Nature creates layered materials like bone and mother-of-pearl that become less sensitive to defects as they grow. Now researchers have created, using biomimetic proteins patterned on squid ring teeth, composite layered 2D materials that are resistant to breaking and extremely stretchable.
New research unveils the atomic-scale friction of a single tungsten asperity, or rough edge, in real time, showing atomic motion for the first time with electron microscopy.
The challenges of implementing atomic and close-to-atomic scale manufacturing lie not only in the extreme small scale at which it can be machined, but also in the fundamental understanding of atomic interactions, which are based on the quantum theory rather than classical theory.
Cchemical engineers have improved their design for a light-powered catalyst that rapidly breaks down PFOA, one of the world's most problematic 'forever chemical' pollutants.
Researchers have developed an optothermal platform with five manipulation modes - printing, tweezing, rotating, rolling, and shooting - using a single Gaussian laser beam. Switching between the different modes is achieved by simply tuning the optical power or the distance between laser and object, and can be automated through software programming. This novel multimodal manipulation technique relies on the coordination of multiple thermal forces instead of light-matter interactions, i.e., ...
