Omar Yaghi to Direct Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry
Omar Yaghi, one of the world’s most cited chemists and leading authorities on nanoscience, is the new director of the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab.
View ArticleBerkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos Wins Wolf Prize in Chemistry
Paul Alivisatos, Berkeley Lab director and UC Berkeley professor, has won the prestigious Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry for 2012. Alivisatos is an internationally recognized authority on...
View ArticleBright Lights of Purity:
Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered why a promising technique for making quantum dots and nanorods has so far been a disappointment. Better still, they’ve also discovered how to correct the problem.
View ArticleSelf-Assembling Nanorods:
Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into aligned and ordered macroscopic structures. This technique should...
View ArticleSolved: The Mystery of the Nanoscale Crop Circles
A useful alloy of gold and silicon, called a eutectic, melts at a far lower temperature than either of its components. Until now, however, its odd behavior on the nanoscale has confounded researchers....
View ArticleFirst Atomic-Scale Real-Time Movies of Platinum Nanocrystal Growth in Liquids
Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a technique for encapsulating liquids of nanocrystals between layers of graphene so that chemical reactions in the liquids can be imaged with an electron...
View ArticleGolden Potential for Gold Thin Films
Berkeley Lab researchers have directed the first self-assembly of nanoparticles into multi-layered thin films of gold that are device-ready for potential applications in computer memory storage, energy...
View ArticleBrighter, Smaller Probes to Uncover the Secret Lives of Proteins
Imagine tracking a deer through a forest by clipping a radio transmitter to its ear and monitoring the deer’s location remotely. Now imagine that transmitter is the size of a house, and you understand...
View ArticleNanoparticles Seen as Artificial Atoms
Observing the formation of nanorods in real-time, Berkeley Lab researchers found that nanoparticles become attached to form winding chains that eventually align, attach end-to-end, straighten and...
View ArticleFirst Direct Observation of Oriented Attachment in Nanocrystal Growth
Berkeley Lab researchers have reported the first direct observation of nanoparticles undergoing oriented attachment, the critical step in biomineralization and the growth of nanocrystals. A better...
View ArticleFirst 3D Nanoscale Optical Cavities from Metamaterials
Berkeley Lab researchers have created the world’s smallest three-dimensional optical cavities with the potential to generate the world’s most intense nanolaser beams. In addition to nanolasers, these...
View ArticleMetamolecules That Switch Handedness at Light-Speed
A multi-institutional team of researchers that included Berkeley Lab scientists has created the first artificial molecules whose chirality can be rapidly switched from a right-handed to a left-handed...
View ArticleFerroelectricity on the Nanoscale
A research effort led by Berkeley Lab scientists has brought some clarity to the here-to-fore confusing physics of ferroelectric nanomaterials, pointing the way to multi-terabyte- per-square-inch of...
View ArticleA Direct Look at Graphene
Berkeley Lab researchers have recorded the first direct observations at microscopic lengths of how electrons and holes respond to a charged impurity in graphene. The results point to interactions...
View ArticleNew Phenomenon in Nanodisk Magnetic Vortices
New findings from a team of Berkeley Lab and Japanese scientists suggest that the road to magnetic vortex RAM might be more difficult to navigate than previously supposed, but there might be unexpected...
View ArticleForm, Function and Folding: In collaboration with Berkeley Lab, a team of...
Based on interactions between their constituent amino acids, proteins form specific conformations, folding and twisting into distinct, chemically directed shapes. Past efforts to predict protein...
View ArticleThe Best of Both Catalytic Worlds
Berkeley Lab researchers have combined the best properties of heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts by encapsulating metallic nanoclusters within the branched molecular arms of dendrimers. The...
View ArticleFolding Funnels Key to Biomimicry
Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that a concept widely accepted as describing the folding of a single individual protein is also applicable to the self-assembly of multiple proteins. Their findings...
View ArticleSeeing in Color at the Nanoscale
If nanoscience were television, we’d be in the 1950s. Although scientists can make and manipulate nanoscale objects with increasingly awesome control, they are limited to black-and-white imagery for...
View ArticleNanocrystals Not Small Enough to Avoid Defects
A team of researchers from Berkeley Lab and other institutes has shown that contrary to computer simulations, the tiny size of nanocrystals is no safeguard from defects. Studies at Berkeley Lab’s...
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