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The Rice University lab of chemist James Tour introduced a technique to tune the surface of anodes for batteries by simply brushing powders into them. The powder adheres to the anode and becomes a thin, lithiated coating that effectively prevents the formation of damaging dendrites.

Think of a computer chip that bends, rather than breaks. That’s the potential of a new study by scientists at Rice University and Los Alamos National Laboratory (Nature Nanotechnology, “Wafer-scale monodomain films of spontaneously aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes”).

For several years, CODEX INTERNATIONAL has been the European representative of LUMTEC Cie, a world leader in the manufacture of organic chemicals, such as OLED materials, developing innovative organic optoelectronic materials for the OLED, OPV and OTFT markets.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Nebraska have developed an easier way to generate electrons for nanoscale imaging and sensing, providing a useful new tool for material science, bioimaging and fundamental quantum research.

To perform a risk assessment of nanomaterials in the environment, information on the exposure, i.e. the amounts that are present in the environment, is essential. In contrast to many other known pollutants, the concentrations of nanomaterials in environmental systems cannot be measured directly. In this situation, exposure modelling is a solution to estimate the environmental exposure with synthetic nanomaterials.

Innovations bring a maze of complexities to a sport, but elevate the performance level of an athlete and reduce the chances of injury, making sport more enjoyable for the spectators and the athletes. The world of competitive sport is highly influenced by even the minute changes in sports equipment, which could be a matter of winning or losing.
In recent times, the sports equipment industry has emerged as a sophisticated yet commercially viable hi-tech industry where advances have revolutionized sports.

Since its first demonstration in 2004, the large-scale commercial production of graphene has proven difficult and costly (‘large scale’ usually defined as weights more than 200 mg or films larger than 200 cm2). For instance, at an estimated cost of $50 000 to $200 000 per ton for graphene powders and $45 000 to $100 000 per m2 of graphene film, industrial production methods and costs are restraining graphene utility.

Scientists make extensive use of X-ray fluorescence to map elements in materials. However, this technique does not have the needed spatial sensitivity unless the probe is finely focused.
Scientists have now found a way to turn X-ray fluorescence into an ultra-high position-sensitive probe to measure tiny internal structures called nanostructures in thin films (Nature Communications, “Reconstruction of Evolving Nanostructures in Ultrathin Films with X-ray Waveguide Fluorescence Holography”). These thin films can be a hundred times finer than a human hair.

Comparing experimental results and theoretical calculations can be difficult for quantum materials. These are materials that have special properties, such as superconductivity, that can only be understood using the rules of quantum mechanics. One way that scientists compare experiments and computations is to use sample materials that isolate and emphasize an atomic line with one dimensional (1D) properties.