Hacker News with Generative AI: Nanotechnology

Tiniest Flying Robot (Wingspan <1cm) Soars Thanks to Magnets (ieee.org)
A new prototype is laying claim to the title of smallest, lightest untethered flying robot.
Robotics, Engineering, Microelectronics, Nanotechnology
18 points by bookofjoe 4 days ago | 10 comments
Efficient light control: Meta-optics replace conventional lenses (phys.org)
Conventional curved lenses, which direct light by refraction in glass or plastic, are often bulky and heavy, offering only limited control of light waves.
Physics, Optics, Nanotechnology, Metamaterials
25 points by bookofjoe 4 days ago | 3 comments
DNA scaffolds enable self-assembling 3D electronic devices (techxplore.com)
Researchers at Columbia Engineering have for the first time used DNA to help create 3D electronically operational devices with nanometer-size features.
Nanotechnology, Electronics, Self-Assembly, DNA
13 points by Brajeshwar 4 days ago | 1 comments
Thinner Films Conduct Better Than Copper (ieee.org)
Future chips need something better than copper. Are topological semimetals the answer?
Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Semiconductors, Computing
66 points by rbanffy 7 days ago | 23 comments
Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator (economist.com)
Semiconductor chips are among the smallest and most detailed objects humans can manufacture. Shrinking the scale and upping the complexity is a fight against the limits of physics, and optical lithography—etching nanometre-scale patterns onto silicon with short-wavelength light—is its most extreme frontier.
Semiconductors, Nanotechnology, Physics, Manufacturing
65 points by jdaw0 17 days ago | 72 comments
Nanoscale tweaks help alloy withstand high-speed impacts (techxplore.com)
A Cornell-led collaboration devised a new method for designing metals and alloys that can withstand extreme impacts: introducing nanometer-scale speed bumps that suppress a fundamental transition that controls how metallic materials deform.
Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Engineering, Metallurgy
4 points by PaulHoule 20 days ago | 0 comments
Ceramic powders with Archimedean shapes resist extreme heat and oxidation (phys.org)
A research team led by Prof. Hu Xiaoye from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has synthesized high-quality boride ceramic powders with an Archimedean shape.
Materials Science, Ceramics, Nanotechnology, Heat Resistance
23 points by PaulHoule 24 days ago | 0 comments
Smart researchers pioneer nanosensor for real-time iron detection in plants (news.mit.edu)
Researchers from the Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP) interdisciplinary research group of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, in collaboration with Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) and MIT, have developed a groundbreaking near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent nanosensor capable of simultaneously detecting and differentiating between iron forms — Fe(II) and Fe(III) — in living plants.
Science, Nanotechnology, Agriculture, Plants, Research
30 points by protik49 26 days ago | 3 comments
MIT physicists find unexpected crystals of electrons in new ultrathin material (news.mit.edu)
MIT physicists report the unexpected discovery of electrons forming crystalline structures in a material only billionths of a meter thick.
Physics, Materials Science, Nanotechnology
7 points by gnabgib 35 days ago | 0 comments
Laser-textured metal inspired by shark and cicada creates antibacterial surfaces (publishing.aip.org)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2025 – Keeping work surfaces clean during meat processing is a challenge.
Antibacterial Surfaces, Nanotechnology, Engineering, Biology
3 points by giuliomagnifico 37 days ago | 0 comments
Harnessing orbital Hall effect in spin-orbit torque MRAM (nature.com)
Spin-Orbit Torque (SOT) Magnetic Random-Access Memory (MRAM) devices offer improved power efficiency, nonvolatility, and performance compared to static RAM, making them ideal, for instance, for cache memory applications.
Hardware, Nanotechnology, Memory, Spintronics
54 points by PaulHoule 37 days ago | 3 comments
Nanotini – smallest pasta makes a good bandage (scientificamerican.com)
The skinniest pasta yet made—let’s call it “nanotini”—has an average diameter of 372 nanometers and only two ingredients: flour and formic acid.
Nanotechnology, Science, Food Science, Materials Science
7 points by utiiiD 44 days ago | 0 comments
Terabytes Encoded Within a Millimeter-Sized Crystal (bioengineer.org)
In a groundbreaking study, researchers from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have made significant strides toward enhancing the efficiency of classical computer memory by harnessing the properties of crystal defects.
Storage, Nanotechnology, Materials Science, Physics
27 points by geox 47 days ago | 7 comments
TSMC 2nm Process Disclosure – How Does It Measure Up? (semiwiki.com)
TSMC presented its 2nm Platform Technology at IEDM 2024, focusing on energy-efficient nanosheet transistors and 3DIC co-optimization for various applications.
Semiconductors, Technology, Nanotechnology, Manufacturing, TSMC
136 points by sroussey 51 days ago | 101 comments
Printable molecule-selective nanoparticles enable wearable biosensor mass prod (phys.org)
The future of medicine may very well lie in the personalization of health care—knowing exactly what an individual needs and then delivering just the right mix of nutrients, metabolites, and medications, if necessary, to stabilize and improve their condition.
Biotechnology, Wearable Technology, Nanotechnology, Medical Technology
6 points by bookofjoe 58 days ago | 0 comments
Graphene tattoos that are biosensors (ieee.org)
Imagine it’s the year 2040, and a 12-year-old kid with diabetes pops a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. A temporary tattoo on his forearm registers the uptick in sugar in his blood stream and sends that information to his phone.
Biotechnology, Future Technology, Nanotechnology
3 points by headalgorithm 59 days ago | 0 comments
Machine learning and nano-3D printing produce nano-architected materials (utoronto.ca)
Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have used machine learning to design nano-architected materials that have the strength of carbon steel but the lightness of Styrofoam.
Machine Learning, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, 3D Printing
58 points by gmays 65 days ago | 6 comments
Integration of 1,024 silicon quantum dots with on-chip electronics (phys.org)
Researchers at Quantum Motion in London recently demonstrated the integration of 1,024 independent silicon quantum dots with on-chip digital and analog electronics, to produce a quantum computing system that can operate at extremely low temperatures.
Quantum Computing, Nanotechnology, Electronics, Research
19 points by bookofjoe 67 days ago | 0 comments
Cytoskeleton-functionalized synthetic cells with life-like mechanical features (nature.com)
The cytoskeleton is a crucial determinant of mammalian cell structure and function, providing mechanical resilience, supporting the cell membrane and orchestrating essential processes such as cell division and motility.
Science, Biology, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology
24 points by PaulHoule 71 days ago | 1 comments
Plastic supercapacitors could solve energy storage problems (newsroom.ucla.edu)
UCLA chemists have created a new type of textured, fur-like PEDOT film with more surface area to store charge and built a supercapacitor with it that stored nearly ten times more charge than conventional PEDOT and lasted nearly 100,000 charging cycles.
Energy Storage, Nanotechnology, Materials Science, Chemistry
5 points by gnabgib 71 days ago | 2 comments
Impact of Low Temperatures on the 5nm SRAM Array Size and Performance (semiengineering.com)
A new technical paper titled “Novel Trade-offs in 5 nm FinFET SRAM Arrays at Extremely Low Temperatures” was published by researchers at University of Stuttgart, IIT Kanpur, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Khalifa University, and TU Munich.
Semiconductors, Nanotechnology, Computer Architecture
40 points by rbanffy 72 days ago | 23 comments
Optical Fresnel zone plate flat lens: colored photoresist through I-line stepper (nature.com)
Light manipulation and control are essential in various contemporary technologies, and as these technologies evolve, the demand for miniaturized optical components increases.
Optics, Nanotechnology, Engineering, Materials Science
61 points by bookofjoe 76 days ago | 14 comments
Inverse Design of Complex Nanoparticle Heterostructures via DL on Graphs (chemrxiv.org)
Nanotechnology, Machine Learning, Chemistry, Materials Science
23 points by pizza 98 days ago | 8 comments
Self-Assembly Trick Makes Transistors and Diodes (ieee.org)
Using liquid metal, scientists have devised a new way to make electronics that assemble themselves.
Nanotechnology, Electronics, Materials Science
4 points by rbanffy 106 days ago | 0 comments
TSMC's N2 Technology (ieee.org)
TSMC described its next generation transistor technology this week at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco. The N2, or 2-nanometer, technology is the semiconductor foundry giant’s first foray into a new transistor architecture, called nanosheet or gate-all-around.
Semiconductors, Technology, Nanotechnology, Transistors
5 points by rbanffy 110 days ago | 0 comments
Researchers discover new third class of magnetism (nottingham.ac.uk)
A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study. The findings could lead to the development of new magnetic memory devices with the potential to increase operation speeds of up to a thousand times.
Magnetism, Science, Materials Science, Nanotechnology
146 points by pavel_lishin 111 days ago | 55 comments
TSMC Lifts the Curtain on Nanosheet Transistors (ieee.org)
TSMC described its next generation transistor technology this week at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco. The N2, or 2-nanometer, technology is the semiconductor foundry giant’s first foray into a new transistor architecture, called nanosheet or gate-all-around.
Semiconductors, Technology, Transistors, Nanotechnology
16 points by jnord 111 days ago | 1 comments
Shooting electrons at plastic to make microscopic features [video] (youtube.com)
Nanotechnology, Materials Science, Physics, Video
5 points by supakeen 113 days ago | 0 comments
Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunnelling microscope (1990) (nature.com)
SINCE its invention in the early 1980s by Binnig and Rohrer1,2, the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) has provided images of surfaces and adsorbed atoms and molecules with unprecedented resolution.
Science, Nanotechnology, Microscopy, Physics
12 points by sandwichsphinx 122 days ago | 2 comments
Chinese researchers indicate diamonds can store data for millions of years (readwrite.com)
Research has suggested that diamond-based storage technology could preserve vast amounts of information for up to millions of years.
Data Storage, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, China
29 points by ms7892 124 days ago | 12 comments