieves a record limit of detection of lead down to the femtomolar range, which is one million times more sensitive than previous sensing technologies. Read on to learn more.