Items Tagged With Self-Assembly

Kent State University, Ohio, USA, researchers are leading a team of scientists from eight institutions, who have been awarded a $5.5 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study self-assembled, soft optical negative index materials (NIMs).

In a mixing of pasta metaphors, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have used electrostatic attraction to layer reactive biological molecules lasagna-like around spaghetti-like carbon nanotubes. The configuration can accommodate a wide range of applications, from ultra-precise blood-sugar monitoring to infectious-agent detection, said Yuehe Lin, who led the research at the Department of Energy campus’ W.R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

A research team led by Brown University, RI, USA, engineers has harnessed the coding power of DNA to create zinc oxide nanowires on top of carbon nanotube tips. The feat, detailed in the journal Nanotechnology, marks the first time that DNA has been used to direct the assembly and growth of complex nanowires.

From a butterfly’s iridescent wing to a gecko’s sticky foot, nature derives extraordinary properties from ordinary materials like wax and keratin. Its secret is hierarchical topology: macroscale structures assembled from microscale components of varying sizes. Borrowing a page from nature’s playbook, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a novel platform for the self-assembly of experimental hierarchical surfaces in a fluid. Their work offers diverse industries a new way to generate and measure self-assembly at the nano-scale.

Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides, PhD, has been chosen to receive the 2007 Priestley Medal, the highest honour bestowed by the American Chemical Society (ACS), for his distinguished service to the field of chemistry over 40 years. ACS is the world’s largest scientific society.