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The rapid development of ultra-thin electronic skins (e-skins) – also called epidermal electronics or electronic tattoos – is opening new realms of possibility for flexible and stretchable monitoring gadgets that are wearable directly on the skin. These e-skin devices can be used for, among other things, prosthetics and rehabilitation, optogenetics, human-machine interfaces, human-computer interaction in gaming, and as diagnostic tools in the medical field (read more on this topic in “Lab-on-skin: Nanotechnology electronics for wearable health monitoring”).

The trillions of tiny molecular nanomachines that are at work inside our bodies and are keeping us alive perform such tasks as building and breaking down molecules, moving materials around a cell, and processing and expressing genetic information – and they do this while consuming remarkably little energy.

The defenses of the body’s immune system tend to destroy synthetic nanoparticles and frequently they are captured and removed from the body within few minutes. This, of course, is a major barrier to the use of nanotechnology in medicine.

In a recent publication in the scientific journal Advanced Materials (“Accurate Wavelength Tracking by Exciton Spin Mixing”), a team of physicists and chemists from TU Dresden presents an organic thin-film sensor that describes a completely new way of identifying the wavelength of light and achieves a spectral resolution below one nanometer.

There’s nothing like the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning. But how does one measure that smell? There’s no energy in a smell to help estimate how potent the coffee might be …

Negative differential resistance (NDR), which describes a decrease in electrical current as the applied bias increases …

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries because – at least theoretically – they can render 3-6 times higher energy density