A new technique could lead to significantly more efficient solar cells. Quantum dot photovoltaics offers the potential for low-cost, large-area solar power — however these devices are not yet highly efficient in the infrared portion of the sun’s spectrum, which is responsible for half of the sun’s power that reaches Earth. The solution? Spectrally tuned, solution-processed plasmonic nanoparticles. These particles, researchers say, provide unprecedented control over light’s propagation and absorption.

Using cutting-edge X-ray techniques, researchers have uncovered cellular-level detail of what happens when bone bears repetitive stress over time, visualizing damage at smaller scales than previously observed. Their work could offer clues into how bone fractures could be prevented.

In a step toward understanding and exploiting an exotic form of matter that has been sparking excitement for potential applications in a new genre of supercomputers, scientists are reporting the first identification of a naturally occurring “topological insulator.”

Scientists have solved an almost century-old problem that could further help downscale the size of electronic devices. The work focused on the low-frequency electronic 1/f noise, also known as pink noise and flicker noise. It is a signal or process with a power spectral density inversely proportional to the frequency. It was first discovered in vacuum tubes in 1925 and since then it has been found everywhere from fluctuations of the intensity in music recordings to human heart rates and electrical currents in materials and devices.

Inspired by patents from the 1960s audio cassette recording industry, chemists now developed a new Fischer-Tropsch catalyst. It can be used for the making of synthetic fuels from natural gas and biomass.

The new electron beam writer housed in the Nano3 cleanroom facility at the Qualcomm Institute is important for electrical engineering professor Shadi Dayeh’s two major areas of research. He is developing next-generation, nanoscale transistors for integrated electronics; and he is developing neural probes that have the capacity to extract electrical signals from individual brain cells and transmit the information to a prosthetic device or computer.

Researchers have measured for the first time light emitted by photoluminescence from a nanodiamond levitating in free space.

Computer simulations have revealed how the electrical conductivity of many materials increases with a strong electrical field in a universal way. This development could have significant implications for practical systems in electrochemistry, biochemistry, electrical engineering and beyond.

Researchers want to put your signature up in lights. Using thousands of nanometer-scale wires, the researchers have developed a sensor device that converts mechanical pressure – from a signature or a fingerprint – directly into light signals that can be captured and processed optically.

Chemists have figured out how to synthesize nanomaterials with stainless steel-like interfaces. Their discovery may change how the form and structure of nanomaterials are manipulated, particularly those used for gas storage, heterogeneous catalysis and lithium-ion batteries.