Many of the vaunted applications of carbon nanotubes require the ability to attach these super-tiny cylinders to electrically conductive surfaces, but to date researchers have only been successful in creating high-resistance interfaces between nanotubes and substrates. Now a team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reports two new techniques, each following a different approach, for placing carbon nanotube patterns on metal surfaces of just about any shape and size.

A new form of scanning microscopy that simultaneously reveals physical and electronic profiles of metal nanostructures has been demonstrated at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado at Boulder. The new instrument is expected to be particularly useful for analysing the make-up and properties of nanoscale electronics and nanoparticles.

A research centre newly created by the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) aims to put light-sensitive switches in the body’s cells that can be flipped on and off. Optical switches like these could trigger a chemical reaction, initiate a muscle contraction, activate a drug or stimulate a nerve cell—all at the flash of a light.

What does a colourful and noisy common insect have to do with nanotechnology? Plenty, according to Jin Zhang and Zhongfan Liu, both professors at Peking University. A team of researchers led by Zhang and Liu have used the wings of cicadas, ubiquitous insects best known for their acoustic skills, as stamps to pattern polymer films with nanometre-sized structures. The wings of these insects are characterised by highly ordered arrays of closely spaced microscopic pillars. When these wings are pushed down upon a smooth polymer film, they create a negative imprint of the array pattern.